Simon Armitage Puns

Let me put it this way: if you came to lay

your sleeping head against my arm or sleeve,

and if my arm went dead, or if I had to take my leave

at midnight, I should rather cleave it from the joint or seam

than make a scene or bring you round.

There, how does that sound?

Mother, any distance greater than a single span

requires a second pair of hands.

You come to help me measure windows, pelmets, doors,

the acres of the walls, the prairies of the floors.

You at the zero-end, me with the spool of tape, recording

length, reporting metres, centimetres back to base, then leaving

up the stairs, the line still feeding out, unreeling

years between us. Anchor. Kite.

I space-walk through the empty bedrooms, climb

the ladder to the loft, to breaking point, where something

has to give;

two floors below your fingertips still pinch

the last one-hundredth of an inch...I reach

towards a hatch that opens on an endless sky

to fall or fly.

Now they are no longer

any trouble to each other

he can turn things over, get down to that list

of things that never happened, all of the lost

unfinishable business.

For instance… for instance,

how he never clipped and kept her hair, or drew a

hairbrush

through that style of hers, and never knew how not to

blush

at the fall of her name in close company.

How they never slept like buried cutlery –

two spoons or forks cupped perfectly together,

or made the most of some heavy weather –

walked out into hard rain under sheet lightning,

or did the gears while the other was driving.

How he never raised his fingertips

to stop the segments of her lips

from breaking the news,

or tasted the fruit

or picked for himself the pear of her heart,

or lifted her hand to where his own heart

was a small, dark, terrified bird

in her grip. Where it hurt.

Or said the right thing,

or put it in writing.

And never fled the black mile back to his house

before midnight, or coaxed another button of her

blouse,

then another,

or knew her

favourite colour,

her taste, her flavour,

and never ran a bath or held a towel for her,

or soft-soaped her, or whipped her hair

into an ice-cream cornet or a beehive

of lather, or acted out of turn, or misbehaved

when he might have, or worked a comb

where no comb had been, or walked back home

through a black mile hugging a punctured heart,

where it hurt, where it hurt, or helped her hand

to his butterfly heart

in its two blue halves.

And never almost cried,

and never once described

an attack of the heart,

or under a silk shirt

nursed in his hand her breast,

her left, like a tear of flesh

wept by the heart,

where it hurts,

or brushed with his thumb the nut of her nipple,

or drank intoxicating liquors from her navel.

Or christened the Pole Star in her name,

or shielded the mask of her face like a flame,

a pilot light,

or stayed the night,

or steered her back to that house of his,

or said “Don’t ask me how it is

I like you.

I just might do.”

How he never figured out a fireproof plan,

or unravelled her hand, as if her hand

were a solid ball

of silver foil

and discovered a lifeline hiding inside it,

and measured the trace of his own alongside it.

But said some things and never meant them –

sweet nothings anybody could have mentioned.

And left unsaid some things he should have spoken,

about the heart, where it hurt exactly, and how often.

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.

I am very bothered when I think of the bad things I have done in my life.

Not least that time in the chemistry lab when I held a pair of scissors by the blades and played the handles

in the naked lilac flame of the Bunsen burner; then called your name, and handed them over.

O the unrivalled stench of branded skin as you slipped your thumb and middle finger in, then couldn't shake off the two burning rings. Marked, the doctor said, for eternity.

Don't believe me, please, if I say that was just my butterfingered way, at thirteen, of asking you if you would marry me.

We went out

into the school yard together, me and the boy

whose name and face

I don't remember. We were testing the range

of the human voice:

he had to shout for all he was worth,

I had to raise an arm

from across the divide to signal back

that the sound had carried.

He called from over the park--I lifted an arm.

Out of bounds,

he yelled from the end of the road,

from the foot of the hill,

from beyond the look-out post of Fretwell's Farm

I lifted an arm.

He left town, went on to be twenty years dead

with a gunshot hole

in the roof of his mouth, in Western Australia.

Boy with the name and face I don't remember,

you can stop shouting now, I can still hear you.

Hey so this is a bit of a trivial challenge for people who like literature

1. Google stuff about Simon Armitage
2. Find 5 interesting facts about Simon Armitage
3. Read some of his poems and select your favourite poem
4. explain why you have chosen this as your favourite

You have only 6 hours good luck

EDIT: u/Apprehensive_Bug_889 won

The elf said to Kevin, “You’re probably wondering why

I’m sitting here at your breakfast table this morning,

helping myself to your condiments. Kevin, I’m here to

make you a very special offer—let’s call it a once-in-a-

lifetime opportunity. Today you’re forty-four years and

thirty-six days old, and that’s exactly how long you’ve got

left! Let me save you the mental arithmetic: you’re going

to live till you’re eighty-eight years and seventy-two days,

and you’ve just crossed the halfway line. It’s what we

elves like to call ‘the tipping point.’ So, Kevin, as of now,

you can either carry on regardless and pretend we never

met. Or say the word, and I can flip the hourglass on its

head. Do you see what I’m saying? So instead of getting

older you’ll be heading back in the other direction. I’ve got

all the forms—you just sign here, here and here and it’s

goodbye incontinence, hello Ibiza! What do you say,

Kevin?”

The arthritis in Kevin’s shoulder had been bothering him

of late, and the prospect of revitalising his tired and aching

joints was tantalising to say the least. Imagine crusading

once again through the unconquered landscapes of early

manhood, knowing what he knew now. But what about

Annie, the woman he loved, the only woman he’d loved in

his whole life? Could he really go swanning around with a

young man’s intentions and a fashionable T-shirt while she

slipped away towards undignified infirmity and toothless

old age? How cowardly, to let her walk death’s shadowy

footpath alone, thus betraying his every promise to her,

thus breaking every vow. And an image formed in his

mind—Annie with ghostly hair and faraway eyes, cradling

him in her limp, skinny arms, roses in a vase on the bedside

table next to the tissues and ventilator, his flawless cheek

against her grey cotton gown, his tiny mouth moving

hungrily towards her sunken breast. “I won’t do it.

Because of my Annie,” said Kevin, emphatically. The elf

said, “Kevin, you’re a gentleman, and God knows there

aren’t many of them around. And your Annie, she’s one in

a million.” He wiped a few crumbs of crispbread from the

corner of his mouth and added, “No two ways about it, had

the pleasure of breakfasting with her just a few months ago.

A stunning, captivating woman. And looking younger

every day.” Then with a shuffle of his silver slippers on the

hardwood floor, he was gone.

On another occasion, we got sent out
to tackle looters raiding a bank.
And one of them legs it up the road,
probably armed, possibly not.

Well myself and somebody else and somebody else
are all of the same mind,
so all three of us open fire.
Three of a kind all letting fly, and I swear

I see every round as it rips through his life –
I see broad daylight on the other side.
So we’ve hit this looter a dozen times
and he’s there on the ground, sort of inside out,

pain itself, the image of agony.
One of my mates goes by
and tosses his guts back into his body.
Then he’s carted off in the back of a lorry.

End of story, except not really.
His blood-shadow stays on the street, and out on patrol
I walk right over it week after week.
Then I’m home on leave. But I blink

and he bursts again through the doors of the bank.
Sleep, and he’s probably armed, and possibly not.
Dream, and he’s torn apart by a dozen rounds.
And the drink and the drugs won’t flush him out –

he’s here in my head when I close my eyes,
dug in behind enemy lines,
not left for dead in some distant, sun-stunned, sand-smothered land
or six-feet-under in desert sand,

but near to the knuckle, here and now,
his bloody life in my bloody hands.

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.

Now they are no longer
any trouble to each other

he can turn things over, get down to that list
of things that never happened, all of the lost

unfinishable business.
For instance… for instance,

how he never clipped and kept her hair, or drew a hairbrush
through that style of hers, and never knew how not to blush

at the fall of her name in close company.
How they never slept like buried cutlery –

two spoons or forks cupped perfectly together,
or made the most of some heavy weather –

walked out into hard rain under sheet lightning,
or did the gears while the other was driving.

How he never raised his fingertips
to stop the segments of her lips

from breaking the news,
or tasted the fruit,

or picked for himself the pear of her heart,
or lifted her hand to where his own heart

was a small, dark, terrified bird
in her grip. Where it hurt.

Or said the right thing,
or put it in writing.

And never fled the black mile back to his house
before midnight, or coaxed another button of her blouse,

then another,
or knew her

favourite colour,
her taste, her flavour,

and never ran a bath or held a towel for her,
or soft-soaped her, or whipped her hair

into an ice-cream cornet or a beehive
of lather, or acted out of turn, or misbehaved

when he might have, or worked a comb
where no comb had been, or walked back home

through a black mile hugging a punctured heart,
where it hurt, where it hurt, or helped her hand

to his butterfly heart
in its two blue halves.

And never almost cried,
and never once described

an attack of the heart,
or under a silk shirt

nursed in his hand her breast,
her left, like a tear of flesh

wept by the heart,
where it hurts,

or brushed with his thumb the nut of her nipple,
or drank intoxicating liquors from her navel.

Or christened the Pole Star in her name,
or shielded the mask of her face like a flame,

a pilot light,
or stayed the night,

or steered her back to that house of his,
or said “Don’t ask me how it is

I like you.
I just might do.”

How he never figured out a fireproof plan,
or unravelled her hand, as if her hand

were a solid ball
of silver foil

and discovered a lifeline hiding inside it,
and measured the trace of his own alongside it.

But said some things and never meant them –
sweet nothings anybody could have mentioned.

And left unsaid some things he should have spoken,
about

I am very bothered when I think of the bad things I have done in my life. Not least the time in the chemistry lab When I held a pair of scissors by the blades and played the handles in the naked lilac flame of the Bunsen burner; then called your name and handed them over.

O the unrivalled stench of branded skin as you slipped your thumb and middle thinger in, then couldn't shake off the two burning rings. Marked, the doctor said, for eternity.

Don't believe me, please, if I say that was just my butterfingered way, at thirteen, of asking you if you would marry me.

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.