Simon Armitage
~
dear Hey Lane Cemetery
Resident Poet, a.k.a.
self-appointed Clerk of Works
(Cadavers Division), a.k.a.
one-man Inspectorate
of Graveyard Bins;
why shouldn’t plots be sunk
by banana-yellow
Caterpillars and JCBs,
toothed buckets incising
coffin-ready slots
with three quick chomps? |
and why is a müller
Peach and Apricot Fruit Corner
(two parts yoghurt,
one part comfiture)
inappropriate
graveside fodder? |
yeah yeah, you’d rather
the shrivelled chestnuts or rusty apples
from bordering trees
whose worming roots
are wired direct
into matter and marrow;
you’d rather we shovelled dirt
to test its weight, to taste
the metallic tang
in the whispered half-rhymes
of earth and death
on the spade’s tongue
~
in the dream again
he leadeth me
along Shady Row –
that canyoned track
between teetering mills –
to tightrope walk
the dye-pan walls |
and leadeth me
to the shunting yard
and the cinder tips,
onto Ready Carr
(you following this?) |
then to Bramhall’s field |
then above Wood Top
to the sycamore tree
we gouged and stabbed
(it’s been felled)
by Beardsall’s hut |
and leadeth me
to that unnamed tract
where Old Mount Road
shadows Rock View,
past the clumps of woodbine
we tried to smoke |
through abandoned allotments
and chicken coops,
over footings and earthworks,
Phoenician hearths,
Etruscan foundries,
the palimpsest of Jerusalem
under Yorkshire stone,
the Marsden cuckoo
alive in its tomb,
its muffled
fuck you, fuck you;
fuck you, fuck you
