Ceremony
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
//
arrival //
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
as they
have deliberated best
about their own things (oikeios)
// 231α
ὡς ἂν ἄριστα περὶ τῶν οἰκείων βουλεύσαιντο
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
for not by force but willingly
// 231α
οὐ γὰρ ὑπ᾽ ἀνάγκης ἀλλ᾽ ἑκόντες
//
upon reflection this poem was influenced by a question received via email, “how did you come to learn Ancient Greek?”
malefactions; or, postcard with a friendly beach dog
for days i don’t approach the horn of the cove
where the current sucks and turns uneasily
and i am aware of the guardian boulders
volcanic black sea-knuckled beings slippery
with skins of algal velvet green like anti-grip
until i walk accompanied one slack-tide dim
and under cover before dawn as she appears
and recognizes me through all these years
as she has walked with me uncounted times
the dog perceives exactly why i’m here
and reclines to wait for me as grains of sand
embed unevenly in her salted soot-brown fur
she follows me though i don’t know her name
until we reach the mountains wine-darkened toes
i navigate those with my hands and feet
and we watch them goldened by the rising sun
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
but for these
there is no time
in which it is fitting
to change their mind (meta-gignoskein)
// 231α
τοῖς δὲ οὐκ ἔστι χρόνος ἐν ᾧ μεταγνῶναι προσήκει
//
benefactions
a fisherman who found me shells
washed down and rendered by the waves
smooth spirals left in porcelain
for a necklace or an earring
so kept a pocketful of noise
if tidal softened infant teeth
could spell desires holy whorl
salt-milk of wantless memory
the emptied armors of the sea
the genius of her hollowed hand
would ornament my human face
with the ancient allure of regret
//
🌖
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)
around (peri)
my acts (pragmata)
you know (epistamai)
and as i practice (nomizein)
to bring 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
to miss-happen (a-tuchein)
through this
that i do not happen (ouk tugchanein)
to be being (on)
your lover (erastes)
//
//
banded sea krait or
the great cartographer
general administer of
these
//
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