Ceremony
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
//
🌔
thremmata
corpse pose again, is it for real this time, as i
down to the underworld for Hades lower table
descend, the darker cloud of somebodys forever
to a banquet feast of charred fat strewn with ashes
i sit before the offering of my own left shin
my tender bone is bowing its familiar flaw
my meat is dripping ratios from the burning violin
i eat it all, although my name is not Issa
as eat the dead, by whispers, one million and seven
then i look down to find beast-legs with chestnut hair
my knuckled shanks uncrossed, my hooves are lightning-cloven
my kept creature walks on two or four, tall-horned
whose crescent shavings will be ground into the rock
whose name is leaving many by the blade of one
//
and the rod
Black Ajax bitter on my left
Red Ajax blooded on my right
grim speechless my bronze-armored kin
by serpent held Asclepian
//
Socrates: (cont.) so you, stretching out speeches (logos) before me in scrolls (biblion), appear ready to lead me around (periagein) all of Attica and wherever else you wish
// 230δ
σὺ ἐμοὶ λόγους οὕτω προτείνων ἐν βιβλίοις τήν τε Ἀττικὴν φαίνῃ περιάξειν ἅπασαν καὶ ὅποι ἂν ἄλλοσε βούλῃ
//
treating emoi (to/for/by me) as a dative of agent makes possible an alternate translation -
so you, stretching out speeches by me in scrolls, appear ready to bring me around all of Attica and wherever else you wish
//
yesterday i translated thremmata as goats; but it could mean any kind of kept animal, including human slaves
a-courting, or the word used here
we mampir with Blih at the house of his girlfriend
to meet her mother, by his side, the maskmaker and i
as family representatives or peopled containers
my labels are to smile and nod with genuine interest
to follow the conversation, for extra credit
to support Blih, we drive him there and back
to eat and drink what we are given, to stay as long as it goes
to coach him in the car, to ease his nerves broaching
the sensitive topics, to approve, one step of many
both already divorced, he’s two years older than us
she is a few years younger, expressive, at ease
a tempering of his toughened wants and weathers
just to us he mentions, maybe a baby; pretends
not to be enchanted by a computer-generated mockup
//
🌓
feelings //
Socrates: (cont.) you however seem to me to have found the drug (pharmakon) of my exodus
// 230δ
σὺ μέντοι δοκεῖς μοι τῆς ἐμῆς ἐξόδου τὸ φάρμακον ηὑρηκέναι
//