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

(ii)

and all those summers we waited
expecting neither much nor little
but waiting
even listening to the rain
on the windows at night
or hearing trains somehow
far off through
the storms

and sometimes at daybreak
or in the ragged ends of long evenings
the clouds furled up
showing an inner light
parallel to the lines of rainstorms
striping the coast

(v)

towards the centre of the lake
a whirlpool of tears
impossible stories that haunt us still
swimmers who never made it across
or fishermen snatched from the decks
somewhere in each stretch of water
Grendel floating down there
just below the surface.

To each inlet its own mysteries
the edges of light lapping at the forest
the steep cliffs of trees
and at the far end of the waters
a silence
so painful
it were better
not to listen:

Why have you come here?

(vii)

and then in the echo of your own eyes
a flash of bright colour in the ears
a lap of waves on green stones
memories of leaves
in the noonday sun
rocks hot underfoot.

Ripples of calm far far out
somehow the gravity changing
our peace of mind
trembling on the edge
of something
almost
perfect

(x)

Curves of water, tensions of river wind
the mind grazes
sensing a question of tomorrow
or the weather changing
and the spellings altered
or the tunes unplayed.

Rain threatens
a long way off
the wind
muddles everything
patterns unfolded.

The problems of grammar.
The simplicities of feeling.

The impossible words
that must never be spoken

but the longing to

(xi)

Negotiation of light
every day

and no one to know
the taste of that imaginary desert
the silent skies and huge sandscapes
stretching day after day
across our personal atlas

the dunes, dreams

oases, wishes

unrealized

as our word world spins
the net of verbs catches
at snatches of meanings
rocking the light

(xii)

the mountains standing way off
I hoped and hoped
that the old tunes would return
and then
as after a squall
across the horizon,
they did

(xxx)

All the half truths
the half measures
dismantling the old facts
elaboration of theories
to fit new realities
and all around us a bewilderment
as winter moves in day by day
and the waves change their texture
and the light solidifies

(balance the candlelight
against wineglass
against silver
against seabreeze
across the sand)

the currents competing

memories, lies?

(xxxi)

No easy solutions:

from far off

make out a thin white line

the crash of surf.

Find a way in through the reef!