2 poems by Matt Haw

November does the outer dark with all the saints I know

As Saint Charles of Appalachia might have

I put away my notes & step out into the dusk

roughhousing in the great black pines—

remorse they say—remorse

A scalpel-sharp breeze

I am cut unawares

Dry & tired grasses of the late season shed

on my bare feet

cold tears of sleighted lovers—

in June the grief was mine

Clear & distant emptiness in the light

of early autumn

Clear & distant emptiness in my being

inarticulate & without art

As Sankt Hans of his regrets

tonight let me be content to read myself into

the horizon’s numinous line of fells

their blue vastness—

discourse of the little beck behind the house

she has more to say since the rains—

wind squalling again in the deep twilight

the mind that moves

the trees—& all else besides

Garden variety ars poetica

Transience is a preoccupation the twilight

between the cold ache of Advent

& whatever passes for recurrence—

the backyard’s bare lilac bushes in late autumn

There was once an abundance of leaves & flowers

I am certain of it

panicles of lusty pink that beat the air

like tongues without their bells

all lost to autumn afternoons

unruly winds heedless in their going

Do me the honour today

of a break in the cloud cover—

bare lilac branches reaching out for this

brief moment of blue clarity

They yearn as we do unable to console

______

Matt's poems have recently appeared in Long Poem Magazine and The Rialto. His debut collection, Nordic Sublime, will be published by Shearsman in April 2026.