Helena at the mirror

i want 2 read Aristotle
with u
in private
in Greek

i want 2 show u every word
i want us 2 go slow and thorough
i want 2 find the perfect way
words right thru until tomorrow

first the physics, then the ones
that come after the ones on physics
parts of animals before poetics
the lost books of poetics, too

O beloved flood of words
can we read clock-
wise and counter-
at once?

πολλαχῶς λέγεται τὸ ὄν

and don’t f—k it up

back in her bones, an animal holds
or is held by or stretched by
or broken or taken or raped by
or mended by the word

dismembering that ended carcass
and read like knives the one-way road
apart, a mince of sentences
by university of butchers

by that unkind yet counting world
where have they tipped the ante yet
i tremble to look at it
switching tabs to the deadly news

so walking the ramparts; yes, and
the corpses i see, or telegraphic
trick, the Sphinx’s vexing prize
that riddle i still can’t remember

and would we take up arms
against the legendary walls
of Troy, discrete infinities
by logic of desire

by Tyndarean oath
soulquaking fear
kinsplitting lust
or unendurable rage

and would we, trembling
turn the word around our grief
with blinded eyes, who work
the catastrophes of love

and who was she, her silk slippers
silent across the golden floor
the guarded pit of destined apple
lily white eye of the bloody storm

her syllables locked in a jewelry box
the whole word, world-ending woman
wordsmith of disinterested tools
worldsmith of sterile fiction

if she could only work it through
her desperate clarity for water
self remembering un-working war
a verb for herself wrung clean

but how she loved and if she did
then would she trust herself by daylight
and could she stand a beautiful nude
Helena at the mirror

and would we return true again
victorious from Troy
unbent, discrete infinities
by logic of desire

by twists and turns
by Hades passage
in our angry season
and Agamemnon, dead

and would we, trembling
turn the word around marriage bed
with blinded eyes, who work
the catastrophes of love

our organism element
our weaving waiting whom to see
low past the meadow, nettling
the rising and setting sun

the leaves are falling as you love
to be making music until sleep
from infant inhalation through
a rousing breath of song

these outward limbs are turning one
and inward twelve again, like pain
as stirring deep the earthy cauldron
bedroom of a virgin dream

and see the carp still strumming nerve
around the liquid shield for her
a flaming champion of rest
in the rolling river sphere

i want 2 b the brilliant word
with u
in the grove
approaching evening

she measures limbs of me by bird
my tragedy like comedy
she murders for imperfect love
and laughing plays me gently dead

as floating messengers of grass
deliver specks of sparkling pollen
to flutter nymphian hurricanes
and suckle clumsy in the flowers

do u know her now; of cursed word
flown round, pre-history again
swan daughter shining, self less law
of no returns, like poetry

ὦ φίλε Φαῖδρε, ποῖ δὴ καὶ πόθεν;

u b her lover 2

don’t b mad
at my posterior
analytics 4 u

hills of empties
not 2 much
& watch it thru

selamat hari raya Kuningan🌾