Every night I listen to a man going mad.
It starts with the moving of wardrobes
the wincing cry through thin plasterboard,
a building crescendo of expletives
repeated again and again –
at the voices that surround him.
Every night I listen to a man going mad
until one night the screams pause
no sound of friction behind these thin walls;
just rolling sirens melting in windows
that blue and red repetition –
every night I listen to a man going mad.
Poems have appeared in The Journal, Prole, The Dawntreader, Ink, Sweat, and Tears, Harbinger Asylum, and The Seventh Quarry. In 2015 Matt won the erbacce prize for poetry with his first collection Dystopia 38.10 and in 2016 he won the Into the Void Poetry Prize. He has a new chapbook out called Metropolis with Hunting Raven Press.
I’ve come back to read this piece again several times – it’s incredible.
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