Out of the Blue by Simon Armitage

Author:Simon Armitage [Armitage, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Enitharmon Press
Published: 2014-04-06T23:00:00+00:00

*

A war that began and ended in rain.

Sprayed bullets of rain.

Rain that drum-rolled

on the church hall roof,

when nice Mr Chamberlain

went to the stage

and fell for the three-card trick

then returned to his seat,

empty handed and deceived.

‘I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received.’

Empty handed and deceived.

Hard weather ahead. Storms to the east.

The curtains drawn.

A black, underground war.

We kept it dark.

We dug deep,

moved through tunnels and tubes.

We slept in a midnight garden,

in tin sheds

or crypts

of railway sleepers and piled earth.

We dreamed with the worms

under a Braille of stars,

under the ploughed lawns,

under cabbage leaf hats and turnip heads,

under potato roots that dangled down

like severed, uncoupled electrical flex.

Some nights – a blanket silence.

Some nights we woke in sweat

to a sound like a needle or drill coming near,

a nagging, gnawing mosquito drone in the air.

Doodlebugs. Rocketing dinosaur birds . . .

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