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

NO. 25

I am of general use, a wonder though
Especially to one half of the nation
(Women), harmless unless they prove my foe.
Stiff in a bed’s my shape and situation,
With secret hairiness somewhere below.

Now and again some pretty girl will try
To pluck her courage up (and me), her hands
Around my red skin, pulling my head away,
Gripping me hard: and this encounter lands
My pig-tailed wrestler with a dripping eye.

NO. 32

This middle-earth so marvellously betrays
Its beauty in so many different ways:
I saw a strange mobile contraption, and
As it went it screamed and ground the sand.
It had neither eyes nor hands, this curious creature,
Neither arms nor shoulders, for the only feature

It might move by was a single foot
Sweeping upon the plains. Its mouth was put
In the middle and its ribs were many.
Useful to man, it helps in carrying any
Food or provisions, and each year one takes
Advantage of the profit that it makes
For people, rich or poor. Now can you see,
You who are clever with words, what this might be?

NO. 37

I’ve seen this thing: its belly is behind it,
Swollen enormously, and there to mind it
Is a brawny servant who has done his bit
When from its eye flies what has been in it.

After it gives its contents to the other,
This is put back inside it and another
Breath returns: it does not die, but rather,
In giving birth, turns into its own father.

NO. 47

A moth ate words. How strange it seemed to me
When I heard of it, a marvellous oddity!
An insect, like a burglar in the dark,
Hogged both the meaning and the well-made mark.
This thieving stranger learned it does not follow
That we are wiser from the words we swallow.