Landing Practice 03
2nd April 2025
Monthly Newsletter (The First Wednesday)
Down To The Stalk
By Sá Shellard
‘Crude Beauty, not mine perhaps
and too much mine
like a flashing sword one day
you wounded me in my adolescent sleep,
I kept you within to let me sleep no more.’
(‘Garden’ by Sergio Solmi)
God spoke through the drains when he beckoned the bed of white tulle.
Born crown-first to a littered soil, the civic bride is an industrious flower.
Bound to a life of corporeal veneration, she’ll soon be chewed down to the stalk.
March is impossible to outrun—believe me, I’ve tried—but beneath the mounts of fag-butt confetti and serpentine, spring’s newborn polyps are teething, gnawing at the cord.
The earth wants to engulf me, and as I run my fingers through her swollen navel, I consult with her lamentations. I know that it hurts—it hurts me too.
Surging buds tear at my sutures. At 29, I am unable to stop the bleeding. Maybe things would have been different if I hadn’t been dethorned seasons past—maybe I would’ve been handled with better care.
Those who suffer from root damage can hear the earth crying without ever needing to put an ear to the ground.
I used to think Beauty was destructive. Now that I am enshrouded by the inner faces of bruising buds, I am thankful for the protection.
Beauty is hard at work, concealing our exit wounds, and here I am, contending with those who dare to slander her name.
With Love, Sá
March Gatherings
Album: La Llorona - Lhasa de Sela (1997)
Mix: Como La Flor - Musica De Solidaridad w Jazmin + Tasnim 12th February 2024 | Listen on NTS
Film: Phantom Threads (2018) - Paul Thomas Anderson, The Girl in the Needle - Magnus Von Horn (2025)
Book: Água Viva - Clarisse Lispector (1973), l, Kaddish and Other Poems Allen Ginsberg (1953)
Literary References: Archivio Bollettino Periodico del Centreo di Informazione e Documentazione Arti Visive (N2, 1994)
