(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).Â
These poems were chosen by Anthropocene Guest Editor HLR.
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