Ceremony
pinkish //
in memory of Oreithyia
a pearl exposed
on the one-way road
demands a rocky throne
her tritone howling
unhinging the jewelry jaw
its hunger pretending
its hook line preclaiming
lip angled by whether
lost inseam unseemly loss
the weightlessness of stone
//
Socrates: (cont.) as if consulting (chraein) some kind of rustic (agroikos) wisdom
// 229ε
ἅτε ἀγροίκῳ τινὶ σοφίᾳ χρώμενος
//
my christmas tree
by this typical jaw
with four, six ellipses
make up arboreal
chipping ornaments
icicles of twisting glass
still if breathing
needles if leaves
it was in the drying
she would spread her wings
aroaming like memory
almost belonging
a sleeping forest
//
. . .
//
🌘
diptych oceanic amechanica
hysteriac at home
woe! i am a not altogether fortunate woman
my pocket seams with potsherds polishing
a bag of skin trailing portentous signs
and i am broken news, my sand is yellow
to find my edge, i walk into the sea
her seaweed briarpatch of gorgons birth
surrendered sky by pegasi recovery
as mermaids sing flat edges for my shanty
woe! her thanatos uncanny, even for me
the horizon roars for blessing every line
shore smashing every bauble blending shades
soft seashells made tangible the breast of ocean
and time is a tangent tracing its beloved snail
and the cradle failing of her continental tail
and she is drawing, drawing, under seasons wax
pink salty glowing in her seamless milk cocoon
woe, woe! my every mask a bending earth
reflowing throng of placeless impossibility
and desires every glance she didn’t chase yet
my marbles rolling in her depthless pocket
//
uteri
get em hot
skim cooling
like sumber bor
in 12 hrs or more
chocolate lava cake
stone melting
tropic shiver
truly your
earth dwelling
tacky decor
tasteless tasty
ova in—
ice tailor—
screaming
wicked
//
. . .
oh no!
dessert
amazing
1, 2, 3, ho!
smashing
to order
. . .
//
Socrates: (cont.) and then out flows a throng of things such as Gorgons and Pegasuses and multitudes of additional impossibilities (a-mechanos) and of such things giving birth (phuein) to placeless (a-topia) storytellings of monsters (teratologos) . . .
//
καὶ ἐπιρρεῖ δὲ ὄχλος τοιούτων Γοργόνων καὶ Πηγάσων καὶ ἄλλων ἀμηχάνων πλήθη τε καὶ ἀτοπίαι τερατολόγων τινῶν φύσεων
//
Plato coins “teratologos” from teras and logos; teras means a sign, marvel, wonder, divine sign, omen, portent, or monster. So teratologoi are words, accounts, stories, arguments, or reckonings about signs, marvels, wonders, divine signs, oments, portents, or monsters.
//
coverage //
Socrates: (cont.) for no other reason than that for him it’s necessary after this to straighten out (epanorthousthai) the form (eidos) of the Hippocentaurs, and then again that of the Chimaera,
// 229δ
κατ᾽ ἄλλο μὲν οὐδέν, ὅτι δ᾽ αὐτῷ ἀνάγκη μετὰ τοῦτο τὸ τῶν Ἱπποκενταύρων εἶδος ἐπανορθοῦσθαι, καὶ αὖθις τὸ τῆς Χιμαίρας
//
pink non eraser
under fan
ceiling
by socks or slippers
whispers inside the softest rain
disordered bee
bonnet be let out
two dimensions on a wednesday
piece of obsidian, cool in hand
her dilating pupils
her pink paper sand
clawless pawing my pencil
.;,,32wu8x
pathomistry traces oily
whiff papyral
//
catspoon
container
//
Socrates: (cont.) yet they belong to an exceedingly terrible (deinos) and laborious (epiponos) and not altogether (panu) fortunate (eutuches) man
// 229δ
ἐγὼ δέ, ὦ Φαῖδρε, ἄλλως μὲν τὰ τοιαῦτα χαρίεντα ἡγοῦμαι, λίαν δὲ δεινοῦ καὶ ἐπιπόνου καὶ οὐ πάνυ εὐτυχοῦς ἀνδρός
//
anywhere but poppies
it’s there
her pane of a window
passing passages
the passing offer to carry
ten thousand atomic lighters
black specks on a braid of challah
or liberate sweet nappers proper
a chilli-laced hotpot, shiitakis, bok choy
garlic, in the valley of compost boxes
loose her transportive reliquaries, poultices
dank delicious opacity compressed of air
silkworms for the mundane pocket
warm pillow for docket signifiers
fingertips heavy with tawny heads
inky notations with nowhere there
to fly, but into the measure, slightly high
pitched on a dry stone wall, for her
a pinkish reddish hazy third, with leaves
to breathe, past purple on the milky way
eclipse, her eyelid, her lippy friend
seamless tracing moving core
//
🌗
winter under wax & wick bottled
winter under wax
on church circle, dark december in the upstairs bar
a brass banister slides under my pink merino glove
words quiet, two or four of us at a mahogany table, hunter
green and a glass globe of spiced amber medicinal
or new years post-midnight, lit sobranie at the window
my flat over the cobalt classy resto where i worked
high-waisted and fetching wine for devil’s cash from tourists
my slanted bedroom walls still blue for my boss’s baby
alone finishing a bottle of champagne with poetry
down gazing over main street empty, marketed, icy
and lantern halo; uphill from the glossy wavering city dock
of Annapolis sleeping under the falling snow
in great hall, a baby grand conceived her toasty fingerprints
you found me there, immersive conjecture duo lingual
brought me back to your apartment, requested we tango
through leggy glasses of burgundy whether i broke a heart
doorways into sympathy revolving thresholds of regret
fellowships unbraided by such shallow recklessness
the turning years a blur between slow burns of clarity
or tether to a substance so precious it couldn’t endure
and was sanctuary sweet, i ask at the temple of winter
retasting an icicle of rarity until it self-sealed under wax
and aged like honey; when all around it had decayed
knotwork to dust, the bitterness of ashes and Egyptian sun
//
wick bottled
wax profane
waning lunar
wick bottled
yes
and i, old lady, lug down
but 61 ivories from the loteng
dear i’m sorry for these years
pyramidical procrastination
now
are they enough
for journey to Jeddah
//
lichen et alia //
Socrates: (cont.) and in this way it ended up (teleutein) said that she came to be (gignomai) carried away by Boreas
// 229ξ
καὶ οὕτω δὴ τελευτήσασαν λεχθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ Βορέου ἀνάρπαστον γεγονέναι
//
Pharmakeia’s triptych
trippy destiny
true story: in her salad bruising days
her myspace name was like a prayer, Pharmakeia
the profiled face was drawing of a death
cap mushroom; well, consistency
and every day a salad day
and every day un po’ di morte
today, when sniper scopes an urban label
the same shaded and subtle botanical
renderings pop up from top of neon heap
left truffles for her canny little pig
for snorts and tickles, yet
a fact; and do you trust it
//
what marriage
the maskmaker who daily carries her
drew sigil gold and black on brown bag paper
Al-Lateef—his soft likeness sleeping by her pillow
beloved names for her beloved way
what reck does come to find
what wreck that came to ground
as travelers witness landslides and inundations
upheavals that by eagle’s eye the aftermath
counts losses, failure, countlessness; what hand
to brush a tawny cow, her long-lashed eyes
what blinded word to see
what marriage of then and now
//
big girl
she sees, by name, the blue of heaven’s white
behind how obvious a giantess
the light, the light, it hurts to look at it
so brightly shines a lofty signature
built body born from Isis warm
and catching form her dulcet veil
some Aphrodites are, it’s said, too tall
to be from brick wall read, too high to see
by tools of masonry; how broad her arms
great fools embracing sky of marbled earth
her reckoning like reckless love
big girl logician
//
🍄
Socrates: (cont.) then i would wisely (sophein) declare that it was the wind itself of Boreas that thrust her down from the nearby rocks as she was playing with Pharmakeia
// 229ξ
εἶτα σοφιζόμενος φαίην αὐτὴν πνεῦμα Βορέου κατὰ τῶν πλησίον πετρῶν σὺν Φαρμακείᾳ παίζουσαν ὦσαι
//
Pharmakeia is not associated with a known mythological figure; her name means drug, remedy, poison, or witchcraft.
//