Issue 27: Adam Flint
1988
a village soon winter · mulling over creed-lack and whether to scorn the pagan · after the first universe the next separation · gods like memories sear · to near them they must be reversed · subverted · recomposed · so one isn't shown the whole angel
a cloud bank tucks last rays beneath its behemoth · a chill comes to the shells · tender thoughts rise towards the childhood like shoots · my pockets newly colder · more of me would sleep
sip and the midnight winnows · slowly sleigh-bells · no · it is the father’s car · back seats flat · scanned by panels of coarse shop-front light · and street-lamps · neutralised · this side of the glass · this side of the membrane · breath-warmed grey
further sip and I lean into the candlepower of youth · sprawl across the breeze · bridging thirty years of daydreamed notions
light as moth-wings · bits of burnt bible pages · wafered lichen · some kind of frailty · scattered and stuck to the overlapped timber · the barn's interior walls · the closer I get the lower the gaze falls · always through scuffed gaps · past edges of bristled splinter · spilling out into the betony beyond · a safeguard against witchcraft · against the timorous sigil in the fern · wreathed in magnificat patina · dazzling to be truth
isn’t anything · bound to age · white thunder in the grass · in the blood · quick dark cirrus · birch foliage isolates · cladonia in the beaten dusk · genitalia traversed · lies beside other broader dilations · pupils grown more lupine as the night draws on · as the signs encrypt · their quiet might still looms · anything to edit out the angel
Readmitting the Xanthene
pug wrapped in cutleaf · daniel sleep valerian · chance home · mares’ tails merge and birth mock suns · par helion through the atomic · ordering of needles and columns · seen through cirrus · I am fine ·
to think that white rose goldened to lion never rose after water to fire is false · it is spring · readmit the xanthene · rays of white daybreak skipped straight to sunrise leave the dawn untouched · making the light prone to slant · like I lose muscle and lurch · with postures of whitespray · temulentum · a chervil over rough fieldland · broadens the zones of transition · wandering woody preblooms things are beginning to feel like I know ·
the face hosts different wings · greens unlike any plant · flitter to meet and dance with another pair · beside broad dock they veer · part · acquaint again · the hidden visions of secret oneness undue duress presses out · knowing what is coming · is the grand scheme · makes all approach calm · the spire over the rise · the shadows' bayonets lain aside · in the forefront of ascension · we were light in our daze · our brows unlined · the future supernatural · tandem needles jammed between the spreadwing emerald ·
gaps bridged in the schema · narrow the zones of transition · the light unchanged from edge of day the night the same as said between no join · where the sun warms · cones and catkins · the beech and elder’s silvers and greys make the perfect moonlight · behind closed eyes in starry brecks · settle absence · vespertines and matinals · thornapples and wrens·
and so to wear the shadows · move in the wind · waver across closed lids · the mealy firedot beneath them · flows · thins · clumps and spreads · finds tristis · one old willow · ending in hartebeest forepart · branch stems · some catkins · set as dark green honey in the loss · the ground gives · the hours astound · a head of whispers to silence to stand · the word upright in the field and · test the scent of hinted futures · the past's warm pine · early lilac · rose cones in the glade · flakes of grey leaf-mulch · surface broken bits of sessile dried in the light · of spring winds and sun · to quieten the tread ·
the tree is a deer in all directions · and ghosts of refusals to fit swell underneath the boughs · I fade in again now · drink woody reds · in green shadow past first sloes · to speedwell in the buttercups · long enough and those then are this skin · the flesh changed the gaps in the trees more through · where the wind does not pass · where the wind does not pass flowers mercurial waters · they throng the bed at woodedge · I follow ravished by vivids · green holes in the dusk and dissolve · in effacement · of sexscent · of whitethorn · washed of all residual · impurities from evening tomb of loam
Adam Flint was born in North London and is currently based in Potsdam, Germany. Previous poems have appeared in Shearsman Magazine, Reliquiae journal, Blackbox Manifold and Poetry Salzburg Review, among others.
Copyright © 2022 by Adam Flint, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
