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

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1.10.17

Irene, I dreamt of you again last night.
No need to tell you. You told me
Unless we stayed together I would not see you again.
Your tongue is salty, pacific. We grappled
In the alcoves on the street but never quite…
Sand in my saliva when I woke, sand in my pockets.
Shells in the bathroom marked “Made in Formosa,

Ireland” – the wintering of anger
Lazybeds of semtex please
Do not disturb the sleep of Roman
Reason with the gods Irene, Irene.

Iris, rainbow, messenger of the Greek
Gods, I see you gold and brown and black.
Why? Have I lost the farther colours?
Or are you the message now? Tell her,
Tell Irene, tell her anything, from me.

1.10.13

… How, far out in the Kalahari
You found, on the keel of a rock
Painted in the Bushman idiom
Animals long gone from there:
Ice.

Ice where ice is law and metal brittle
Colours blench in the reserve of all
Affection; the reverse, but the prerequisite,
Nearer than anything else on earth
To nought.

1.8.13

Ace, huh? Lucky at cards…
It has to be hearts.

24.8.13

Lace collar
On a cotton shirt.
White buttons
One by one,
As I recall.


24.9.13

My lease
Like yours,
Sheherezade,
Renewed from day to day
In this negotiation.


24.9.14

Good my liege
  (aside: moronic oxide)
     stay thy hand
For if this summer blizzard in concatenation with
A plague of locust be but static in a cathode tube
And we the poorly players in some 60s children’s show,
Then better it were that we implore
The viewer on the Saracen divan
To smite the set.
All dismount and kneel.
WHACK! The air is clear! Ah, good my liege,
Would that all environmental troubles were so
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