Cosmos
just guessing (silly trilogia)
fool me baby kiss the dice
fool me til my work is thrice-
done and death be (tenderly) well-come
into the mess of heavens nature
(un)tangling dots of fairy light
and solemn practicing of ends
the bodys end (heartbroke) remembering
the sweeter end (lovesong) right here
the strangers end (artist) in-bending-thought
a sandwich (!) for these things are signs
of a long-time friendship of will-
being and where may-happens-wonder
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
for these things are signs (tekmeria)
of a long-time friendship (philia)
of will-being (fut. part. eimi)
// 233ξ
ταῦτα γάρ ἐστι φιλίας πολὺν χρόνον ἐσομένης τεκμήρια
ultimum addictum
O beloved one —
for now, I turn the unknown world round how i never got over You.
//
listening to
Sicut cervus
by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
when (on the other hand
it is) fortunate (eu-tucheein)
of things beside those (para ekeinon)
not worthy (axios)
of pleasure (hedone)
(love) forces (anagkazein)
praise (epainos)
to happen (tugchanein)
// 233β
εὐτυχοῦντας δὲ καὶ
τὰ μὴ ἡδονῆς ἄξια παρ᾽ ἐκείνων
ἐπαίνου ἀναγκάζει τυγχάνειν
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
and (fearing)
those who have been educated (paideuein)
that they would become (gignomai)
stronger (kreisson)
by togetherness (sunesis)
// 232ξ
τοὺς δὲ πεπαιδευμένους μὴ συνέσει κρείττους γένωνται
//
so i light a stick of the good dupa
then i explore your tender body for chora
gently gratified
i make a note for the future
the cave moment
i find myself re-enacting the moment
i place my hand palm out and fingers spread
as if to touch the limestone interior
then i pretend to take some liquid ochre in my mouth
and purse my lips and pfff — spit it
across the imaginary surface
and as i do i taste the tastelessness of mud
like the hermetic chamber of the cave
becomes a rock-womb for our trembling
then i examine my hand with its fingers spread
for any sign of change
i see that everything has changed
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
and when (as seems inevitable)
disagreement comes to be
and the mishap
in any other way
would be set down as common
to both
// 232β
καὶ ἄλλῳ μὲν τρόπῳ διαφορᾶς γενομένης κοινὴν ἂν ἀμφοτέροις καταστῆναι τὴν συμφοράν
//
selamat calendar complex
Ogoh-Ogoh for tilem today
and family calls and the gamelan calls
(seen here, here, here, here?, nsfw?)
when having constructed our demons
we carry them through the streets
and shake them and fight them
and turn them and burn them
and ooh and aah and waow
and laugh and breathe fire
and then
collapse
into
Nyepi tomorrow
no outgoing or talking
or fire or electricity
or internet
or working
or lovemaking
we let the ogoh-ogoh
believing it to be uninhabited
pass harmlessly over the island
so tomorrow will be silent
in the valley as well
no posts from me ok
then (we await
confirmation from the village
its all local time) Eid al-Fitr . . .
//
i love living where i live
never a dull moment
immersed in your genius
the gamelan starts at noon
holding my heartbeat
from the inside
//
🌑
beauty of change
i fall to fragments in the pulling of your chain
my ageing eye-bones ugly by the sea
as always drags for stunner-fish from me
speaks death my fathers pockets into poverty
futility behind me fire-dives like stars
for childrens sea-bed faces i will never see
the grieving know by undertowing force
necessity your surface that i choose to be
by breaths am i permitted in this dream
your daily judgment sheer futurity
my watch the world unmade as history
your swallowing my coin remainderless
your lie in the veil between me like a mist
your move and i miss you infinitely
//
eta - note: i came across this and wanted to clarify, in case my poem may have been part of what prompted it.
this piece was written as an attempt to work through feelings of futility, distance, and a failure of vision and expression. it was not intended as a “heroic” or “no problem” poem, or as support for war, genocide, or the justification of violence.
it is fairly common for me to discover unintended interpretations in my poems after posting. sometimes that is part of what i value about writing this way. but i also recognize that it can lead to readings i did not anticipate, especially when the subject matter brushes up against real suffering.
to be clear: i do not support genocide or war. i do not blame or hold animosity toward victims of violence. i have made personal choices in my life to distance myself from institutions and systems that do support those things.
im sorry for any harm or distress this poem may have caused. that was not my intention.
-e
prayer for puasa
the hardest thing for my puasa
and i still struggle with it
is not the hunger — i have been made
perhaps too comfortable with hunger
but its the eating again
its my takjil classic impasse
its the opening of my daily fast
and it would break me every time
my very body would refuse
my hardened lips just wouldnt soften
my sharpened teeth just wouldnt chew
my strangled throat just wouldnt swallow
so sitting parched-mouth after sunset
before my three precious dates
how angrily would i demand the cause
my why and what am i myself against
my self surrendered in survival
my self surrendered in nourishment
my self surrendered to the sunless day
my self surrendered to the slow care of the moon
and surely there remain deeper hungers
and surely colder winters to come
but Lord — please let me not refuse
your mercy when the spring appears
//
matter
the season leaves
the city leaves
the bitter ending leaves
i stay
i stay so hard
i drop my taproot
i plunge into the sphere
there was a sentence here
there was no choice in the matter
i am a matter of survival
(fasting)
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
furthermore of necessity (anagke)
many hear tell of
and see
the lovers (eran)
following the loved ones
and making (poieein) this
their work (ergon)
// 232α
ἔτι δὲ τοὺς μὲν ἐρῶντας πολλοὺς ἀνάγκη πυθέσθαι καὶ ἰδεῖν ἀκολουθοῦντας τοῖς ἐρωμένοις καὶ ἔργον τοῦτο ποιουμένους
//
fasted desire (lay me)
her demiurge reviews the urge
from which amaze tactfully de-mazed
earth-maker of my demi-glazed
eye
for sighing to be held — ready
your valley to be seen — surfaced
used witless by the restless sea
(lay me
in memory)
//
for not a place
et al.
immaculate ooze
until discomforts of
deep oceanic trigger
a sighing spring
when the abyssal ooze
in-twined fecundity conceived
our dark-bodying infant
(of constant cry)
//
🌗
in just the time
i sleep in a living bed
its not clean but keeps me fed
its a cradle for my head
while i wait the one i wed
i sleep in a shady tree
i love rumors of the sea
i refuse the military
i know you will come for me
i sleep in the bed you made
im headstrong but im afraid
a face could change or be remade
in just the time i was asleep
i sleep under miles of ice
drill the oil melt the dice
i sleep in a grain of rice
for my heart you paid a price
//
golden ooze
i did not know until i tasted your honey
it made me ache to feel everything you did
it made me stutter to say nothing but grace
when the belief took me for one moment
that your spun-gold had been made for me
it made me forget myself inside myself
was i the honey in your cell
your glass jar of honey or a thought
in the stomach of a honeybee
the sweet up-welling had dripped everywhere
i wept to taste it over everything until
the sky set me down in tethers and drizzles
//
miel japonais
i cannot lie the bit plum
is perhaps uncomfortable
yet her blossoms are close-pure
sour soft easy undressing-me cool
her love-notes strewn across the floor
like slipped-off shoulders of honed wood
light anarchy my never lonely reason
to lend her tart my sweet-tipsy vibe
(i inhale)
these golden hints of spring
seems so promising
//
hungry
4
a japanese jazz record
purple fast
you caught me on your pleasureline yesterday
a warning on the sounding sea-bruise of night
at the global brink of your vaporous flight
into the tiniest vessel of my flecked resistance
and what would my hydrogen-burning father think
when my limbs shudder to lie next to yours
when i slide my fingers across the plum-skin sky
my rose-thread-hooked by your star ungoverning me
who steals the scene from the full face of the moon
who steals my dream to die until another spring
i am awoke at noon by iambs falling like the rain
like pain or like war until the poem is written about it
until the martyr says i was just a child in love
and now you will repeat my morning for me
//
🌕
foolocracy (city fast)
clapped-clouds a-harpin angels
and rude jinn
as chooks a-cluckin pluck
my messy ear
but though hung up-side-down
for-tune a-ruin
loves featherin-lid ne’er-feated
by mere fear
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
and it’s clear
that if it seems good to those
they will reckon (poiein) these badly
/
and it’s clear
that if it seems good to those
they will treat (poiein) these badly
// 231ξ
καὶ δῆλον ὅτι ἐὰν ἐκείνοις δοκῇ καὶ τούτους κακῶς ποιήσουσιν
//
and chickpea
wings
of canny
vegan haggis
for tasty char-
coal catnip
and the heavenly
near-
march
sphere
of irrepressible spring
(of
2d
cold-
pressed)
potent-
ate
jostlewagging
//
should have been napping
doodle
fast miracle
i hold out my beggars bowl
you fill it with hunger
i feed the hunger into my body
whose organs translate hunger into love
o bodyparts
you know which parts
you know the whole
//
agarwood (aged 7 yrs)
Indras net (what belongs to the familiar)
around her head a sardine circlet
around her foot mortality
around her voice a glittering corset
around her heart a memory
she reflected on the dawnlight
she was setting in her place
she looked sober in the photo
but you couldn’t see her face
eye for eye and cell to cell
did you knot me to be brave
did you tie me from a shoestring
toss my frame across the wave
name the garnet in my cherry
your horizon on the deep deep wine
as i lost count of drowning
for the promise of a rhyme
for your blessed rage to swallow
i was waiting at the altar
and a pearl was burning bitter-sweet
when i tasted your salt water
when i saw you in the restaurant yesterday
and you finally appeared
Indras net was drawing closer
Indras net was catching tears
when you saw that i was deadly
when you wrote my rib in two
i was made and i was unmade
to make better love to you
and every lace undoing
to find the heart of sand
and every mark to fill the worth of a blade
with the imprint of her hand
and every glass was melting thunder
to the predatory corner
and a little death for the purities of power
to the mountain out her window
to the wildflowers evening color
to the sky and sea and weather
to the darker voice that rose
to the horses all untethered
she heard it was one million
she heard one million seven
the circle dreamed it would be easy
the fishes knew it would be heaven
you know my situation
you know what keeps me here
you know ocean is an islands final word
and what belongs to the familiar
//
lyrics for conscience round
music and idea from angles morts
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
//