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

When I was disguised
as child I was in real
the secret listener
of the striding sea
It spoke to me in craft
of glass and sunlight
running with the grains
of sound shelled footprints
through legacies of foam
lashed mermaids hair
and it whispered tales
of strange and marbled
island cities lost,
washed smooth into the past
of distant mirages arising
from summer girded sand

When I lay down
to rest upon the beach
my mind free falling
through miles of oceanic light
there was no time save burning
stars pulsing from the deeps
of heartening blue skies
No ties beyond the sight
and sensing of an august moon
drawing close the throngs
of gravelled evening waves
And against my back
I felt the leisured haste
of a great god turning
the ferris wheels of space

On empty afternoons
I’d often comb alone
from rustwracked pier to pier
a tight rope walker
of the low water line
And with flocks of seabirds
keening on my wake
I’d cast out nets
of weight and wonder
across the molten smeltings
of the setting sun
to trawl the gathering shoals
of submarine reflections
and send them flying
like circus streamers
ripped away by wind

When I was bored
with rules and streets
I’d make a break from town
which lay grey frozen
on the edge of sand
prevented by the latent
force fields of the sea
from sprawling buildings
onto the runways of eternity
and dodging arms of tides
and leaping straggling
chains of water lands
I’d picture on my windward eye
fleets of sailing ships
gleaming with the brass
of quadrants and astrolabes
leaving on an ageless voyage
through a handmade telescope
of storms and ceaseless change

And sometimes when
I was sixteen years old
and turning radio active
to the rhythms of the world
I’d re-invent the continent
of America, daydreaming
from the jetty of the pier,
erecting massive elevations
of science fiction city states
composed of vast ice cream
drive in movie parlours
shark fenders and jukeboxes
playing endless rock n’roll
beneath a nickel chromed
and multi-mirrored sea
shot through with rays
of television blue

Now I no longer
live beside the shore
which unbounds the visions
from the limits of my eyes
I have receded from the tides
which rolled and circled round
the castles made of air and sand
to what I hear is higher ground

But sometimes when I sleep
I’m washed by sounding waves
approaching orisons of infinity
and then I’m space borne
in a ship of sea
escaping from an earth
which tries to keep me
buried like a funeral barge
intended only for the marshes
of the underworld.