Simon Armitage

Prose fills a space, like a liquid poured in from the top, but poetry occupies it, arrays itself in formation, sets up camp and refuses to budge.

The melancholy comes over me, the dismal misery of not knowing where I am, or perhaps losing any sense of who I am, as if the mist is bringing about an evaporation of identity, all the certainties of the self leaching away into the cloud.

And wonder, dread and warhave lingered in that landwhere loss and love in turnhave held the upper hand.

This misfortune you find is of your own manufacture.Keep hold of what you have, it will harm no other,for hatred comes home to the hand that chose it.

Oh dire, dreadful death, you drag your heels.Why dawdle and draw back? You drown my heart.