Matt Hetherington's Poems

Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 1, Number 1. May 2018. ISSN: 2581-7094

River Haiku for Teesta

--- Matt Hetherington

finally –

sky and river

the same shade

hands down his pants

he walks by the river

thinking about politics –

the brown river

smoothly

across the water –

the plastic duck

full moon rises –

the horizon disappears 

After a Great Flood
                                                     --- Matt Hetherington

(Uki, New South Wales, Australia, April 1, 2017)

                         dirt everywhere, no electricity,

no mobile phone reception, and no clean water.

roads with large chunks missing,

                                       trees and signs lying down.

                a distinct lack of birds, but louder frogs,

          strangers talking to each other.

already there are piles of rubbish roughly stacked,

and your eternal, aphoristic, internal critic reciting

‘be on, if you want to

 be beyond.’

Cool
                            --- Matt Hetherington

the chill of the rain disabuses one

      still human of any further sitting

   so it lifts itself and steps

          over puddles as if an ordinary

                  dancer, taking care not to space

out or forget to hold its

                         spine straight & umbrella overhead

                     water’s so wet

but the bridge is not underwater yet