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

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Michael Mackmin

print this page

The Composer

Moving deliberately among bees
at the extreme edge of a universe
is how his music sounds.

Short thick fingers hold a comb;
some wasps leave the plum orchard,
stray into the hairs on his jacket.

Of course we neither hear nor see.
What is joy? said the boy. There is only
contentment. I had to disagree.

Without a fierce joy we lack any
raison d’être. She was over at the dresser.
She has a collection of those ceramic

things for raising the crust of pies,
letting the steam out of them -
a sort of trepannation, after all

a pie too has its bones on the outside:
without a crust-raiser the pie might
hurl its brains at the oven walls.

By now Maurice had taken his coffee cup,
gone out with his cloud of satellites.
There seems to be a rule that says

bear with the invisible, look how
the ladder leans into the damson tree.
But I don’t think we have time for that.

 

Page(s) 8

Back to top