Two Poems by Matt Duggan

Ecocide 
In the winter turn they say we can hear the mouth of god 
I like to think it’s the earth struggling to breath
 the soil a sleeping quarry –
pink worms the strands of our hair; 
Breath can be found locked up in paint tins 
rusting with the death-masks 
made from reeds of dew and silver;
the gatekeeper broke up all the keys –
we could only slip through the fine holes 
opened up by saint and sinner;

Hinges to the gate severed by too much light 
allowing entrance only to those whose bones are hidden - 
finding skulls glowing like Arthurian legend’s 
above a burning pub fire somewhere in Cornwall;
Under walnut trees – our bones taken 
handed out among enemy and stranger; 
We never boarded a ship of fools
designed the sails and anchor
filled her with cheap man- made oils -
became the green waves that circled Atlantis.  


Resistance is Not a Surname Given 
Remembrance is not just a parade
​the knot we carry in our stomachs –
it’s the skin we once touched
laughter that carried a memory;
a face always remembered
first tears in dark bedrooms.    
Resistance is not a surname given -
in buildings like long lungs
the colour of charcoaled chews;  
where a mother held her child
made a bird from bone and soil 
placed it into her top pocket;
when the angel guilds her soul
she may fly to the highest gates
watch the blue earth fade below her feet.     


ABOUT MATT DUGGAN
Matt was born in Bristol 1971 and now lives in Newport, Wales with his partner Kelly, his poems have appeared in many journals such as The Potomac Review, Foxtrot Uniform, Dodging the Rain, Here Comes Everyone, Osiris Poetry Journal, The Blue Nib, The Poetry Village, The Journal, The Dawntreader,  The High Window, The Ghost City Review, L’ Ephemere Review, Ink, Sweat, and Tears, Confluence, Marble Poetry Magazine, Polarity, Lakeview International Literary Journal, Matt won the Erbacce Prize for Poetry in 2015 with his first full collection of poems Dystopia 38.10 and became one of five core members at Erbacce-Press in 2017 also In 2017 Matt won the Into the Void Poetry Prize with his poem Elegy for Magdalene and has read his work across the east – coast of the U.S.A. with readings at the prestigious Cambridge Public Library Poetry Series in Boston, a guest poet appearance at The Parkside Lounge and Sip This in New York City, and he read at his first U.S. book launch in Philadelphia and has two chapbooks available One Million Tiny Cuts (Clare Song Birds Publishing House) and A Season in Another World (Thirty West Publishing House) Matt was one of the winners of the Naji Naaman Literary Honours Prize (2019) and has read his work across the world including The Poetry on the Lake Festival in Orta, Italy, at the Poetry Café in London, A Casa dos Poetas in Portugal, New York, Boston, Paxos in Greece, Cheltenham Poetry Festival,  and at various venues across the U.K. His second full collection Woodworm was published by Hedgehog Poetry Press in 2019. In 2020 Matt has a new collection of twenty-Five new poems titled “ The River Flows West When the Dead Are Sleeping” (Maytree Press). And is working on his third full collection “ The Alternative Hand-Book to Love & Disobedience”.