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

The blue bus is waiting for us/ wing singing American dream
cream/ a rainbow edged warrior scream/ Jim Morrison, the
lizard king/ another mothers son/ anyone/ any which way/
shaman baying to the moan/ emptying out his rucksack on the
long road south/ laughing a madcap laugh, as his house burns
to the ground.

Tunnel down deep into mammary earth/ bowel of moistness/
uprooting child within/ child without/ and shout out/ the blue
bus/ awaiting the opening of the gates/ swing swing rusted
open/ motherwide smile/ ovary smile/ a house of sorrow/
house of shame/ dead father/ fucked mother/ digging down
deep/ ruby fields, rosy folds and sour sweet love me more
love me more sweat/ house of lovehate/ church of innocents/
inner sense/ incense smouldering damn fire and hell nation/
smell of sour musk/ feral firecat / crawling along the hard
shoulder/ the blue bus turning, turning, turning over/ burning/
flesh melting/ pouring from raw bone/ here, raw along the
hard shoulder/ crawling away from the wreckage/ a fistful or
dreams/ dreams of waking/ dreams of snakes/ ride, ride,
ride/ ride the kingsnake/ his skin, gold as burning/ gold as
highways.

First rule on the road to heaven: board the bus, ride the
snake/ the snake is long/ his song endless/ seven friendless
hours of tarmac moon/ city linking/ the lunacy of too much
thinking/ and home is nothing/ nothing but for the leaving/
home is seven hours of hell to heaven I the highway south/
the low road/ and ne’er will I see this city main never
return/ rather to burn/ in the sulphur and hellfire of London
town/ the gold paved muttering streets/ eternal gap sites or
dereliction/ the erudite diction of deliciously fingered
degradation/ poet of cunnilingus cuneiform/ the bohemian
uniform of contempt and boredom/ Monsieur Rimbaud, mon
frère, mon esprit/ leaving behind the province or inertia/ the
sinking dreams/ opening unswung gates/ striding anarchic
down Hammersmith Broadway/ swinging through the nirvana
of Notting Hill/ a narcotic necrophile / lover of dead souls/
mythic youngburnt visionary/ here, these magic mushroom
melting windows and we are flying the halcyon nest of
fishing queens/ a thousand miles above the sleeping skyline/
beyond the borderhills, the ghosts of rivers whispering/ sweet
Clyde/ by Abington I sat myself down and wept/ oh I wept a
thousand tears/ laughing in my leaving/ you and me, Jimmy,
tripping into reveries of could-have-beens/ will-fucking-
well-become/ emotional in hallucinogenic rush/ the sign
speaking ployglot welcomes/ a land of angels/ land of angles/
those sexy sassenachs/ and that black kohl eyed punkette
staring moodily out of the disintegrating window/ sulphate
girl/ and us fireflying down burning tarmac/ cars smiling
sinister minister smiles/ headlamps lapping up our youngboy
flesh/ twisted metal joy-riding the back of the kingsnake/
black and gold/ weaving thru burnt up red hick towns/
writhing sexual now, the snake/ dark poetry in pockets/
dreams of dreams/ two fucked, wrecked poets/ would-be
heroes/ must-be-martyrs to the hellfire within I that was me
and Jimmy, in the scorched summer of seventy nine.

Me and Jimmy in the scorched summer of seventy nine/
giggling thru Charnock Richard services / fat wobbling auld
women/ lard swans with prima donna handbags/ gravel
voices/ ay up ducks/ two spiky punks on magic mushies/
tripping thru' delirious junk food pleasure domes/ coffee
frothing clouds of infinity/ blowing out lines of amphetamine
poetry/ here a factory of fire/ there a field of broken glass/
here a crowd of broken souls/ there a clockwork jerkoff
fantasy/ and here a caffeine rush the like we’ve never tasted
before...

And rolling raucous onto the blue bus/ tinny soundz of sony
walkman/ state of art techno-logy/ this is the end, my
beautiful friend/ wishing it was the end/ restless as fuck/ and
how many more fucking hours till paradise?/ till seven in the
morning yawning empty bellied arrival in post hallucinogen
metropolis and nowhere to stay but the address of a squat
from a friend of a friend/ with rucksacks and folders of
poetry and big fucking dreams...

And then the clouds clear and the near full moon screams
rainbow moonbow starsparks into tripped out retinas/ will you
fucking look at that?/ giggling into empty night/ tut tut women
going down to suburban friends glare sleep deprived/ tut tut
anger cast in cigarette smoke/ black spirals/ and sucking
down righteousness/ good hard working protestants/ and you
and me, Jimmy, with our dole cards flashing unemployed
laughter into their tax bill faces/ ha ha/ ha fucking ha/
merrily merrily merrily merrily/ life was a fucking dream/ in
the scorched summer of seventy nine/ with the moon weaving
aftershocks of the whitest white you’ve never seen/ god inside
her ghostly belly/ sweet, beautiful mother moon/ pair ay us
laughing and crying/ chucking down a few more mushies for
the luck ay it/ ha fucking ha/ life’s just a pearly pink oyster/
and ah swear tae fuck ahm gointae just sit down beside that
wee punk lassie and gie her a fistful ay mushies/ a fist full
ay dreams/ me and Jimmy are poets, you know/ fucking
bohos of the first fucking order/ and ah can feel these
mushies coming on/ coming up/ and ahm oot the windae/ way
over the horizon/ warm summer wind on my naked belly/
here, my tattoo blowing dragonwheels in the breeze/ down
the aisle with my fuck-the-queen t-shirt and giving black
kohl eyes the cheeky smile/ head coming apart/ brains
dribbling out my ears.

And I’m pissing rainbows into the shaking pan/ Morrison
screaming: driver where you taking us?/ then puking up/ a
million mushrooms following rainbow piss into the blue blue
disinfected nowhere/ head expanding and contracting to amyl
nitrate heartbeat/ throb of hellfire/ oh god/ oh fuck/ oh no/
vomit bits down t-shirt and chin/ smell of ammonia and
sulphur/ heavenly hell/ body disintegrating into sick bits/
curling up round cold pale blue plastic stem of toilet flower/
and don’t forget to fucking flush/ cold protestant bastards
giving me the tut tut evil fucking eye when I finally get it
together/ and Jimmy laughing his arse off/ ha fucking ha/ ha
ha ha...

Time ticking on and off/ LCD blinking of bastard cuntface
clock/ speeding up and slowing down to a stop/ then dawn
giving off its supernatural glow/ east of Wolverhampton/ stars
twinkling off to sleep/ wee fairy lights switching off into
neon nowhere/ and the punk girl snoring into her mohair
jumper...

And I’m asking Jimmy if he ever wanted to fuck his mother/
raving now/ the lizard king infecting my dead head/ your
mother, maybe, says Jimmy/ and that’s the end of that one/
ma blonde bimbette mammy with her big milky tits/ and I’m
tripping over the edge intae serious landmine country/ the
angle terre of Freud fuck ups/ staring out the snoring punk
girl/ boring into her dreams with razor eyes/ this is just a
trip/ this is just a trip/ father, I want to kill you/ mother, I
want to bluueeaaaaaaagh/ Morrison twisting poison endless
scream into my tinny ears/ sun screwing yellow orange red
into my guts/ and ah just want to fucking sleep/ Jimmy
breathing nicotine into ma fucked up air/ laughing to himself/
soft as crone whisper, into empty space/ into whatever
wherever he’s on/ and then I’m just sinking into thoughtless
sadness/ coming down as we’re coming into London overspilt
newtowns/ concrete vacancies/ and I’m just totally fucked/
hatelove pumping thru muscle, blood, brain/ the blue bus
twisting snake streaks thru sleeping streets/ dazzle of red gold
green traffic lights on those dew wet gold paved streets/ two
psychotropic schizoid poets getting it together/ putting on
jackets/ all black leather, anarchy badges, safety pins and
chains/ too late/ in the scorched dreary dawn of the summer
of seventy nine...

Chundering into Victoria station/ and nothing fucking open at
this quarter to seven in the wrecked fucked drizzling
morning/ chill in unslept bones/ coming down/ coming down/
with a fist full of dreams/ and beginning to wonder if we
shouldnae just have stayed at home/ wandering up aimless
Pimlico/ seeing Big Ben/ phallic and hopeful/ swelling to the
dull sound of the monotonous Thames...

And then, lo!/ a miracle/ we find a greasy spoon/ bacon
butties and warm weak coffee/ and things didnae look that
bad after all/ way back in the scorched summer of seventy
nine.