The Girl With Blue Wristbands
She ate chips in the dark
hiding from that bubble,
light glides in the shadowed
patches; as she waits.
At night her façade breaks
make-up running deep,
that once ever so confident girl
slides up her blue wristbands;
Each slice a voice breaking on the shorelines
with each cut her inner struggle is mapped
from back head of knuckles
into pale blue veins.
When daylight shows the morning crest
those blue wristbands
linger of washed fragrance
smelling fresh
No glimpse of blood her scars imprisoned
only in the room
that the girl with the blue wristbands
will feel most
Black Water
Did toes curl up on shorelines
like tortoise heads hiding in shells?
when earth disrupted the even flow
opening gaping borders – a bottomless well!
pebbles quaked from sand monsters
angels drunk on sea vomit
riding inside the tides of black water.
Tips of house and red Toshiba
spinning on ripples of apocalyptic black waves
radiation seeps from wounded reactors
like souls reaching the bottom of their graves;
where mermaids wear gasmasks and sing requiems
homes are now squares with fainted lines,
debris in Chem reflections lined with glints of barium
Did toes curl up on shorelines?
like tortoise heads hiding in shells.
No One Loves Us Like The Graveyards
A dark heart has captured Ragga
where only petrol blood-pools span
the Euphrates river; lips were sealed
like stitches weaved from the soul,
truth would prevail beyond her death
as she celebrated Eid in her pyjamas;
No one loves us like the graveyards.
They do not watch the stars
Even though they stare deep into amber sky,
Bumping into each other
While walking the shopping aisles,
Not for any religious purpose
But for the drones and the missiles
Webbed in skylines of this Syrian circus,
No one loves us like the graveyards.
City of Glass
Passing the disused multi-coloured trams
sleeping in waste of black confetti
garden of shard bottles where children played hopscotch with broken glass,
above concrete trees – walls in golden leaf graffiti.
Cobweb threads the frost on flowerpots
hanging hump of leaves like snowmen in Autumn,
City of glass – A perimeter in Teflon mesh
where conker shells swam in black pastry gutters,
sulphur rising in the blood stone pits of pig flesh.
Drinking cold whispers from warm women
waltzing with the lights from smouldered traffic cones,
pinstripe trees ensemble like tall dark knights of order
aluminium structures tremble where footsteps roam.
Angels played an evening of grave hopping
where a fox is pissing in the air drunk on the dregs of dirty drip trays,
city of glass – a world beneath our feet
recyclable foundations are reassembled like the quickening of a trawlers swaying lamp,
City of glass – Towers of anatomy – a paper cut with no skin!
Matt Duggan was born 1971 Bristol U.K. The winner of the Erbacce Prize for Poetry 2015 his poems have appeared in Five 2 One, Harbinger Asylum, The Journal, The High Window, The Seventh Quarry, and many more. His prize winning collection Dystopia 38.10 (Erbacce-Press) is now available.
The Syzygy Poetry Journal Vol. 1 Issue No. 3 