Remains
Simon Armitage
On another occasion, we get sent out
To tackle looters raiding a bank.
And one of them legs it up the road.
Probably armed, possibly not….
(Full poem unable to be reproduced due to copyright restrictions)
VOCABULARY
On another occasion - on a different day and time
Looter - a person who steals goods from a place, often taking advantage of the
wreckage in war or riots
Raiding a bank - running into a bank and stealing money
To leg it - to run extremely fast
To be of the same mind - to think the same idea, or agree on an opinion
Letting fly - attacking, often wildly or with a lot of rage
Rounds - a military term for bullets (technically, rounds are the cartridges which
an average person would call ‘bullets’ but which actually contain several elements
within them, including a primer, gunpowder and the bullet itself)
Agony - complete, torturous pain
Blood-shadow - a term that seems to have been invented by Armitage, referring
to the dark stain of blood left behind on the earth after the looter’s body has been
taken away
On patrol - having the job of walking up and down the grounds of an area, usually
keeping a lookout for danger
On leave - when a company or manager officially allows a person to take time off
work, in this case the soldier is sent back home presumably because he is too
traumatised from his experience to work effectively
Left for dead - abandoned, presumed dead
, Sand-smothered - covered in sand, the verb ‘smothered’ implies being choked to
death or covered until a person can’t breathe - it may imply that the soldier
himself feels smothered by the experience
Six-feet-under - an idiomatic expression used to refer to dead people when they
lie in coffins under the ground, as coffins are typically buried at six feet
Bloody - covered in blood, but also a mild British swear word expressing anger or
shock
STORY/SUMMARY
(Stanza 1) Another time, we get sent out to deal with people who are looting a bank.
And one of them runs as fast as he can up the road. Probably he’s carrying a gun,
possibly not. (Stanza 2) Well myself and somebody else and another person too,
we’re all thinking the same, so all three of us start shooting, three people acting as
one and I swear (Stanza 3) I see every bullet as it rips through his life - I see a hole
in his body with daylight coming through from the other side. So, we’ve shot this
looter at least twelve times and he’s lying here on the ground, kind of inside out,
with his guts hanging out of his body (Stanza 4) he is the image of pain itself, of
complete agony. One of my friends walks up to him and picks up his guts and
throws them back into his body. Then, the dead guy is taken away in the back of a
lorry. (Stanza 5) That’s the end of the story, except it isn’t really the end. The stain
left by the looter’s blood stays on the street, and when I’m out patrolling I walk over
it week after week, then I’m sent back home on leave from work. But I blink (Stanza
6) And he bursts again through the doors of the bank. When I sleep he’s there again,
probably armed, possibly not. I dream and in my dreams he’s ripped apart by a
dozen bullets. And when I drink and take drugs it doesn’t flush out the memories or
the guilt of him - (Stanza 7) He’s here in my head when I close my eyes, dug in
behind enemy lines, not left for dead in a distant, sun-stunned, sand-covered land
or buried in a coffin under the desert sand, he’s close to the bone, here and now, his
bloody life is in my bloody hands.
