Simon Armitage

[Count Überquart]

Is my favourite poet.

I Say I Say I Say

Anyone here had a go at themselves for a laugh?
Anyone opened their wrists with a blade in the bath?
Those in the dark at the back, listen hard.
Those at the front in the know, those of us who have,
hands up, let's show that inch of lacerated skin
between the forearm and the fist.

Let's tell it like it is: strong drink,
a crimson tidemark round the tub, a yard of lint,
white towels washed a dozen times, still pink.
Tough luck.

A passion then for watches, bangles, cuffs.
A likely story: you were lashed by brambles
picking berries from the woods.
Come clean, come good,
repeat with me the punch line 'Just like blood'
when those at the back rush forward to say
how a little love goes a long long long way.

Name Unknown

And if it snowed and snow covered the drive
he took a spade and tossed it to one side.
And always tucked his daughter up at night
And slippered her the one time that she lied.
And every week he tipped up half his wage.
And what he didn't spend each week he saved.
And praised his wife for every meal she made.
And once, for laughing, punched her in the face.

And for his mum he hired a private nurse.
And every Sunday taxied her to church.
And he blubbed when she went from bad to worse.
And twice he lifted ten quid from her purse.

Here's how they rated him when they looked back:
sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that.

[lollipop]

I like this, Clo, where do you get him from?
I'd like to hear more.

[Count Überquart]

He's in my GCSE anthology

I'm going to buy Book Of Matches by him, soon.

His most recent collection is called Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus The Corduroy Kid. It was published last summer.

He's also written two (or is it four?) novels, and some plays.

*

I've made out a will; I'm leaving myself
to the National Health. I'm sure they can use
the jellies and tubes and syrups and glues,
the web of nerves and veins, the loaf of brains,
and assortment of fillings and stitches and wounds,
blood - a gallon exactly of bilberry soup -
the chassis or cage or cathedral of bone;
but not the heart, they can leave that alone.

They can have the lot, the whole stock:
they loops and coils and sprockets and springs and rods,
the twines and cords and strands,
the face, the case, the cogs and the hands,

but not the pendulum, the ticker;
leave that where it stops or hangs.

Kid

Batman, big shot, when you gave the order
to grow up, then let me loose to wander
leeward, freely through the wild blue yonder
as you liked to say, or ditched me, rather,
in the gutter ... well, I turned the corner.
Now I've scotched that 'he was like a father
to me' rumour, sacked it, blown the cover
on that 'he was like an elder brother'
story, let the cat out on that caper
with the married woman, how you took her
downtown on expenses in the motor.
Holy robin-redbreast-nest-egg-shocker!
Holy roll-me-over-in-the-clover,
I'm not playing ball boy any longer
Batman, now I've doffed that off-the-shoulder
Sherwood-Forest-green and scarlet number
for a pair of jeans and crew-neck jumper;
now I'm taller, harder, stronger, older.
Batman, it makes a marvellous picture:
you without a shadow, stewing over
chicken giblets in the pressure cooker,
next to nothing in the walk-in larder,
punching the palm of your hand all winter,
you baby, now I'm the real boy wonder.

[Goblin King]

His most recent collection is called Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus The Corduroy Kid.

Even the title rules!

[Count Überquart]

About His Person

Five pounds fifty in change, exactly,
a library card on its date of expiry.

A postcard stamped,
unwritten, but franked,

a pocket size diary slashed with a pencil
from March twenty-fourth to the first of April.

A brace of keys for a mortise lock,
an analogue watch, self winding, stopped.

A final demand
in his own hand,

a rolled up note of explanation
planted there like a spray carnation

but beheaded, in his fist.
A shopping list.

A givaway photgraph stashed in his wallet,
a kepsake banked in the heart of a locket.

no gold or silver,
but crowning one finger

a ring of white unweathered skin.
That was everything.

[lollipop]

Intruiging...

[Goblin King]

"A postcard stamped,
unwritten, but franked,"

I like that.

Do you think the dude was deaded?

[Thrin]

I like these a lot!

*goes to investigate*

[Count Überquart]

*

ankylosing spondylitis;
ankylosing meaning bond or join,
and spondylitis meaning of the bone or spine.
That half explains the cracks and clicks,
the clockwork of my joints and discs,
the ratchet of my hips. I'm fossilising -
every time I rest
I let the gristle knit, weave, mesh.

My dear, my skeleton will set like biscuit overnight,
like glass, like ice, and you can choose
to snap me back to life before first light,
or let me laze until
the shape I take becomes the shape I keep.

Don't leave me be. Don't let me sleep.

[Goblin King]

He's clearly very odd.

[Count Überquart]

Oddly wonderful.

I finally got Book of Matches.

[Goblin King]

Is that a book of his?

[Count Überquart]

No, I just felt like mentioning it in his thread...

Yes, it is.

And it's very gooood.

[Count Überquart]

Ressurect an old thread?
Sad this evening, so reached for my Simon Armitage book for comfort. Found this poem again and thought I'd share:

*
Let this matchstick be a brief biography
the sign or symbol
for the lifetime of a certain someone.

How a spark of light
went to his head, but
how that halo soon came loose,
became a noose,
a girdle, then a belt, a Hula-Hoop
of inflammation spreading through his frame
to take his legs and black his boots,

and left him spent, bent
out of line,
a saint, burnt at the stake,
the spine.

[Goblin King]

Thanks, Uber. Bringing a bit of culture back to the forum!
It's about burning people, right?
Have you seen him in interview? He's a very odd person.

[Count Überquart]

I've seen him read twice, and answer questions once.
He IS a very odd man, but he's also quite entertaining...
Although apparently he had a diva moment one year at poetry live, my old English teacher tells me!

[Goblin King]

Now you say that I think I remember you mentioning seeing him (brilliant!)
I saw a programme recently where he was talking about technology - I felt that he was an odd choice for such a documentary, but it may have been his idea. "Upgrade"?