Matthew James Friday has had poems published in numerous international magazines and journals, including, recently: The Brasilia Review (Brazil), Dawntreader (UK), New Contrast (South Africa) and Poetry Salzburg (Austria). A mini-chapbook titled All the Ways to Love was published by the Origami Poems Project (USA).
i miss making maps
When I was a boy
I was not afraid
of reaching Lands End.
I lost myself exploring
the hardback Ordinance
Survey Book of Britain,
inspired by the colours,
contours, the way a flat
aerial view gained dimensions
in my unmapped imagination.
I drew maps of imagined lands.
The pencil could never catch
the dream, but I sketched
views around me: soft hills,
woods with hidden predators,
rivers wriggling towards estuaries,
a mouthy coastline and islands,
distant moors on a misty edge.
For hours, my unreal maps
and the real world around me
had no physical difference.
I hovered above both,
watching landscapes unfold,
hoping to always float above.
matthew james friday