Laurie Duggan
ALLOTMENT 106
the body
wrapped in down
refuses to
get up
on the street
wet bricks
resist the effort
to walk unless
you lean forward
ALLOTMENT 107
in The Yard
the full Kentish
‘the coffee’s hot
and the toast is brown’
deep soul on the system,
the air outside
heavy with malt –
flurries expected
ALLOTMENT 114
topknot of the Buddha’s head
emerges from snow
gaps in the white coverage
for hellebores and daffodils
ALLOTMENT 115
snow along hill shadow
and fence line
that edge out of Macclesfield
I walked up in 1992
round the back of Manchester Piccadilly
the façade of a gutted Victorian building
in neon : EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED
ALLOTMENT 121
flint bands in the chalk
of East Kent
clefts in the rock but
no oracle
no mermaids sing here
each to each
the horizon’s clipped
by the square stern of a container
and a sign far end of the beach
reads: SILENCE
ALLOTMENT 125
a challenge to perspective:
three tall men behind the bar
in the adjoining room
distressed white on brick:
FAVERSHAM
the body
wrapped in down
refuses to
get up
on the street
wet bricks
resist the effort
to walk unless
you lean forward
ALLOTMENT 107
in The Yard
the full Kentish
‘the coffee’s hot
and the toast is brown’
deep soul on the system,
the air outside
heavy with malt –
flurries expected
ALLOTMENT 114
topknot of the Buddha’s head
emerges from snow
gaps in the white coverage
for hellebores and daffodils
ALLOTMENT 115
snow along hill shadow
and fence line
that edge out of Macclesfield
I walked up in 1992
round the back of Manchester Piccadilly
the façade of a gutted Victorian building
in neon : EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED
ALLOTMENT 121
flint bands in the chalk
of East Kent
clefts in the rock but
no oracle
no mermaids sing here
each to each
the horizon’s clipped
by the square stern of a container
and a sign far end of the beach
reads: SILENCE
ALLOTMENT 125
a challenge to perspective:
three tall men behind the bar
in the adjoining room
distressed white on brick:
FAVERSHAM
Copyright © Laurie Duggan 2019
Laurie Duggan, born Melbourne, later a resident of Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane, moved from Australia to Faversham, Kent, UK, in 2006. He has published numerous books of poems, the most recent of which are Selected Poems 1971-2017 (Shearsman 2018), No Particular Place To Go (Shearsman 2017), and a reissue of his first two books as East and Under the Weather (Puncher & Wattman 2014). Additionally he has published Ghost Nation (University of Queensland Press 2001), a work about imagined space. In October 2018 year he returned to Australia and now lives once more in Sydney. His work previously appeared in Molly Bloom 9 and 13.