Soothing...

After what felt like the longest day of my life (it is very ill-advised to drink copious amounts of tequila when you have to be in work at 7.30am the next day...) I needed something to soothe my body and soul. It was a bubbly bath for the body and poetry for the soul. Siting amongst the cesspit that is my room,I read some of my favourite poetry and felt the tequila headache drain away, replaced with a sense of normality and calm....

I have not bummed across America
with only a dollar to spare, one pair
of busted Levi's and a bowie knife.
I have lived with thieves in Manchester.

I have not padded through the Taj Mahal,
barefoot, listening to the space between
each footfall picking up and putting down
its print against the marble floor. But I


skimmed flat stones across Black Moss on a day
so still I could hear each set of ripples
as they crossed. I felt each stone's inertia
spend itself against the water; then sink.

I have not toyed with a parachute cord
while perched on the lip of a light-aircraft;
but I held the wobbly head of a boy
at the day centre, and stroked his fat hands.

And I guess that the tightness in the throat
and the tiny cascading sensation
somewhere inside us are both part of that
sense of something else. That feeling, I mean.

Simon Armitage