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

I-Spy Goat Eye

Porter Cod-Head in Cod-Head's corner
spat his bitter cud over the ashy table
and pulled out patterns with a finger,
circles bigger than the Laxey Wheel,
more bladed than St Katherine's Wheel.
At the second bell, triangulates the bar,
takes his nightly centre stage
and reads his riddle to the floor.
"I have been with Pecke-in-the-crowne,
Sacke and Sugar, Newes, Jarmara,
Vinegar Tom and Ilemauzar,
remember me? The lying tideman,
greened and sawn-up founder on the Strand
with my pocket-book of wrong times,
I will be each lane, each square,
I will be the eye on the square,
the eye in the triangle, vein of the building,
waster of muscle and lamer of heels.
In the high lodgings, the table
of the judged looks down and judges,
distracted, ball-eyed, vine-stem puking,
the corbel woman, keening by the south porch,
bearded kite-heads, enemies and kings
crowned and braided, and long-faced I
spy in the middle with my goat-eye."

Fox and Goose

Remember here the man that we refused
our mastiff scraps.
he was found behind a curry caf‚,
dead from licking the salt off the wall
by the bins. His little soul
stopped in its ascent by hot pipes
caught in an angle, looked like cobwebs.
He used to live in the circus square,
but the bell-noise from St Botolph's
and the traffic, as well as being kicked about
drove him further down the bank.
Helped to hot food by the Methodists,
shining with red hittite fervour,
dosed up and brilliant specks
like Mother Carey's chickens, then.
Read the herbs that grow by the river,
used the live stalks for the reading
to see one week into the future
and won the pools in that July.
Got through the ten thousand quid,
survived the swimming and the peine forte et dure
and the filling with twenty pints.
Ah but he was young then and hang the currency,
like the goose caught by a snared fox
that is waiting for the huntsman's dog.

Saint Old Nick

Saint Old Nick back from the sea,
bringing presents for his children
who know his smell of varnished parquet
brings godless beasts to wooden Noah.
His round head buzzes like bad bell-metal
and finds a fixed point. "Keep your body
upright and you won't get seasick."
Deck too big to stop the pitching,
hands too red to use for money,
flex wire winded 5-ply round the fingers
stung by bonfire, slit by glass-edge
fumbled, caught thank christ thank jesus.
Singled out by his sailor's rolling,
stared down when he asks for rations
and chased along the Wapping High Street,
leper-christened or bit to pieces
or hectored through the one-way system,
takes position on the District & Circle
and scratches tool-hard words of harm
the same as on the wall in Walbrook,
Saint Old Nick, old wall, old brick.
Defictus est, defictus est,
defictus est, defictus est,
defictus est, defictus est,
defictus est, defictus est.

The John Riddle

Tarry Jack who fends the black-backed,
simple Jack Lack on his knife-back bookend,
bastard Jack on the other,
leans on his back with his dagger elbow,
digs for a nut of jet in the nape.
In the slips with Jack all-afraid,
Jack dismayed at the ground-eye view
of mustard girls with their gravy, gravy.
Gunpowder senses crack and smack,
bearded, curling, oaken flavour.
Leg-of-Mutton yard back row joining
leg to leg the running corner,
three-leg sack race Young Jack winning.
Comes the Pressgang, led by a stammerer.
Bad Jack later, leading the mopping up,
scrubs the hansom, scrubs the cobbles,
loads the offal into the basin.
Quand sang impur song Free Jack whistles
by the child-bed churches near the river.
Three tides rise but Jack comes smiling
back to barside, dripping, detailed,
plugged with oakum, dry side out, steaming.
Lastly, Yellow-haired Jack the naked,
kept for safety under the crossroad
for his murders on The Highway.