Issue 25: Lee Duggan
From In Those Shoes
almost woman
almost here
encoded\ the structure of morning lacks logic
beyond necessity
avoiding word
to function
in
this
too real world
lost in wall patterns
swirling paper
messages
response
out of
another’s
need
with
courtesy address
lack of sunshine
slumbering forgetfulness
to be alive
live shapes
faint pencil lines suggestive of the original
plan
blotted out by heavy hands
to have spoken
square
stuck mid
laughter
what is meant by
irregularity
wearing glasses to be
older
skipped competence
of woman
achieve nothing
beyond noise
where their titles sit labels brand my intellect
even the children humour my contribution
washing dishes I dream of Place & that small fire
it is not man that moves me
aside
I am all things
only inside
reason slides
it is not radical to abandon cobwebs
it is not strength that spits and clears my throat of dust
clogging mind & intentions revolutions come
from gentle movements
birth to
flow within
lexical
placing
this
suit
in/ stasis
term
loaded
form
time
next
round
hand dealt-
in/nate/al/derm/al/del/forming
destin-
nation
lounge reading
inf 0
station
depart the body
to be
all hearts
\
sense where this
might go
on the clock to
insate
less
a high handed
inhalation
fear
& talking at
to avoid
confront
constants
the buoyancy of being
under-skin of it
ache spinebent to intent
then
back to Tuesday’s
safe & weary
nothing to lose
this working out
the year
diss-
locate flotsam
bars & notes
a swift half
dis -sea
ceased
&
find myself
in sax
& out of it
always hard consonants ending in a fuck
-sect & dying
to
expel
creeping
harebell blue
butterfly clusters
blown to
copper speck
fairy ash
aber edged
dune
drift
to be facing
tidewrack
urge to dip
more than
knee
a kiss on the horizon
open armed
& bristly
stave
the moment
an audio experience
misty
non instruction
instrumental
clef
float through me
confuse this ringing in one ear
a tug on the shoulder & numb thumbed
then
batter my fish
condensed glass
the cider &
frayed heart
lay it on the table
the ace
to end in me
peripheral
colours
catch
yours
casual
&
passing
wrong direction
reappear sideways
always on my back
cropped fields
like tracing
not quite aerial
nor grounded
land lines
written between
sky & sky
sky & sky
whipped to feverish bluish
blush of flesh
& windswept
tilted notes of clouds
curbs tree lined
thickly meadow sweet
out of hand
to please me
pulse
& spin
3 types of chest pain
that won’t kill you
coppices & deadwood left
kniving
MRI
an annual notification
my heterozygote reference
BTYW(version)8
count down =through risk
inherent
accordingly increasing
with consumption
palpitating non catastrophe
sleep it off with pesda pizza & vina sol
dance new rhythms
out of domestic
turmoil
\
written
of
the
body
\
from the woman womb in tact
genius v genome
some other tribal concurrence
globular & irregular
disorientate street names
not quite mapping
& unable to
find
it even to
mouth
hard to imagine
Baudelaire walking
my girls unite out of quarantine
someone else’s present
under the hammer
viral stocktake & fill the wardrobes
reconfigure order
then return
present
tensed September
dislocate to March
out of essentials
Lee Duggan (b. 1976) is based in the foothills of Snowdonia. With a focus on marginalisation she explores reclaimed landscapes through innovative approaches to language and facilitates writing for wellbeing workshops. Her debut collection, Reference Points (2017, Aquifer) was well-received in Poetry Wales, Elliptical Movements, and Litter, as was her sequence Green (2019, Oystercatcher). Her work has also appeared in The Edge of Necessary (2018, Aquifer / Boiled String) and more recently in Tears in the Fence, Noon, Poetry Wales and Junction Box. She has forthcoming collections with Knives, Forks and Spoons and Contraband.
Copyright © 2021 by Lee Duggan, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
