Matt Duggan
Scrapbook
I visited an old friend,
in the Autumn of a nostalgic dream.
I remembered her weepy eyes,
and those gracious crimson tears.
I walked along a path of scattered toys,
to the door of my old friends semi-detached.
We sat and drank decafe coffee,
and talked about our redeemed past.
She had three beautiful children,
and two failed marriages.
One was to a violent alcoholic,
and the other was caught doing certain infidelities.
We laughed at the smattering of youth,
and smiled at the memento of an old flame.
Remembering our first kiss,
in those lost Summer days.
She reached over to the bookcase,
and pulled out a scrapbook of Polaroids.
With photos of our last Summer together,
to the days at school as a girl and a boy.
I was mesmerised by these old photographs,
of immaculate youth in its prime.
The troubles that we all had to face,
and how youth can so quickly run out of time.
That bright smile of my school yard sweet heart,
the load colours we used to wear.
Conversations on loves young heart,
to the Summer evenings we used to share.
To feel the breath of your first love,
catching her kiss in the dark.
That tenacious first ever touch,
from the sinews of a young heart.
She put away her scrapbook,
with the negatives of our innocence.
My dreams of cherished nostalgia,
soon vanished with these Polaroids of time.
Page(s) 12-13
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The