Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
(the best)
instead of reputation (doxa)
from humans
(go with)
// 232α
(τὸ βέλτιστον) ἀντὶ τῆς δόξης τῆς παρὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων (αἱρεῖσθαι)
//
must not be stopped
i am what
too empty
too full
too sleepy
too Soren (???)
but otherwise
im your man
//
go easy on the Muslims in your life
its the last week of Ramadan
and harder than they make it look
🌘
proper fast (& thanks)
dont give your body up for nought
so reads the rhetors scroll on love
now i forgot just who it was
that stole my breath in body bound
yet i recall the lovers nought
who let me give my breath away
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
go with (aireein, mid/pass) the best
// 232α
τὸ βέλτιστον (ἀντὶ τῆς δόξης τῆς παρὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων) αἱρεῖσθαι
//
fast by you
body of grass
black earth body
body of an ask
three billion years
four billion blades
body yet new
when i lie still
fast by you
you find me
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
but those who are not loving (eran)
being stronger than themselves
// 232α
τοὺς δὲ μὴ ἐρῶντας κρείττους αὑτῶν ὄντας
//
when he said theres a body
im tryin to find
immaculate ooze
until discomforts of
deep oceanic trigger
a sighing spring
when the abyssal ooze
in-twined fecundity conceived
our dark-bodying infant
(of constant cry)
//
🌗
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
that they have not labored
for them
in vain
// 232α
ὅτι οὐκ ἄλλως αὐτοῖς πεπόνηται
//
recollection of an ask
on that fateful summer day
when we escaped the tiring city
by silly-door in set-down wall
my love — were we un-born
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
and being lovers of honor (philotimeoesthai)
would show off before all
// 232α
καὶ φιλοτιμουμένους ἐπιδείκνυσθαι πρὸς ἅπαντας
//
in just the time
i sleep in a living bed
its not clean but keeps me fed
its a cradle for my head
while i wait the one i wed
i sleep in a shady tree
i love rumors of the sea
i refuse the military
i know you will come for me
i sleep in the bed you made
im headstrong but im afraid
a face could change or be remade
in just the time i was asleep
i sleep under miles of ice
drill the oil melt the dice
i sleep in a grain of rice
for my heart you paid a price
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
would be stirred up (epairein) by it
to speak
// 232α
ἐπαρθῆναι τῷ λέγειν
//
date night and an opened fast
the bistro grows further away with every date
the one at the end of the island where we go
to visit our phantom habit for public hunger
your eyes say its not fair to look with my pit
but the opened fast maneuvers greed into survival
so we chew but cannot swallow what we see
is this then what judgment is my lips will ask
this polyester napkin and those contactless faces
our eyes held hands fed body before what future
you drive us home in the twisting dark as i nod off
the headlights reflected in dogs eyes like coins
as the unfed guard the way by broken asphalt
we arrive and flavor seems to have returned
we bite a grey macaron speckled with black sesame
seeds soft as the crack at the back of a cradled head
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
its likely that lovers (eran)
supposing others
to be jealous (zeloein)
even as they are (jealous) of others
// 231ε
εἰκός ἐστι τοὺς μὲν ἐρῶντας οὕτως ἂν οἰομένους καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν ἄλλων ζηλοῦσθαι ὥσπερ αὐτοὺς ὑφ᾽ αὑτῶν
//
golden ooze
i did not know until i tasted your honey
it made me ache to feel everything you did
it made me stutter to say nothing but grace
when the belief took me for one moment
that your spun-gold had been made for me
it made me forget myself inside myself
was i the honey in your cell
your glass jar of honey or a thought
in the stomach of a honeybee
the sweet up-welling had dripped everywhere
i wept to taste it over everything until
the sky set me down in tethers and drizzles
//
miel japonais
i cannot lie the bit plum
is perhaps uncomfortable
yet her blossoms are close-pure
sour soft easy undressing-me cool
her love-notes strewn across the floor
like slipped-off shoulders of honed wood
light anarchy my never lonely reason
to lend her tart my sweet-tipsy vibe
(i inhale)
these golden hints of spring
seems so promising
//
hungry
4
a japanese jazz record
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
and if you fear
the set-down law
(ton nomon ton kathestekota)
lest by humans hearing of it
reproach (oneidos) for you
is produced (gignomai)
// 231ε
εἰ τοίνυν τὸν νόμον τὸν καθεστηκότα δέδοικας
μὴ πυθομένων τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὄνειδός σοι γένηται
//
original ooze
this nights business
sheer sky-falls of memory
your willful ooze is
teasing my soles your
frothy ooze my
salt-bedded indiscretion
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
so that there is much more hope
among the many
of there happening to be
one worthy of your friendship (philia)
// 231δ
ὥστε πολὺ πλείων ἐλπὶς ἐν τοῖς πολλοῖς ὄντα τυχεῖν τὸν ἄξιον τῆς σῆς φιλίας
//
lipsblum and parfum ooze
the cherries fell and placed their fingerprints
between my feet like small mouths of a month
of its here its a bloody wee well of a red whale
her fluke-petals strewn long the grey and white tile
and smudge of a moth in the blossoms to clear
but im always her hem and im on the sore brink
of love with the let-jet and inky-bruise style of it
like my pussy would write her own un-willing book
would underwear-stain me an avant-garde blotch
of enfant terrible for primordial brood
elsewhere wind-egg dramatic and lithe acrobatic
some brown-wise residuum to raging en rouge
sex-flowing battle and kiss-knowing cramp
my blew-brewing worm of verbage vole-damp
a crescendo howled in my bowling-ball clamp
and how you offered to switch off the lamp
so i wouldnt need to move at all
so i lie lust-fallow-unfastened at last for now
and i shower near the violet melati that you grow
with slugs softly tucked in a wet toilet paper roll
//
🌖
//
after
the easy way out
saucy
like a bruise
cherry
&c
& the maskmaker
who called lip balm that
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
whereas if from the others
(you wanted to take
the one) most fitting (epitedeios) for you
(your selection would be) from many
// 231δ
εἰ δ᾽ ἐκ τῶν ἄλλων τὸν σαυτῷ ἐπιτηδειότατον ἐκ πολλῶν
//
fast flight
in the smudged aftermath of a hijacked plane
a bird sits in wonder
at the swift
heart
after so fast years
her beat so hard believing in
so locked in by the loaded spring
like a poem punched out through the windowpane
//