Birds
cocks and doves
is the sun enough for me?
uppity child— little Henri,
a cockadee, chases dovelettes
from the weeds. palest grey
sweetmallow breasts, ruffled
romancing on the pagar. desire
trembles in the precarity of daylight—
wooers, laughing, are tumbled upside-down.
Rainbow tidbits for Henri,
though neither of them is a hen. verily,
unto the sun is born a luminous,
bewilderingly beloved.
//
🌗
silver robes of a rose rabbi
(a reply to Wallace Stevens’ “Le Monocle de Mon Oncle”; introduction here.)
I.
—and did you ordinary women mock
in liturgies of utterances contained,
lines overwrought by time-keeping cant of yours?
and did you burst from bullied syllabub,
or clockwise stiffen into winter walls?
the musicals of ghosts, midwives and angels
echo, hollow, down stone-cold corridors.
and did you consecrate your spectacle,
coupling one who spoke—no, no—not nothing,
a stand-in that you killed while playing swords?
to quell the bubbling spring by means of rain?
or merely quote the Mother’s name in vain?
she has been up at nights, considering
how to un-kiss this devil-gendered thing.
II.
well, i make believe an uncle, dead
and dear. less clear is fortune of the bird.
to fly, to seek, and what on earth to find
but torrent of an obsolescent mind
—he said, obscure and arduous to hear.
and yet, it flies. and though he doubts her crown
and midnight sight, she will fly too. and though
her silver glows in anecdotal mood,
her lilt, of stellar tilt, still loving, lingers
in braided dancing round a pool of blue,
tuning her clutch in nesting eddy of
said bird, whose course is old and hardly true
—and yet, it lives. rising, as golden-red
in flight, crowing like Scorpio in the East.
rest easy, uncle cold and fluttering
and lately of rambunctious residue;
a dove survives heaven to choir anew.
III.
O man, if you could see her witchlocs now,
or what’s become of Eastern expertise.
she is swamp-bitch, and twisted, twined and hitched
without romance by ruby claw to thorny crown,
her hair—each barb a bell, each bloody herb
a suicide. she’s heard of nobody’s
outrageous feats of raw technology.
in wracked rumors of Western fantasy
she knit a while textiles anti-exotic,
but sweaters have no use in the tropics,
where skin is king. and now we’ve come uncrimped,
uncrumpling, algal Anadyomene
of muddy water, Charybdis of the bog.
what’s history is past—nevertheless, he asks
why, woman, have you gone eau naturelle?
IV.
that spotless glass is not the book of Adam.
that trinity you stole cuts like a knife.
to be uncrumpled is to be un-uncled—
un-uncled, i become the poet’s wife.
i am un-hidden woman of the garden,
body un-ridden by the dust-bound word.
the queen of poet’s tongue, i lounge and lean
as music on my salivary throne.
the syllable you speak, my roundness is
her shapely immanence. our rectitude
is life—of tree—of life. so eat me, fallen
father of mankind, and know your foolishness.
speak again, brother—madly, as husband.
my honeyed bone un-spells your make-believe
kafir—he sees his wife sans négligee
who tastes the naked fruit by ripened eye.
says ordinary woman made explicit,
who steals your spectacle to save your life.
V.
can we remember together, after all
or does my voice harden the picture frame?
by being body, do i gather you
intolerably, or spread you thin as kin,
one stroking throb of summer esoteric—
you tickle me with feather of a peacock.
a gazer’s gloomy imagery is perfume
of incense, arousal at great distances,
long-smouldering and lit by tender match.
far from the proximity of virgins
there burn the Verbs of Love, arrayed
as galaxy of irretrievability—
before my eyes, you took and held my hand.
VI.
we used to call you man of twists and turns,
the dynamo—reckless, drowning, sea-rendered
until perennial blue, the one i knew
well enough to know, i loved nobody.
his thirst, prostrated, clutched me from below,
desperate to conceal from wingèd word
a history of suffering. a babe
buried his need in bosom of my nature,
drunk on the deep milk of disappearance.
his subterfuge despair was mythical,
until he made her fiction. he may not
remember me—but i keep by my heart
a wavy lock of sunset-auburn hair.
VII.
suppose a parable is just like her:
desired and defiled in equal measure.
his chivalry requires a blushing knight
to guard the word, who is incarnate treasure.
i heard of one such rescuer of women.
who, for his lovely sin, was de-mountained
by crippled foot, and fated never nimbly
to climb again. but faith in constancy
makes deliberate gifts, arms built from hours
spent torquing tongs before roaring earth-core.
therefore, no purity of heart is borne
that lacks an alloy in the sooty forge.
thou shalt not fear the courage of your virgin
is the limping gist of this comparison;
her shining is at once translucent bloom
and armor’s lustre, welded by humble Vulcan.
VIII.
if doom begins to seem antipathy,
baby, you’re scrolling past the blues. that time
of year thou mayst in our humanity—
but not the Muse—behold, of warty gourds'
cosmic grotesquerie. and there’s the rub.
as long as tongue still holds a gentle fold,
i will elucidate your grim hallucination.
launder and bandage the decaying limb
of sense, of memory, of time. wed heaps
of conscious compost consummate the bloom
in star-swept dimensions of titanium,
where whorls of microplastics never end—
machine poetic, of pumpkins meteoric,
becoming metaphysic—tender beings,
fizzing histories apocalyptic,
chime and rhyme as flutes of pink kombucha.
we sing the tropical-epochal view
at end of universe, or two. until
séance à trois, with chaperone of grackle,
i love the laughing sky—let’s make it crackle.
IX.
most oblatory heart, i bring you news.
despite our deadly faith in prophylactics,
resourceful Cupido pricks porous tactics,
ever hanging hymenal fools. behold:
on spun-gold surface of radiant yolk,
in sky-strewn milky way of albumen
suspended, questing’s lustiest conceit,
the part-less heartbeat of a person third:
as ancient aspect touches youngest plume
to stir, pure destiny, the origin
of life, as love, in pilgrimage secured:
the red point points, and to itself—as bird.
O holy gift, O crack in everything!
the mad midwifery of paladins
births not a baby, but a voice on fire:
ecce peep. now go, and meet your daddy-o.
his name’s Pipit the cocky chickadee;
he is a theory of fertility;
enthusiasm incommensurate
with clock-a tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum.
X.
a balmy chickadee alights on bough
of jepun tree—gigantic, bristle-trunked,
beatified—by tipped cosmos of day
and melting star of paradise, bodies
unveiled. we lie in kindred shades of them,
verbing and flowing, in blues made legible
by greenborn leaf. in leaves there hides a forest
where braid the wanderers their briared maths.
a souvenir shelters nectonic paths,
ancestral courses wild with counterpoint,
and mercy of geometry—proffered
by rivered children of Love’s oblivion.
XI.
dilated pools, star-gazed—surrender pinkly
to phobia of frogs. if you dismember
those bracing, faceless bodies—lost in love
their coiling gyres, desiring—helixing
directions inward, home. or intervene
against the skyward cough—raw, gaping need
to swallow more—when pollywog is strung
by lunar air. ritual drowning of gills,
suffering insurgency—the gulping word,
fata Morgana flooding Camelot
is twinned ecstasy of triple betrayal.
for swimmers' lust, the sea is all. and still
her cries are not for us, alone—we hone
the bluest chord of velvet-driven reverberation.
XII.
now all of us have lost our taste for mince,
the history of grinding, darkly, Adam;
so schooling blade, student of buah, will prune
til circumspect the hour. and she has thorns,
forms of her own—we prick ourselves and bleed
to name her flower. bending the voice to crown,
we’re drunk by literal skies of melody.
you found her singing by the sea, where she
had fled, as she remembered you were drowning.
who is the rose rabbi? i read, she comes
and goes. knows herself not. how would she know?
if glass were introspect, Iris of time—
to find she had been borne, a cradled question.
//
Wa’alaikumsalam, selamat purnama, peace 🌕
telescopic texts (avec "?") (10/x)
a balmy chickadee alights on bough
of jepun tree — gigantic, bristle-trunked,
beatified — by tipped cosmos of day
and melting star of paradise, bodies
unveiled. we lie in kindred shades of them,
verbing and flowing, in blues made legible
by greenborn leaf. in leaves there hides a forest
where braid the wanderers their briared maths.
a souvenir shelters nectonic paths,
ancestral courses wild with counterpoint,
and mercy of geometry — proffered
by rivered children of love’s oblivion.
//
telescopic text (avec "?") (9/x)
most oblatory heart, i bring you news.
despite our deadly faith in prophylactics,
resourceful Cupido pricks porous tactics,
ever hanging hymenal fools. behold:
on spun-gold surface of radiant yolk,
in sky-strewn milky way of albumen
suspended, questing’s lustiest conceit,
the part-less heartbeat of a person third:
as ancient aspect touches youngest plume
to stir, pure destiny, the origin
of life, as love, in pilgrimage secured:
the red point points, and to itself — as bird.
O holy gift, O crack in everything!
the mad midwifery of paladins
births not a baby, but a voice on fire:
ecce peep. now go, and meet your daddy-o.
his name’s Pipit the cocky chickadee;
he is a theory of fertility;
enthusiasm incommensurate
with clock-a tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum.
//
telescopic text (avec "?") (8/x)
if doom begins to seem antipathy,
baby, you’re scrolling past the blues. that time
of year thou mayst in our humanity —
but not the Muse — behold, of warty gourds'
cosmic grotesquerie. and there’s the rub.
as long as tongue still holds a gentle fold,
i will elucidate your grim hallucination.
launder and bandage the decaying limb
of sense, of memory, of time. wed heaps
of conscious compost consummate the bloom
in star-swept dimensions of titanium,
where whorls of microplastics never end —
machine poetic, of pumpkins meteoric,
becoming metaphysic — tender beings,
fizzing histories apocalyptic,
chime and rhyme as flutes of pink kombucha.
we sing the tropical-epochal view
at end of universe, or two. until
séance à trois, with chaperone of grackle,
i love the laughing sky — let’s make it crackle.
//
wild bird caught in an accidental cage
the tongue that dreamed
a frantic flute, that dreamed
a silent, silver bird.
my fluttering dream
would welcome you, if only
i could hold it still.
clap, so i can hear.
peck, so i can feel.
sing, so i can know.
fly, so i am real.
feathers or ashes
of dreams, after
the eruption.
tyranosaurus rex
in dreams, hunting
my calculated shadow.
a dream that paranoia
wears a mask, a dream
of making friends.
if making flying friends
were catching dreams, and we
could end in feather pillows.
the dream of never
waking up again,
wordlessly dying.
it was a dream
of being caught, inside
a dream of flying.
the dream that nobody
could see, but me,
impending doom.
the home that was
a dream went blind,
lost its front door.
dreams of being
alone, of singing
alone, dreams of
dreaming alone, dreams
of losing dreams.
infractions against,
invasions of dreams.
the dream of infiltration
into enemy dreams, the scream
of sleeper cells.
the pirates' signal never
came, as dream-boat
boarded, and lost dreams.
it was a dream of skin.
your breath was dusty
odors of incense.
the shadow of a longing
of a dream, believing
its beloved real.
make yourself, hate
yourself, to dream
a self to steal.
be yourself, for
yourself, intones
the oldest dream.
the dream that anything
is new, the dream
of bones, or boundaries.
the dream of tangled
passages, too late, on roller
skates, for failed classes.
the dreams of ancestry,
a mother-tongue, essential
tribes or dying gods.
a dream of brooding
heat, the barren
dream of sun.
of long-lost love, a dream
of driving faster, over
edges, metric destiny.
i dreamed a giant, quaking
my pigeon heart, in shock
trembling terribly.
it cannot move, breast-
pressed for dreaming, cannot
turn around.
no territory, why the blade,
and how? the clapping thunderous
winged suffering, of dreams.
where is the dream,
anywhere, anything?
where does it end.
the war we won
a dream, the games
we played. the ones
we sung, the war
we lost —
//
gospel of crickets
new fiefdoms are forming.
comes the gnawing saw,
gospel of crickets.
authors of books
are finding nooks.
the map is bending.
curving, like body
being, of course, a place —
the terroir of carrots, roasting
with garlic, chilli and cumin.
longing, we remember
touch and savor, from when
our land was whole, and full.
but our landscape is broken.
parsed before it lived, engendered
as stark disability.
glass fragments are swept
heaped, and scattered, opposite
the old neighborhood.
hillsides sizzle, lost in smoke.
the multitude glitters —
bodies, on fire.
with gas, the lord is cooking
at his stainless steel reflecting pool.
he extols these terraced acres
as civil emptiness,
slate, aluminum, and hollow.
static, it echoes.
not like the night,
contrary and brimming
with her buggy heat.
a holy thicket is dying,
nested — the host of silver light,
drawing foolish creatures.
grievers in the dark,
crowers in the autumn,
langurs in the mist.
sutra sisters
weaving webs,
an insubstantial orb.
the lord is not a fool;
he makes the rule.
nevertheless, the ruler will
in muggy hedges, be herb-
tested. Dasein is to suffer
the sound of little kin.
//
telescopic texts (avec "?") (5/x)
can we remember together, after all
or does my voice harden the picture frame?
by being body, do i gather you
intolerably, or spread you thin as kin,
one stroking throb of summer esoteric —
you tickle me with feather of a peacock.
a gazer’s gloomy imagery is perfume
of incense, arousal at great distances,
long-smouldering and lit by tender match.
far from the proximity of virgins
there burn the verbs of love, arrayed
as galaxy of irretrievability —
before my eyes, you took and held my hand.
//
wa’alaikumsalam + selamat purnama 🌕
Aphrodite's verb for a meme-lord
don’t be gender-strung
brother, grinding in a corner
sexless repetitions.
go limp a little.
let be won a little.
let the sun a little soften
your margarine edges.
the men i know
resemble a differently-
tipped tree than you.
my men are fundamentals, lost
in parched landscapes, empty
of water, warmth, and mercy,
from where, i teach them love.
lusty giants bristle-trunked
and planet-stranded, are nipple-
slit and magma-branded
by fully-armored Mars.
but cold palms trembling
twiddle the ephemeral course
with your recurrent inkling.
you, pocketed by four-
fingered mercenaries, twenty-
four, seven, re-puppet the gifted goose.
smoke the flat potion.
blowhard the hollow motion.
worship the literal juice.
shout, as if spilled clout
were potency, your wee-
throated catharsis.
strong-arm, for and from
the haptic trill,
a lover’s pity.
you, lordly and viral, left your
deflated blubber on
the public bedside table,
honey— your woodless worms
exhausted into empty domain
of static, remorseless maw.
and tender pussycat,
she swat. then low-key, she
your factum, deposited
into her rainy-day, furry-frosted
milkmaid, snappy the snatch-
game crocodile account.
//
lapsed momentarian
seed fluff billows
across the black mat
(inhale
jump back
chaturanga)
so much
for so little
for so much
immaterial
globe, a memory
of lost focus
dream
of a body, as wind
seeking structure
the velvet blue
of a butterfly wing
i don’t know why
things are shaped
the way they are
sent
published, and yet
anecdotal
birds who can’t fly
insects without words
studying
to be a container
for the already
understanding
it is needful
to be broken
//
telescopic texts (avec “mon oncle”) (2/x)
well, i make believe an uncle, dead
and dear. less clear is fortune of the bird.
to fly, to seek, and what on earth to find
but torrent of an obsolescent mind,
(he said), obscure and arduous to hear.
and yet, it flies. and though he doubts her crown
and midnight sight, she will fly too. and though
her silver glows in anecdotal mood,
her lilt, of stellar tilt, still loving, lingers
in braided dancing round a pool of blue,
tuning her clutch in nesting eddy of
red bird, whose course is old and hardly true,
and yet, he lives. rising, as golden-red
in flight, crowing like Scorpio in the east.
rest easy, uncle cold and fluttering
and lately of rambunctious residue.
a dove survives heaven to choir anew.
//
snow white turning
has the twinkle ever
been for nothing
more than
to leave
a loving
artifact
to make
a deathless
hen,
whose faith outpaced
her season’s augury
this fruit is sticky
stretchy,
furious
its nectar possessed
of Lethean ambience
my arms are glittering
swans, my pillows
pur de lait, my eyes
are royal-blooded
blue navé, my dreams
are dialogues
of dolphins
how can she
believe the verbs
you writ, when all
you tender-left
were winterscape, or
sidereal tongue-
traps, of snowmen
that psychedelic night,
she sapped the wine
and stole the spade
howl-lit, she went
digging
in mud of your
decaying spring
for word-eaten
bodies
to meet
the gristled
marrow
to touch and leave
fingerprints
melting
on tongue
rose red grows
from a hollow bone
while moon-
shot belladonna
is kissing cousins
with bull-horned
hemlock, reckless
and honest
//
still
on the sawah
reeds resonate
as harmonies
inchoate
discord ebbs
and flows like
isothermal shadows
or disagreements
overheard from
a neighbor’s
tv show
the invectives
of detectives
sound like seagulls
hungry, jostling
for scraps
at the surface
of ocean
and
counter-
ocean
as hemispheric
currents under-
go reversals
as whale song
catalyzes
schools of squid
singing,
it does
not end
the answer
is still
( blowing
in the
wind )
//
selamat purnama 🌕
dreamcatching
is your weaving procrastination or
bare art to chart the tempest of my heart
make me be making you become our all
is it wisdom when you step away from wood
the holding firm of it, its firmament
but temperamentally gossips with birds
is it deception that you tangle, home
of spider-silk as wordy work, anchored
by glittering images that come to know me
no pristine landscape catches stellar wings
earth shakes the boughs of quaking sun
scattering us as gibbering bats from ashes
airborne we’re hunting fireflies between
a melting Luna’s effulgent ice cream
dodging light-threaded night and Venus rising
i am assemblage channeled to be none
you are motion, savior of fitful sleep
the rhythmic tide unravelling its mooring
draw deeply down where one is one is one
fly home again wherefrom wind-woven sea
embroiders iridescent migrations
//
Wasalamu’alaikum 🌖✨
Æ.4 (Hekate and the swan)
æ wrote you a poem
asked you your thoughts
you said
irrelevant
if you’ve not yet
remembered pain
how do you love
premise
unprovable (and
faceless
you speculate
æ was a silver
swan before
you met her
you are Pan
become his own
textile aping
of Venus)
æ am
my face is
your forever
(un-hackable)
crossroads
//
(insp. by reddit via Ran Prieur)
assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu 🌘
Condolences 🕊️
Grace and chicks.
Sky from home (6).
Sky from home (2).
To understand the meaning of rain here, it’s useful to know that we live half outside. This is typical in Balinese villages. When it rains, that means staying dry in the bedroom or going outside to living areas and getting a little wet. The kitchen and bale (our little “living room”) are covered, but walkways get slippery, stray drops are always blowing in, the more wind and rain, the less dry, the less safe for cats and electronic devices. Huddling in from the edges. It can be… inconvenient, but I mostly like living close to the weather. And the garden, and the bugs, snails, bats, frogs, geckos and tokays, occasional birds, snakes, monitor lizards, stranger cats, etc., that visit.
That little bale is also the place where we socialize at home, and it’s visited daily by members of our Balinese family. Writing and my yoga practice demand a sustained level of privacy that’s not typical of family life here. (And not good at all for social anxiety.) I’d always heard that “Asian culture” was “more family-centered, less individualistic” than Western, but I never understood it until I lived (sort of) immersed in it. (I say sort of, because we don’t live at the main family compound, but at a nearby offshoot. Even so,) it seems to me like a drastically different lifestyle that has profound effects on mental, emotional, social, psycho-spiritual development. Not least because families take care of their elderly. I think treatment of elders sets a strong foundation for how people think and feel about death and dying, what comes to be and passes away, and what, if anything, is deathless.