Processions of Meta – A Poem by Matthew M.C. Smith

Processions of Meta

For Robert Frede Kenter

~ At twilight in winter, a poet is torn between real presence and artifice ~

at twilight, cold descends as mystery:
a rust-brown sunset at three fifty-eight
like an elder rasping last wishes,
a laid-out jaw, jagged,
with quickening rising breath

the motorway pulses slow, LED arteries
of neon-red-light, intravenous into the hills,
cannula into the gilded body

                   and the clouds are concept art horizon
                                     Electro -Kardiogramm

In the procession of meta
moths tick and flare in interiors, glowing singularities,
and button faces in each modular unit
witness their own reaching out to the incongruous yoke
            of a dying sun, inventing gods

and turning from the horrid glow

The visual cortex live streams,
processes a pristine glint of moon’s curling-lip
in the eastern sky through branches with
their threshing boughs still as a rave on pause;
rewrite the branches as ‘a weave’

This is one garden of right-angled shapes,
a pond containing one single fish
that sleers and sloops in rings,
an ache in a liquid bruise

presence        as phantasmagoria

a pen is a key in an outhouse in a lock, is a voice,
is the gleam of finger tips

rewrite again

At twilight, the cold descends as mystery

Matthew M. C. Smith is a widely published Welsh writer. He reviews for Poetry Wales and London Grip and runs Black Bough Poetry (https://www.blackboughpoetry.com/) and TopTweetTuesday, which prove to be engrossing hobbies. He is writing a book on Robert Graves for the University of Wales Press. He collects signed poetry books (Ted Hughes, R.S. Thomas, Carol Ann Duffy), vintage Star Wars toys and is running the London Marathon next year for the second time. Matthew writes about fatherhood, masculinity, landscape and heritage, deep time, Sci Fi, apocalyptic sunsets, and the cosmic surreal. He loves dogs, cats, rabbits and spiders but not snakes. In 2024, he has read with Matthew Hollis and Owen Sheers. Matthew is the author of The Keeper of Aeons. https://thebrokenspine.co.uk/product/the-keeper-of-aeons-matthew-m-c-smith/ Twitter: @MatthewMCSmith. Also on Insta, FB and Bluesky.

Processions of Meta by Matthew MC Smith

For Robert Frede Kenter

~ At twilight in winter, a poet is torn between real presence and artifice ~

at twilight, cold descends as mystery:
a rust-brown sunset at three fifty-eight
like an elder rasping last wishes,
a laid-out jaw, jagged,
with quickening rising breath

the motorway pulses slow, LED arteries
of neon-red-light, intravenous into the hills,
cannula into the gilded body

and the clouds are concept art horizon
Electro -Kardiogramm

In the procession of meta
moths tick and flare in interiors, glowing singularities,
and button faces in each modular unit
witness their own reaching out to the incongruous yoke
of a dying sun, inventing gods

and turning from the horrid glow

The visual cortex live streams,
processes a pristine glint of moon’s curling-lip
in the eastern sky through branches with
their threshing boughs still as a rave on pause;
rewrite the branches as ‘a weave’

This is one garden of right-angled shapes,
a pond containing one single fish
that sleers and sloops in rings,
an ache in a liquid bruise

presence as phantasmagoria

a pen is a key in an outhouse in a lock, is a voice,
is the gleam of finger tips

rewrite again

At twilight, the cold descends as mystery

Robert Frede Kenter is a widely published writer and visual artist and the EIC/Publisher of Ice Floe Press. A new chapbook, FATHER TECTONIC, is forthcoming from EthelZine Press (2025).

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