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

     1
we’ll smoke a couple cigarettes
each third a unit of time

toss out a computer
or trade in a hard disk

buy a new mouse and two books
what for what for

     2
with a new mouse and two books
in a semitransparent polyethylene
bag

with dreams like a refrain

take the trolleybus take the trolleybus
what for what for

     3
hello – insert someone’s name here
I won’t report anything new to you
absolutely nothing
except for that I have time for nothing

therefore I won’t plan to meet you
in the very near future

      4
our affairs however require supplemental
agreement and discussion
th-ere wh-ere we get together

I sincerely hope
a cup of tea (martini/mug of beer)
to choose the essentials
they’ll be guaranteed

     5
you know material complexities
I look through the window to the sky

the mini-bus is twelve roubles, metro six
I have to buy two books a month
a computer mouse polyethylene bag
shoe repairs analgesics contraception

     6            a continuation of the enumeration
quick noodles
cigarettes telephone bills rent
flowers

it’s not yours to worry about

as usual our everyday things are fine
I’ll tell you my news when we meet

     7
a signature  sincerely / regretfully

what for what for

send by fax send by fax
pasting in new names and more new names
discovering new names for myself
which live like me

     8
instead of the mini-bus I’ll buy a beer

I even have enough for klinskoye
and if there’s no klinskoye
then a light bavarian, baltica

eight sixty eight sixty
spring waits won’t go winds whistle

     9
first spring in the city centre
like an unpretentious colour scale
drink back a beer drink back a beer

too late to experiment with anything else
+
too early to go back
=
something else will work out

     10
I go somewhere to argue with someone
I might even go far away
with this very goal

to the other end of the city for example
or to another city
under the same sky

     11
strictly speaking there’s nothing more I can say

I open the first door I come across
a bar or the scientific institute it doesn’t matter

they let me in because of my honest eyes
hair washed in the morning
unfamiliar face

     12
I can’t even explain why
this text is called spring scales

probably some old inertia
trajectory

previously established laws
of ecumenical equilibrium

      13
It’s already a sort of egor letov
twenty third of march in club polygon
squeeze an order of tickets an order of tickets
press here

the author indicates the heart
and leaves the scene