obelisk disco
a curious form / the bells out of sync by reckoning / opens the skull like an ice well / that much receding / the clink in the glass a little toll / draws towards / the calming of skin / a dangled hour / turning within earth / flare of flesh / many texts have suggested / of hairline or coastline / where the silt / unwashed the colour of topaz / those glow-sticks / curve of the bay, arc of her dress / his sparkling particles / imported marble / stuck glitter of the skin / to a brain within / of mourning the sort of algae / to nowhere, nobody / a real expense / soft as topsoil loam or moaning / bloom of death / knows his / has anyone checked the arras / you cannot replace / applications of aloe / here on this morning / the gold of the green in villages / central / & / yet / ambiguous twilight / pendulum heavy / the excoriated beauty / a link between grief and lust / parabolas / and daffodil shadows / a sign forbids it / all lonesome stones / have we found / my electrolytes / sweet rustle of sycamores / marzipan sunsets / the easeful apparition becomes / as backdrop / ? / to every / road between wood and sea / she is hidden like / insect tongue / the checked-in room with opulent furnishings / peeled-away layers / a statement of acid / ! / matches the true type font on the block of / whereabouts / with temporal sequins / reach for the dead / of / sulphuric problems / a parochial narrative for evening times / an expense for / rich with mermaid’s purses / the hacked reality / leaching / a gilded receipt / precursor to nutrient depletion / the milk was blue in the tidal pool / where minerals / ease through / replenishes / vanity language / these sticklers / shops for luck / trance & fish / a gauzy infinitude / ambient burning / ceases the hour of / (a)tonal niche / in oxidised / luxe / dolphin slices / such visual merchandise / arrangements of apian space / octave plinth / again / silver tapers / to the present / felicic chandeliers / this bliss!
Maria Sledmere
Paleo Foods
Even the clearest archipelagos
dissemble with mist
~ eventually ~ will not exact
your sense of premium land
like continental breakfasts
added without will
to this odd account
of symmetry
Gaussian croissants girls
with topological haircuts
cracked into formulas
for miracle debris
rendered periphery
a creek’s worth of butter, calcium
& fertile jam, stuck inside
skeletal macadamias.
Osculation
sometimes kissing
is like catching up on being a person again
a certain conditional dwelling
the sluice of tangents
“just touching” as a rumour of arithmetic
branding the cool periodicity
of all this thought
he would look west with his breath
making a meal of Marlboro, gum
& the sky’s glissando
sticky with bronze and dusk
parted lips like a password
pasted avatar
in soft mixolydian, mollifying
each luminary
morphed back into aeroplane lungs
a photographic swallow
at quite the negative curve of his neck
the reticent flesh
found its first vertex, studded amethyst
in chance at the clipped
second expect.
Maria Sledmere just graduated from an MLitt in Modernities at the University of Glasgow and is currently working on a mysterious other-terrestrial exhibition with producer Lanark Artefax. When not waiting tables she is assistant editor of SPAM zine and founder of Gilded Dirt. She writes music reviews for Ravechild and GoldFlakePaint and her work has appeared in places such as Datableed, L'Éphémère Review, Fluland, From Glasgow to Saturn, Numéro Cinq, Thistle Magazine and Zarf. You can find her at http://musingsbymaria.wordpress.com.