The Remains
Come walk with us down lanes of dirty hemlock
where the hands of car wrecks reach out from the earth
like metal statues with glass made cheeks
Follow the midnight light in short hours of the lost
listen to the movements of mechanical ghosts –
along lime and sand pathways of verge;
They have not yet mastered the darkness levels at night
as we spend our daytime mostly dazed
our eyes stretched out like fragile rocks
clinging to the foundations of white cliffs;
Kingdoms will always believe that they can wear
a battledress with pride – though the rest of the world can see
that the seams have long ago been cut and unthreaded;
placed inside an old sewing box labelled dangerous and obsolete.
About the Author: Matt Duggan was born in 1971 and lives in Bristol in the U.K. with his partner Kelly and their dog Alfie, his poems have appeared in many journals across the world such as Osiris Poetry Journal, Ink, Sweat, and Tears, The Blue Nib, Into the Void, The Journal, The Dawntreader, Midnight Lane Boutique, Anti—Heroin Chic Journal, The High Window, A Restricted View from Under the Hedge, Ghost City Review, Laldy Literary Journal, L’ Ephemere Review, Carillion, Lakeview International Literary Journal, Levure Litteraire, erbacce journal, The Stray Branch, Prole, Black Light Engine Room, Militant Thistles, 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, where Matt interviews poets for the erbacce-journal, organises events and reads with the other members for the annual erbacce prize.
In 2017 Matt won the Into the Void Poetry Prize with his poem Elegy for Magdalene, and 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, Matt read at his first U.S. book launch in Philadelphia and has two new chapbooks available One Million Tiny Cuts (Clare Song Birds Publishing House) and A Season in Another World (Thirty West Publishing House) plus a small limited edition booklet The Feeding ( Rum Do Press) Venice and London. He has read his work across the world including The Poetry on the Lake Festival in Orta, Italy, the Poetry Café in London, and in Paxos in Greece and at various venues across the U.K.
Image Credit: “Auto Accident” (1922) The Library of Congress
As It Ought To Be 