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

After three months
to walk again
if with a limp
propped on an old
man’s cherrywood
stick with a grey
rubber ferrule.

Summer gardens
too long unseen
veer their cool skies
to September
and I hobble
contentedly
past dishevelled
borders.
                 Purple
dahlias stare
idly - bronze ones,
red, yellow, all
droop, too bulky
to stir whereas
when leaves skim by,
dry, gold, they cheat
the eye briefly
into seeing
them as scudding
butterflies.
                   Rooks
hang, flapping wings,
but make little
headway in these
fresh gusts which fetch
hints of decay.
Mushrooms cluster
in dampened grass
where Japanese
maples scarlet-
tinged line the path.

When trapped the whole
day in one room,
leg wrapped in green
fibreglass, I
viewed through the panes
unfragrant flowers
as I listened
to hard quartets
by Dutilleux

or Elliott
Carter, relished
Chaplin’s antics
on video,
re-read La Peau
de chagrin, Men
and Women, Two
on a Tower
(interspersed of
course with well-thumbed
mystery stories)
or leafed through some
thick catalogues
glimpsing again
more wistfully
watercolours -
lakes glassing woods
and pink-bricked farms
built before cars
were invented.

This day, the near
air flickering
with autumn scents,
skyline of clouds
above the far
curve of moorland,
feels like rebirth -
a lame Adam
sent out to take
stock even though
Eden in this
latter-day case
has its meaning
reversed:
                 reaching
the stile, I look
struck with longing
up the rough slope
of ragweed, dock
and thistledown
to where worn Iron
Age ramparts coil
screened by a clump
of trees.
              Gazing
though, I can’t go
further. To roam
unsteadily

the well-groomed lawns
of this fading
garden must be
alone allowed
to-day.
              Withered,
the wilderness
beyond has been
re-defined on
the map as no-
man’s-land.

                     Ah well,
another time
perhaps.
                Warned off
by the angel’s
stern frown and white-
hot sword-blade I
turn round with one
reluctant sigh
and set about
retracing my
unequal steps.