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From: Vol.04 N.01 – Where to feel now

[Hard to know where to feel now]

by Dan Eltringham

Hard to know where to feel now with a foodmiles

nationalism with a baked-in-Britain arc

described by a lorry, with a farm-to-fork fuck-you

to those who can’t. Not sorry, all smiles.

I’m baked, but am I in Britain? Nark

right off, stretch our your supply chain – who

links to who – whose links mediate my love

for you this morning as the train gathers pace

but not extinguished and not tainted

by relative distance. Snail trails across

continents, a luminous & beautiful info-

-graphic in green and blue, non-core functions

in different pots. There’s what’s in your

fridge or what’s in your heart, just a tap away,

just a tap away, open source & pour: don’t cook:

just, just:

Sorry about the call last night love

I was just checking your acidity levels, face

up to it, sorry not sorry, slip yourself a sedative

and get back to it. Set the table for two.

Take what you want, pay as you feel,

Take what you want and pay for it,

the cheapest price isn’t always the best deal.

Working hard on a relative rhyme but not

to avail, it reketh nought, recapitulation

rifts the plane of a Devon Hedge cut

through red clay in the gloaming. Might

I wind down this way without end? Night

trips to day to night, didn’t bring a light,

held in unearthly earth and a final end

in a map misread & the wrong campsite.

Reservoirs link up the valley in a chain

of latency, reserves held & released to spend

the sluice down concrete chutes shut

and opened, opened and shut, life

adjacent to its sustaining. I would fain,

for just one drop, drink the negative lake

in the gathering dusk, an image of itself

in the roomy dark …

But supply demands slake

of slack demand. O supple subtle saucy

resource how do we salsa where do we get

our: raw meat on my hands: but where to cut?

Published: January 2017
Dan Eltringham

is a poet, academic and editor. His poetry and translations have appeared in journals including Colorado Review, E-Ratio, Datableed, Blackbox Manifold, The Goose, The Clearing and Intercapillary Space. His first collection, Cairn Almanac, will be published by Hesterglock Press in the Spring of 2017. He co-edits Girasol Press and co-runs Electric Arc Furnace, a new poetry readings series in Sheffield.

An Australian and international
journal of ecopoetry and ecopoetics.

Plumwood Mountain Journal is created on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to elders past, present and future. We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the lands this journal reaches.

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