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

(for and from Barbara Guest & Douglas Oliver)

1. KIND REGARDS

Your air of kind regards
kind randomness
of a museum
canvas sneakers
along with raspberry lips

*

lately you say I’ve had an awkward
pull
towards the past tense
my remarks renovate
details in oil

*

pantoufles all over again
in the slippery something that
should be your mind
does it matter about heels

2. SILENT AS A CLAM

yesterday I saw a word
stopped
in the breath its
natural home

*

mouthy dreams with fishing
lines attached
such fierce hope in a hook
night crawls on
so spooky in a German fashion
I picture it
deepening into
a body of water

*

confused terrain and pubic
hair a movement
of its own the
shuddering air

3. SALT

the house accepts me tentatively
grey
saltbeaten
and relaxed sand
drags across the floor hit it’s
stomach muscles stretching towards
the tide line green sheet
draws back
taking its image
a few gulls flung for direction

*

the instant stretches into lateness
and onions
spoil the effect

not a perfect day

*

I admire your worrying away
(in your own phrase)
at sentences I also like
the porch-lamp fishing rod
even the baby its bundle of blankets
but especially that wink always back
of your words
nearly avoiding exact reference

4. CORRESPONDENCE

the piano chooses
conspiracy
the way it seals the room
(and you knowing his beard all the while)
like a ship torpedoed those
sounds too large and shiny
step suddenly
into a different timescale

distance
quiet water

*

easy equations like chords of sunlight
or the color blindness of one pursued
by after-images

*

clearly more serious
by correspondence
without the
groceries of sociability

5. NO HURRY TO STRUGGLE

a sore throat and memories
the moment clings

*

even though a swarm of light
behind you lids
self-firing
neurons
a little energy goes a long
residue
Dutch oven
still

the lid can’t hold the “flavor of eyes”

*

at first kind
(regards) then comfortable stratagems
now only our tension left
above water
before you disconnect the ripples and dizziness
pulse fastened
lucidly
on my left retina

whistles across wave-tops

6. DRAWBRIDGE

missing premonitions in the
afternoon I stuff
the air with errors and
revise my walks
because of the glass door

I welcome your visits

*

we talk as long as we can
there are amazements
you like to stray into and
my body’s only
one of them

*

rubbing against the outside
to avoid as best I can
the steep slope inwards
I like the shreds of scenery
I can carry into the lamp-light
hesitant shrubbery like a tentative
loss of memory in its
silvery green
a drawbridge

7. SO LONG

butterflies
distort every mention of sand
you punctuate youe feelings
with a puff
on your pipe
a thing or two will come up
around the edges
you can guess
the effort behind a red cloud

*

the house comes crowding round
to seduce us with
not quite oriental rugs

*

irrelevant patches
light mostly
elsewhere a joke and then
the white blouse
more sun and the girl selling icecream
there on the beach
skirt caught
the wind
hugging its visibility