Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

He knows all the city's secrets: where pilloried Defoe
was pelted with flowers in 1703; where Darwin
failed again and again, his wet socks on the music stand
milked dry each few minutes to stop distracting drips;
where Holst took up the trombone to cure his asthma;
the quartiers where old angels shop for bread
down sunless alleys, their wings hung on hooks
behind their doors which they never lock.

On evening tours for double pay he aims his torch
at gargoyles, ghosts and sundials, asking "Are we all here?"
instead of counting. One of the party always looks back
while crossing the river where chandeliers refract
through mullioned windows. He's learnt when to pause.

His own secret? Some nights his wife lets him feel
the raindrops running down her pretty cheeks,
mullioned from pressing against playground fences,
or she wore their dead daughter's underwear
to take his mind off the smell of boiled cabbage
escaping through the rusted railings of derelict asylums.

He is blind, recognising each tapped lamp post by its chime.
His city has never changed, not since music
without dance or words was thought strange,
and a sparrow swooped through the Refectory,
landing dead at the Abbot's feet.

When music theory became a branch of mathematics
monks used red ink instead of line-breaks, but you'll need
to look closely, the light's dim to preserve the parchment.
The blind are less fertile, sunlight stimulates
even when love's faded.

Symbolia's main exports are red roses,
and buses leave each morning except Sundays.