Matt Duggan
Autumn
It was between two September moons
that I saw her breath drift among the autumn debris
lightness of day wrapped on wet broadsheets
where I hear jostling winds like small children
playing in gardens of floating shipwrecks.
The morning as dark as star anise;
air shows cubes of rain falling under
spotlights waking from sleep.
Her summer eyes are lost in the dankness
that even the roses in the park look grey;
This season unlocks timid streams of sun and frost
onto the falling leaves that camouflage a young fox
gathering scraps from the remains of Sunday Tea;
rarely do we see any light in the break of autumn
just that black and white celluloid glow
slowly preparing us for the cold stay of Winter.
Revolution
We are crab claws bones scattered on the sand
washed up from the beach returned to the master of sea;
detached by the beauty that resonates from the deepest
surface of ocean. Where they throw us back onto dry land
believe that they can give us just enough of what we want –
a veneer like salt to lassitude and distractions.
Though the sea is not our ruler who scribes out the future –
They ask that revolution will never raise a glass to those comrades
as they've given us just enough of what we want -
no longer do we think while we're mainlined into google chrome.
Questioning the Space between Drones
Answers we seek are sometimes hidden
beneath the skin of wood and soil –
we must reveal ourselves to the world a little
before we can question the future and past;
Though this journey will bring hope and madness
in mirrors that won't reflect the true version of the self,
we must scale the battlements of our deepest
convictions; control the truth before the truth
stimulates us. Dare the wind of spying drones
catch our shadow now citizens are suspected thieves;
let the rainbow blind the path of buzzing eye-lids
where lies are doctored in black and white screens;
Now confusion is the weapon of choice
hysteria – the oxygen they spread with outrageous spite;
We once believed our voices could make a change;
Though the frightened one convinced the many
that everything will remain the same.
Matt Duggan's poems have appeared in many journals such as Osiris poetry journal, A Restricted View from Under the Hedge, Ghost City Review, The Journal, Dodging the Rain, Rising Phoenix Review, Into the Void, Picaroon Poetry Journal, Mutability Literature, The High Window,...
Winner of the Erbacce Prize in 2015 and the Into the Void Prize (2016)
Matt has his second full collection Woodworm due to be published by Hedgehog Press in March 2019.