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

Gompa put his hand into a black velvet bag
every Boxing Day at lunchtime, and took out
a real egg.  It was meant to be a trick, but I could
never understand where the magic in it was.

In the evening, after hours behind hessian screens,
he appeared cross-gartered like an Anglo-Saxon warrior,
then took great pains to walk a tightrope tied between
two chairs - its entire length touching the floor.

One afternoon he sat at the piano with a forgotten
composer we called Uncle Joe, whose little pointed
beard and fingers seemed to dance over the treble,
Gompa thumping at the bass end - the two of them
improvising endless variations on 'Three Blind Mice'.

On one occasion, he made a slow ceremony of unlocking
the dining-room cupboard in his house next door,
taking out a number of old cigar boxes,
opening them, then gravely handing to us one by one
lots of German bank-notes, all, of course, worthless.

He used to read books to us, too; I can't remember
any of the titles, only that for additional punctuation
he sometimes removed his dark false teeth, or broke
wind for as long as fifty seconds on end,
which, for a man of his age, was nothing less than
an achievement.   Perhaps his greatest.

I shall never forget the wide wicked smile
he gave us, when, after a marathon family
roulette session, he added to his legitimate winnings
great pocketfuls of counters he'd stolen from the Bank
when it was his turn.
                                   He was a born cheat,
a bland pretender who walked in the paths of genius
illegally, and, out of his unquestioning kindness,
taught us all the way there, leaving behind him,
we discovered, rooms full of pagan statues
we couldn't understand, and a household
blighted with frustration.