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3 poems by Maria Sledmere

(dream prequel…)


How to land upon anything: in May I lifted my head from the meadow at six in the

morning, British Summer Time, when the call ended and all refrain was the super

flower moon, milk moon, having never heard a sky. Lie with me all summer in limited

access, meadow-dreamt and drunk on grassy Bavaria, butterflies with appetites, the

caramelised wetlands of memory. Meadows thrifted from what you tell me; new

meadows gleaming; trellises within glasshouses, soft accumulations of waste, the

poem grown sideways. A braid of peony, child’s play. You open the door to…


Videos of expansive moonscapes, waterborne, subterranean levels where secret

items rest in wait, like metropolitan throbbing organs. Friends were being pushed

out, notices served; there was birdsong in the posthumous album, a housing crisis,

aleatory of policy and I longed for open space beyond this fall. The undreamt

internet. The cost of living. How to think in common against algorithms of land,

agrilogistics, ovulation. Crop rows and corn aporia. Ellipses of acorns, clicking to

enter…


How many blades of grass to add or take? I wrote to work the land I couldn’t access,

knowing this left the meadows untamed. The sentence is an occupied space. This

one squats in a thunderstorm. Periodic hayfever. Bambi’s mum. My dreams are

golden in Kansas sundown; a common book of the too-much, safe mode: my diary,

the isle of Arran, North Berwick in spring. As if to write back the sunset outside of

itself. The colour green shelf-life of pastoral sincerity, soymilk, assortment of

abolished stories. Post-chalice, kissing on golf courses. Not taking the capitalist

super mushroom. The heraldry of wallpaper, Windows Bliss; wisps of the luminous,

angel hair of aliens / thee, who appears between sleeps…


The warm curl of something into us, becoming torsion against the glissandi of illness

— impossible coming to thought. Your hormones snowing. The meadow between

abundant distance, socially being eaten and learning to eat but always hungry.

Tendering arcadia in the way you wear your hair, not buying anything. Seasons

dwindle. Every meme for ending worlds makes space here, drop bouquet of face-

smiles from the sun’s perspective, ashen, or be the one to catch, lie in the grass with

me. Not to be landed: think in arrivals, departures, rose hips / blur / a burr / &

burning. All meadow refreshes, rain from moon; we select abundance. Acid house.

Wing flight: the former insect ticks. Skinned my knees then soft in cowslip, last seen

at dawn. Everything is free here. You take what you like.



The Language of Gems


Seekers of divine love & never-tell of first sight or submission, True love’s rashness

or the Apollo-dedicated stone, something Really Sssincere & deep in the Unrequited

cavern, Good Luck, Pure & Lovely, The Sun is Always Shining When I'm with You

Gone Deep into Constancy, VERIFIABLE ACCOUNTANCY OF THE HEART, new

balance, big starry money, crude resolutions, friendly ghosts, higher selves of pop

royalty, alt-plum, ravishing Tarot confessionals, refusals of astrological determinism,

girly/flashy display, bottoming, HOPS, widget upgrade, world salvation, sea horse

pregnancy, former persona accoutrement, daddy clots, Morvern’s glittery knee,

bledkin, stuffed animal consciousness, uncanny valence, sweet dreams, It’s Okay to

Cry, Natural Wine, Wildfires, Sultry Vertigo, animals that will eat you, unread emails,

gas & happiness bills, landlords of spiderwebs, fruity bestiary, medical prescription,

things you swallow, Blue Monday, concept romance, elemental masonry, emotional

pick ‘n’ mix, authentic apology, sexual fantasy top8, heralding new behaviours,

orbital stocks, floating your company, baby shower, resolve as Vulpix or stunning, the

desire of moms to buy pom poms, sparkle emoji, ocean dysphoria, Kryptonite, honey

I’m honed, Beautiful Eyes, lovetryst, zorbaline, billionite, cheryl, heatherette, winch

stone, irn blu, maybolite, no oil emerald, CharliPearl, boakstone, colalite, gallus

quartz, massivite, ayrl, Bunny Marble, dalruby, auchenopa, marionette granite, goose

jasper, dietstone, socialite, pastoraline, common lustite, Hannah Diamond,

bdsmarine, weaponade, acid_angelite001, elopestone, insomniopal, breathless

celestine, nudestone, galcite, cherry cola cinnabar, gabriellite, crushstone, vertigone,

oestrodor, hooch nugget, Panglite, Poe’s Grove, dopestone, 2CBLazuli, tops, firefox

sapphire, heaventurine, hyperopal, LOLLITE, yeah yeah topaz



Swamp Angel

For Lee Ann Brown


Life coach for great blue herons

in your area, wetland baby talk

to leap into new chapter &

verse of grief & determinate

turtles.

In the pond of B’s

dream-eatery million dollar

memory, the sun spawn of

transatlanticism’s zoom

grammar

a heart glut

more of our larval stage

in poetry thou art reeds

through open szn, softkin

hibernate

wisely, a lemon-

grass negroni for winter

skimming the godwit surf-

ace loving golden plover

reverse

migration of alien

invisible siblings, return

our love to wetransfer

each other, a boulevard

of bulrush

slaying delicate

woodfall sonata of 2000

years later nomenclature

lives for the little gold

annuals

in leaf fragility

perpetuating itself by

seed elixirs my water

filters adult content

downstream

is the lilac

spore gold of lesser

-known amoebae

your last chance

to spot a

dragon

fly


_______________

Maria Sledmere's latest poetry collection is Cinders (Krupskaya Books, 2024). 


These poems were chosen by Anthropocene Guest Editor HLR.



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