Ceremony
the good shit
for Petals in her present pleasure zone
she’s rolling round inside the one, the good shit
the fine, the best, ye olde Platonic shit
no hydroponic, just sanctified dank
under Sumatran sun; for snub-nosed exodus
in summers mud, her laurel wreath of sticky bud
up drug botanical by trashy magazine
like chocolate pharma-chronic feuilletine
and toke thine truffled nugget whilst ye may
my silk-eared pig for liplined valentine
today her carrot conversation hearts the play
her eats the emptiness of tools as feels divine
//
E=m11!1
//
🌒
consistere
psst — the monsters are all in evidence over here
many with their sights on you, can you not see them?
maybe they don’t wear chaos like your command
or ugliness as your specification; maybe in love
they can’t afford to show the truth; some have been known
to flatter relentlessly the passing beauty; or even
to dress up as their own negation, pretending tools
or fancy chairs or helpless little girls; and many
renouncing love or beauty altogether; but nobody
is sorry; nobody knows that everybody
is swallowed up by someone by the end; and nobody
is more monstrous than mercy, or more self-same
still; if you want it darker, we can totally kill the flame
but the poet will kill it for us in six or seven lines
//
xox
Socrates: (cont.)
now then the spaces (chorion)
and the trees
are not at all willing (ethelein)
to teach me (didaskein)
// 230δ
τὰ μὲν οὖν χωρία καὶ τὰ δένδρα οὐδέν μ᾽ ἐθέλει διδάσκειν
//
as making do
was worked exquisitely until worked out
a nagging, no-good splinter, studied bit
from the toe-ball mound of some leviathan
mere sliver; then salvaged by a maskmaker
if mountain makers last by root and bud
of artful past from a forgetful dancer
sequestered in their unearned sorrow, sung
too low and dear for an angry wound to hear
too clear for tears or dollar bills to hold
but a mask is living loss returned to wood
impossibility the daily ending felt
itself not made nor lost enough to face
so held and turned; for an ugly splinter
with yet some reservoir of mammoths blood
in love, it was an advantageous marriage
//
Socrates: (cont.) for i am a lover of learning (philomathes)
// 230δ
φιλομαθὴς γάρ εἰμι
//
Love here is philos rather than eros; philomathes (from philos + manthanein) could be either an adjective or a verb, rendering alternative translations,
for i am a lover of learning
for i am (you) love learning
like a Socratic Tetragrammaton.
This is the speech, written by Lysias, that Phaedrus is about to read; Phaedrus also references Socrates' special interest in erotics (e.g. Symposium 177d).
There’s a notable comparison between suggignoskein (to think together) and charizein (to gratify), whose meanings could somehow overlap (to agree with, to forgive, to share a feeling); whereas Socrates (lover?) asks for the first, Lysias' speech will be about the latter (for a non-lover).
The sheer amount left implicit in the conversation about love (and desire, and sexuality, as subject to persuasion, as coercion, as predatory, as abuse, in a culture of abuse, etc. etc., as experiment, as play, as care, as friendship, as sacred, as true) (and as poetry) really baffled me when i first encountered the dialogue (>25 years ago). But if Phaedrus has a unifying theme, perhaps it would be this — the power of the unspoken.
//
crossing //
Socrates: think together with me (suggignosko), O best one
// 230δ
συγγίγνωσκέ μοι, ὦ ἄριστε
//
suggignosko, from sun (together) + gignosko (to be aware of, perceive, observe, know, learn, discern, observe, judge, determine, think, know carnally, have sex with), carries a variety of implications, to think with or agree with, also to acknowledge, to confess, to make allowances for, to forgive, etc., similar to Latin conscience; many possible meanings here, intimacy implied —
think together with me
agree with me
share thoughts with me
acknowledge me
learn with me
observe with me
confess to me
share a feeling with me
understand me
recognize me
forgive me
know me
know me together
//
basically a marriage proposal
special delivery
smooth now, that rough magic
periscopic tragic midnight lookout
pale arms out arctic like an exiled
penguin into the nameless city
coping, cold, gauze in a sand storm
laron flicker in the mighty dust
a turning ember, hot
spark-caught, gold-litter
in the spider web
spanning a rattan lamp shade
my one fish, two fish
her peacock greenish-black or blue
the switch, dangling
sarcophagus
so dead; quothe the neon miracle
off-gassing meatlight; or Lalah
pink, with only enough instinct
to kill and never eat, my baby, yes;
deveining ribbons in the snow, scrubbed
scrubbing, awash in the darkroom; or
backstage, up rusty rungs, like icicles; blanket
of rags, pocket of candy-wrapped pills; she goes
like gamelan trancing crickets at the cross
by tilem, smoke of incense over the sawah
//
three to the face
behind me, in future’s terrible
mirror
covered, its darker nature with
a sparkling
coat, the snow stay unimprinted
with
my, over by a blanket of eternal
stars, turn
into a storm, a blizzard with zero
visibility, futile
were duly stomped to iridescent
dust, cold
but clear / but touch it once
twice
We count out loud. Each piece.
Every particle.
before pain has left my bed
it will not carry me away
//
🌑
//
Hyperverse is composed from hypertext fragments of other bloggers' work; follow links to read complete pieces. Praise belongs to all messengers of the heart.
//
//
Phaedrus: (cont.)
for artlessly (a-technos)
as you say
you have looked like some guided stranger (xenageein)
and not of the country (epi-chorios)
// 230ξ
ἀτεχνῶς γάρ ὃ λέγεις ξεναγουμένῳ τινὶ καὶ οὐκ ἐπιχωρίῳ ἔοικας
//
sea-blew
what left, Miranda, the wind fortuning you
a Calibaning egg of Cali-bans
or Prosper’s abjuring empire of plans
some dummy’s wife who fell under his spell
the queen of Napoli; world’s best ice cream
the rook, the knight, carved pieces curious
with subtle knife she tries the bardic seam
a memory game or seashell serious
before, before, the backward-dark sings where
for worm your daddy needling mercy for
for forward way, the swallows only way
abysm storm and how came you no mother
you won’t know how to make a baby yet
when all you were is got and get without your will
or will withal begotten grow to fill out
full figure for your fateless face, blew-eyed
//
O
ovarian //
off what now
off-white
make no inquiry
of the angel
at the stop sign
with a streetlight
glazed in the pantone
color of the year
2026
plagued
by the washing
up
of love
//
off-black
what depends
upon
a beautiful
loser
making the green
sour ringlets
moonshine
seedy
at the solemn
curfew
//
🌘
//
dadgum
farm stuff
//
Socrates: by Hera, it is a beautiful resting place
this platanos tree is hugely wide-spreading (amphilaphes) and high (uphelos); and of the chaste tree, the height and the dense shade are entirely beautiful; and as she holds on (echein) to the cusp (akme) of her full bloom, she supplies such a sweet-smelling place; and also the graceful stream is flowing under the platanos tree with exceedingly cool water, by the witness (tekmairomai) of my foot
and by the girls and the statues it seems to be the temple (hieros/hieron) for some kind of Nymphs and of Achelous; and again, if you wish, the good breath (eupnous) of the place, how sufficient (agapeton) and violently pleasurable (sphodros hedu) it is; summery and clear, it responds to the chorus of cicadas; and most subtle (kompsos) of all is the grass, that it has grown (phuein) in gently to the steep slope, sufficient to hold, for one who has laid down their head, altogether beautifully
so it has been the best stranger guide for you, O beloved Phaedrus
black earth again
black earth again, dear polyvinyl ground
my sticky firm dense heavy cell; as i ally
orthogonally wooden floorboards by
corners, lines matching lines before i begin
one week today since my last vinyasa
marks doubt, unsteady shakes from atrophy
least progress lost, the war postponed, disowned
like how to trust what grows out from under me
sunlight lemon on the grass, and cedar trees
are spirits in the haze of muscles memory
the distant greys, the vagus nerve, drishti
oh cave of susceptivity; go eyes, under skin
at distance they behold a cunning henge
never a sur disdains from calling out to me
the greening herb grows vivid on the verge
the plantar fascia curl to meet some solid life
in place, half-driven, half-reined, half-spark and half-
holding, i part, expose the seam between
the licking flame and tucking in the hem
of wilderness accounted for, enfolding or
away; my mountains weight of carbon presses light
through floss; down wayfinding impression-meshed
sensation of the sedimentary stone
by layers etching bone, wind, ocean, fire
and fury, glass gash obsidian; if you forget
the trembling earth is always giving birth
at core, the organs fluctuating sphere
the planetary pliable and fevers warmer door
no body no container without change
resistance treasures injury, the palm-press grain
desires engined ecstasy, ankle
of metaphor into the metabolic storm
a molecule descends its tap root; bowl, pelvic
electrifies the spinal flange to polarize
and draw the reins until weather turns self-strange
and tether twists, deranged; the synapse snaps
the white orbs of a nightmares rolling eyes
charred thunder muscled under the stringent seat
and faith is endless as pure body knows
who bites and remakes wretch into the mouthful
full dark full rain full speed full poetry
eleven if, and, in charges difference of the same
an arrow born mid-air is garden, regained
the static swallowed appetite of living hell
the globe interns red-ratioed rectangle
by burning every name is regrown mane
true mother, riding form as i hair-string the bow
whose shrieking womb my practice bends to tame
to time; the shadow letting tide, what, die-cut
by horizontal held; my cradle hard
harped infant of vacationing; and tempest swept
as sea refills the valley with somnambulent sanity
//