Ceremony
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
for those (erastes/lovers?)
then regret (meta-melomai)
what they may have well made (eu poiein)
whenever they cease from desire (epithumia)
// 231α
ὡς ἐκείνοις μὲν τότε μεταμέλει ὧν ἂν εὖ ποιήσωσιν ἐπειδὰν τῆς ἐπιθυμίας παύσωνται
//
poiein can mean to make or to do; so eu poiein (“well made”) may refer to good poetry or to “benefactions” (implicitly, favors or gifts from a lover).
caught //
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, so far)
about (peri)
my acts (pragmata)
you know (epistamai)
and as i practice (nomizein)
the bringing together (sumpherein)
by us
you have heard (akouein)
these (acts)
having been born (gignomai)
and (it is or i deem it) not worthy (axio)
(that) i lack (deomai) (the worth of) these
miss-happening (a-tuchein)
through this
that i do not happen (ouk tugchanein)
to be being (on)
your lover (erastes)
περὶ μὲν τῶν ἐμῶν πραγμάτων ἐπίστασαι
καὶ ὡς νομίζω συμφέρειν ἡμῖν
γενομένων τούτων ἀκήκοας
ἀξιῶ δὲ μὴ διὰ τοῦτο ἀτυχῆσαι ὧν δέομαι
ὅτι οὐκ ἐραστὴς ὤν σου τυγχάνω
wavery
as veils in stages of a jellyfish
under glassy bladder of saran-wrapped water
albumen tissue met me in a wavery voice
a bloated organ tuning waterlight
her kind of swollen onion brining into pores
pale polyps in sea-shade for layers of depth
interior velarium of blue-open cells
just cusp enough for what medusas left
ancient ephemeral bauble belle and shallow
until some lashes numbs or swells or swallows
some silken parachute wrinkles or ruffles
for letting in salinity tasting a pulse
the adolescent suffering of swollen lips
the stung puppet who pouted on that fishy face
the unrequited sag of kissing puffy pain
the burn of cross-dressing as crosses again
the magdalening of a metaphor
her sticky hooks for whatever pickled
potato fish was named the future we cradled
by our other cells like infant dates for takjil
these oral arms reach down and up into the translucent sac
a nexus of neon veins of pink drinking violet
blown iris lightning guts vermillion seams aflame
like sex or ancient theater or a peachy disco dream
one common mouth for going out and in
one ladder up and down the bodys bluing appetite
one hunger never to escape itself
one conduit of oceans endless iteration
to wake up tangled tentacles around an island
where coffee was shade-grown and golden-drifted we
ink-bled as cursive in a convoluted colony
of silvery crescents hunting on the current
where half the word was raging against chains
if we weren’t as transparent as we seemed
the rest would eat a cliché well to sing
who stings to life and floats by sea-found undulations
//
Lysias at the beach
in so deep shade those eyes
against the slivering salt
a nose by greasy telescope
for seashell circumstance
burnrise like blood under the skin
slow sting of a swollen onion
behind the slanted brim
and belly-teeth of a sunhat
a braided tongue is licking
your inner ear
//
haggis interruptus, she said!?
that dizzy Lyzzias, and oh,
yes, and
the zest
Phaedrus: (cont.)
and (it is or i deem it) not worthy (axio)
(that) i lack (deomai) (the worth of) these
to miss-happen (a-tuchein)
through this
// 230ε
ἀξιῶ δὲ μὴ διὰ τοῦτο ἀτυχῆσαι ὧν δέομαι
//
seat
by sunrise silver on the black sand beach
black coffee and the inundation
our face against the singing seat
of the full moon
a pinch of fire from the smoldering star
became the sanded mirror of our rest
as swimming shadows across her long
white glimmering dress
unbroken colors of her throne at dusk
like nascent veils of east and west
if billowing outward surfaces of sight
went inwardly freediving
//
//
then pickled chili shredded potato
leftover from dinner at long
happiness with nasi goreng
for breakfast and a second coffee
Phaedrus: (cont.)
and as i practice (nomizein)
to bring together (sumpherein)
by us
you have heard (akouein)
these (acts)
having been born (gignomai)
// 230ε
καὶ ὡς νομίζω συμφέρειν ἡμῖν γενομένων τούτων ἀκήκοας
//
sumpherein means literally to bring together; used impersonally, it can mean to be useful or advantageous
//
♥️
Phaedrus: (cont., as Lysias)
about (peri) my acts (pragmata)
you know (epistamai)
// 230ε
περὶ μὲν τῶν ἐμῶν πραγμάτων
ἐπίστασαι
//
santai di pantai
big ocean rolling here, nearby
where me and my too luminous
for my own good maskmaker
are santai, on our anniversary
purnama pulls the swelling tide
like poetry, erasing traces
the waves of endlessness reply
by silver water, silver sky; and we
like sand and salt, by speech unsifted
//
🌕
macros
dear dojo, forgive us; we thought that you were really
in training, and grasped the function of macros
which do as much account by what you don’t eat
as what you do; therefore, there would be more
protein in a couple of uneaten chickens
than in a city of discarded monkey masks
//
oopsie, Black Ajax
learned a word
//
words, okay,
my approximate cock
kept me up all night
angels coming round
and the jinn, they say
it piques
//
the first time for everything
and fear is in the river; a smile of teeth
round rocks take shape to grab your unfelt feet
and shredded heart wedged last into the smooth
surfaces slippery with algae, finger-proof
feet-first, my cool phantasm; hot to touch
my hand held your hand holding the needle
a scratch, the tow will drag me down; head-first
by virgin groove, your over and over
//
Socrates: (cont.) and you, in whatever pose (schema) you suppose is easiest to read
// 230δ
σὺ δ᾽ ἐν ὁποίῳ σχήματι οἴει ῥᾷστα ἀναγνώσεσθαι
//
schema means form, shape, figure (in dance, geometry, etc.), appearance, manner, posture (athletic, military), character, role, dress.
the word for “to read” is anagignoskein, which shares a root with suggignoskein; it means literally to know again or to recognize, i.e., to recognize the written words.
& reading is done outloud
//
tiger nest //
Socrates: (cont.) i seem to me about to lie down
// 230δ
ἐγὼ μέν μοι δοκῶ κατακείσεσθαι
//
dokein has a range of meanings (to seem, to expect, to imagine, to opine, including colloquial use with senses of seeming fitness, seemly-ness, or decided-upon-ness), permitting many translations. Here, re-iterated first-person pronouns, in the nominative (ego, which is extra performative in AG) and dative (moi) cases, fold an active-voice verb (conjugated for indicative or subjunctive mood) into a dramatized and hypothetical middle voice. The verb is doing three-ish things at once —
expressing internal seeming
gesturing approval
conditioning commitment
At the same time, the infinitive katakeisesthai (middle voice, to lie down) is in future tense, which is impossible to translate neatly into English. Here, the meaning seems less about abstract futurity and more about intention-in-formation. So the subject is watching itself decide to be on the brink of lying down. Lying down is (in turn) an embodied passivity. The speech isn’t a demonstration of self-as-self-knowledge, but something strangely analogous: a demonstration of self-as-self-seeming in its self-conditioned intention to release embodied intention.
Leaving an aphoristic original and inherently unstable translation —
i seem to me about to lie down
i pretend to me (i) will lie down
i seem seemly for me to lie down
i seem (good) to me to lie down
i opine it (fit) for me to lie down
i resolve for myself to lie down
i feel to me like lying down
methinks i shall lie down
i expect for me to lie down
i imagine myself about to lie down
i dream myself about to lie down
oopsie, i’m about to lie down
etc.
//
laron
pulse, on paper-smoke and shadowing; a word
kept embers leaping, or whittling laced attention
when the swarming cloud was passing out and in
to the conic torchlight, flint-yellow, on a smudged
and charcoal night; the humid heart grew lungs
at the carpal joint, let choirs through the rupture
soft cedar traces wrinkles into the maiden mask
of the moon; the flickering phase transfixes them
//
🌔