Olympus

Look onto towers slumped in sky

a palace that holds the talk of the gods;

leaning on ancient rivers

swerving elephants and castles;

Scarlet bricks scaled the steps to secret rooms

where mortals are not allowed to enter;

They parade in suits around gunpowder alley

tongues the milk that seeps from Hades veins;

feed on bones of those below them

occasionally gazing through a gods’ eye;

when popularity is failing;

Detached are these ethereal beings

instigators of our beginning and end;

(It was those mortals behaving like they were gods)

One day when we’ve swallowed the black rose

our body the soil of earth resting not sleeping;

large cracks appear in immortal cheekbones

these fallen gods will be revealed as mere mortals.

Let their bare feet walk on fresh field of green

feel the brush of dew on the width of the heel.

as they’ll never walk in the sight of man ever again;

languishing gods on ancient green seats

turn a blind eye into a profitable opportunity!

the gods have lost their hearing –

our prayers are permanently muted

(left on hold)

(It was those mortals behaving like they were gods)

Initialise every tree across this world

by last hand and human knuckle

they’ll burn the lung of our earth

until our signatures are grey ash and gutter;

It wasn’t pigs, the proles, or the golden starfish,

that created the first cracks in Olympus;

(It was those mortals behaving like they were gods)

 

 

 

 

 

 

About Matt Duggan
Illustration Nick Victor

Matt 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.

 


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