Ceremony

    Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)

    but to make or do (poiein)
    zealously (prothumos)
    whatever they suppose
    will gratify them (charizomai)
    when they have gone through with it (prassein)

    // 231β

    ἀλλ᾽ ἢ ποιεῖν προθύμως ὅτι ἂν αὐτοῖς οἴωνται πράξαντες χαριεῖσθαι

    //

    a snorkeling woman

    now as the horizon evened and was empty-full
    or would you say full-empty
    about the shark tank that drew swimmers bled-
    blue-traces racing orders round my head
    for me the day would gently useless be
    a yellowish sea turtle kind of day
    and an exhale left me vast and near
    down underneath my colder spine of fear

    and as what you turned pearlescent grew
    the violet dear and clearly breaking you
    the cloud-gray whisper and the frothy wave
    was toying with your tendered ankle bone
    soft undulant sea-crinkled green
    like the linen sheen across our fathers bed
    as the tinfoil sun was flashing mean
    against your pinking arms and shoulderblades

    and as the quiet-crowded gloom below
    accustomed stinging tears to witlessness
    and the broken coral sharper needling
    against your shins armorlessness
    the looser webs of mer-light gyrating
    grew grown inside and tidal-spectacled
    and the massless intervening seemed
    the famous nobody to prove you whole

    what clever lover waiting down the stream
    could hold your palace cool and fathoms deep
    when the thunder-heading planet-threading way
    of the underwater giant was floating
    your skin the crizzling rainfall of red sugar
    returned to birth a burnt and beautiful nude
    and an undertowing current shaped
    the lunar fasting of my stone-bone-home

    it was just some local princess playing strange
    along the undead continental shelf
    an honored guest or angel amongst drowned ruins
    the snowfall of those dropped and dropping teeth
    and as the horizons blueing fuller loomed
    like grief in visibility of itself
    our rounding eyes were feasted futureless
    and we grazed over the desolation of the reef

    //

    Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)

    nothing remains

    // 231β

    οὐδὲν ὑπολείπεται

    //

    photo looking out to sea hazy with a light frothy wave along the bottom of the image over broken coral and sand and smooth sea-green crinkled water surface leading up to an empty horizon near the top of the image that reflects a pale blue sky with placid white clouds

    rhymes //

    Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)

    so with such great evils
    stripped away

    // 231β

    ὥστε περιῃρημένων τοσούτων κακῶν

    //

    come up to me

    Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)

    nor (do they) place blame
    for differences with relations (prosekein)
    (through this)

    // 231β

    οὔτε τὰς πρὸς τοὺς προσήκοντας διαφορὰς αἰτιάσασθαι

    //

    inhuman allusion (where)

    in shredded shadow hums her corners beastly nerve
    end-hounding at the anklets of my wandering
    by prowling tigers milk and heat evisceral

    cuts lip to tongue amnesiacs re-hysteried word
    stalks fear in what like a magician i have bound
    blush turns like a trick pony shes ground me into

    and if there was a choice that voice has been erased
    thigh-hollows skittering rush from goose-flesh alter-flight
    laughterless laugh to pique the predatory mask

    high valleys ridges brimming overrun of rage
    down slouching bowels round rapt plum of panic like
    the sparrow silent as a fork in my ribcage

    and somewhere in this feckled wilderness her heart
    is pounding proud and naked by the rivers dark
    on the doubled drums of gods anarchic metaphor

    //

    warm to a thremma

    //

    Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)

    nor (do they) keep count (hupo-logizomai)
    of the troubles (ponos)
    that have come and gone (para-erchomai)
    (through this)

    // 231β

    οὔτε τοὺς παρεληλυθότας πόνους ὑπολογίζεσθαι

    //

    Indras net (what belongs to the familiar)

    around her head a sardine circlet
    around her foot mortality
    around her voice a glittering corset
    around her heart a memory

    she reflected on the dawnlight
    she was setting in her place
    she looked sober in the photo
    but you couldn’t see her face

    eye for eye and cell to cell
    did you knot me to be brave
    did you tie me from a shoestring
    toss my frame across the wave

    name the garnet in my cherry
    your horizon on the deep deep wine
    as i lost count of drowning
    for the promise of a rhyme

    for your blessed rage to swallow
    i was waiting at the altar
    and a pearl was burning bitter-sweet
    when i tasted your salt water

    when i saw you in the restaurant yesterday
    and you finally appeared
    Indras net was drawing closer
    Indras net was catching tears

    when you saw that i was deadly
    when you wrote my rib in two
    i was made and i was unmade
    to make better love to you

    and every lace undoing
    to find the heart of sand
    and every mark to fill the worth of a blade
    with the imprint of her hand

    and every glass was melting thunder
    to the predatory corner
    and a little death for the purities of power
    to the mountain out her window

    to the wildflowers evening color
    to the sky and sea and weather
    to the darker voice that rose
    to the horses all untethered

    she heard it was one million
    she heard one million seven
    the circle dreamed it would be easy
    the fishes knew it would be heaven

    you know my situation
    you know what keeps me here
    you know ocean is an islands final word
    and what belongs to the familiar

    //

    lyrics for conscience round
    music and idea from angles morts

    Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)

    but for the non-loving (me erosin)
    the lack of care taken (a-meleia)
    for their own things (oikeios)
    through this (eros)
    is not used as an excuse (prophasizomai)

    // 231β

    τοῖς δὲ μὴ ἐρῶσιν οὔτε τὴν τῶν οἰκείων ἀμέλειαν διὰ τοῦτο ἔστιν προφασίζεσθαι

    //

    photo of a friendly beach dog with something yellow around her neck and dog pawprints in mixed black and beige sand with warm sunlight shining from the left

    heart of sand //

    Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)

    they suppose long ago
    they have paid back the worth of the grace (charis)
    to the beloveds (eromenois, pass. part. of eran)

    // 231β

    ἡγοῦνται πάλαι τὴν ἀξίαν ἀποδεδωκέναι χάριν τοῖς ἐρωμένοις

    //

    adaddy (of lies)

    she sings full coverage seashells for sirens
    on oceans stews of roiling fatted wine
    she forks her sunset locks for nobody
    her cockled chains abreast the silvered brine

    she quacks and its a salty bouillabaisse
    a diddys rouille on croutons midnight crime
    she lays to bed adaddy of earthquakes
    her morning simmering the sky star-peppered

    //

    lemon & roses

    //

    🌘

    Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)

    and attributing (to the beloveds) what trouble they have had

    // 231α

    καὶ ὃν εἶχον πόνον προστιθέντες

    //

    what belongs to the goat (a love poem)

    i dreamed she burned her poetry about me
    made me a bonfire of the unseen i dreamed

    she shaved me off her razor-scrivened legs
    my bush sun-drowning its all good it was

    the ribboned iris of a rabbis rose
    of exodus the sandstorms seeing red

    the aftercare for summer love but god
    my creatured limbs are bristling with your fur

    //

    Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)

    furthermore the loving (erontes, part. of eran)
    examine (skopein) both

    those (things) of their own
    they have badly composed
    through love (eros)

    and those well-written

    /

    furthermore the loving (erontes, part. of eran)
    examine (skopein) both

    those (matters) of their own
    they have disposed of badly
    through love (eros)

    and the benefactions done

    // 231α

    ἔτι δὲ οἱ μὲν ἐρῶντες σκοποῦσιν ἅ τε κακῶς διέθεντο τῶν αὑτῶν διὰ τὸν ἔρωτα καὶ ἃ πεποιήκασιν εὖ

    //

    reflective animals

    like Lalah love to be caressed
    at the bathroom mirror

    bending house rules
    by nature to be made

    an impressionist chrome-
    edged rendering by glass

    to hold ecstatic images
    to chase feelings interiors

    all her enthusiasms turning out
    all her enthusiasms turning out

    //

    Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)

    toward the potential (dunamis)
    of their own
    they write well (eu poiein)

    /

    according to the ability (dunamis)
    of their own
    they do benefactions (eu poiein)

    // 231α

    πρὸς τὴν δύναμιν τὴν αὑτῶν εὖ ποιοῦσιν

    //

    photo of large dark rippled boulders at the edge of seawater, covered in green algae, with pale yellow sunlight reflecting off the surfaces of the boulders and the rippling water

    arrival //

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