Cosmos
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
//
the mallow sea
sleeping moons in a plastic spoon
slip them into the watcher’s tea
undertow and the lunar noon
float away on a mallow sea
loo, loo-loo, the empty sea
loo, loo-loo, the mallow
a fooly tumbles on her head
a froggy for the willow tree
fall down into the green grass bed
sail away on a bumble bee
loo, loo-loo, the bumble bee
loo, loo-loo, the mallow
a fairy’s wing in every room
a pocket for the marble sky
fluff the pillow and sweet the broom
softer than a glow worm
loo, loo-loo, the marble sky
loo, loo-loo, the mallow
sleeping moons in a plastic spoon
slip them into the watcher’s tea
undertow and the lunar noon
float away on a mallow sea
loo, loo-loo, the empty sea
loo, loo-loo, the mallow
//
🌕
//
mallowtonin
&
pour notre
voyeur
//
hag-seed
4 all
//
leaves like stars
leaves like stars
for wonder gazers
scrappy chasers
a hot day, here
the emerald belt
for kept begonias
weathering arms
of atmosphere
heart of Antarctica
across the room
blurry
melting
pinkish
patient
//
selamat Natal 🌟
//
corvid solstish
i saw a crow, but not a city crow
a forest crow, gagak hutan, Corvus enca
her smooth and perceptive, violet-black
matte iridescence, flew over me, up to the green
ravine; from there she turned her black eyes on me
barely here, it was the longest day of the year
a rain-soaked day; but the sun came out that morning
to show her shadowing rainbow and the waterfall
later, some kind of animal, taking a hot shower
stars thread the clouds like icy pinpricks of rain
legs still sore, reflection cooling skopein
ornithologoi, a poet’s favorite color; yes, tilting
//
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
//
🌗
lichen et alia //
the lost marble & spice trade
the lost marble
news is, bad flooding in Sumatra; so i
put down my pen, examine my hands
and feel myself a chimpanzee that lost
its marble by these ten irresoluble things
compulsion as a typhoon turns its form
an eye that cannot hear; in filthy flux
a child clings to the minaret of a mosque
i have no word to turn it from its path
is every child the same across the globe
a digit hugging-to against the storm
inherent heart against the deafening blow
an act of curling tight to one held poem
so poet-magus turns her glass from one
true child to ten imaginary orphans just—
as here, as typhoon where, and whether i
was drowning in the sum of what they did
there was a marble somewhere in the mud
ten fingers prying ceaselessly for air
don’t let me be the word to cause a flood
don’t turn me like an eye without an ear
//
diptych
of survival
InsyaAllah
//
spice trade
you know we taste the weather of a word
or housewife by her sambal, like bitter salt
this kitchen hell and getting warmer, mad
desires to let out; adventuring to eat
a journey to her inward, fine-tuning cook
is converse travel whereby stirring builds
a tragic tongue to name her worldly khas
enchanting handfuls for like memory cast
seduction; spice trade, her nightly shedding veil
far-fishing season monger Sheherazade
queen turning by tantalized infinities
survivor storming mercy from the heat
//
notes from Kuningan
morning hari raya / upacara / island turning // take the blessing / by notation / if i may // Pak and Bu S— / morning offering / shrine at home // rains a little / as we are greeting / laugh it away // i place the canangs / with lit dupa / ini di bawa, ini di atas nggih // with shredded pandan / shoo the cats away / the kue is not yours // then time for dressing / always late again / ceremonial demand // kebaya sunny yellow / olive peacock batik, gift from Ibuk / mauve selandang // polyester lace is tight / not my usual / glossy korean lipstain (bare fig) // to Penestanan / in the car now / windows down barricade // traffic pecalang / all day this way / Bali holiday // people fill the street / everyone is smiling / they recognize our face // he knows everyone / stops for everyone / a face for everyone // salam for everyone / friend for everyone / how many promises to mampir // banjar clear / on the way again / ceremony in the air // double-park the car / the cock-fight corner / across from pura dalem // at our old place / pandemi family / second home again // pass your body / around the family / salim for elders / salim from little ones // receive the bodies / moms and sisters hold you / feel you and pat your curves // meet Blih’s girlfriend / she seems good for him / marriage when // Ibuk Penestanan / enduring smiling / to see my face // she brings us coffee / kripik and kue / water from warung // and i’m too rare here / somewhat guilty / the intensity // the affection, her skin is so fair / but not too fair, she’s looking healthy / they note some extra weight // under comment / they discuss me / i endure // Bapak L— / talking death again / Mase scolding him // six large koi / in a clean but crowded pond / tadpoles nibbling at their scales // Mbok A— is here / older sister / the secrets she endures // heroic / (…) / by another woman // the delicate child / slender hand held / so as not to disappear // he takes my phone / for an interval / makes us watch a video // sea monsters suddenly / el gran maja versus the bloop / this detour for a while // softest fingers / feathering the touch screen / when he was small he didn’t talk // he couldn’t look at us / he wouldn’t speak to us / he ran away // now he’s outbound / needs to show us / sea monsters a serious event // an old mango tree / outside the home gate / branching over the street // when they ripen / he climbs to take them / no apparent fear // all day people passing / in the street below / teenagers outside the minimart // boys in udengs / girls in kebaya / all wearing sarungs // and then it’s coming / time to prepare / baskets and the flame // at the front steps / there’s a mat there / we kneel on it // kebaya itchy / sarung binding / squeeze onto my knees // off my sun hat / off my sunglasses / pale under the sky // the rain is clearing / by the rainworker / smoking his cigar // the women place the offering / burn the dupa / receive the blessing // remake the street / here come the god seat / make space for it // sound approaching / mangku rushing / the time is near // a flood of boys, boys, boys / marching sleeves rolled / red hibiscus in white udeng // here the mangku splashing water / wet blossom blessing / hands receive it // head receive it / face receive it / heart receive it, if it can // the passing concentration / bending flute line / twirling attention // pray the empty / pray the flowers / learn to pray // then we double it / give it happening / take a moment to form // now it’s coming / moving down the street / presence on the way // percussion heat / heart flame beat / bronze opening // bathe the flowers / in the smoking / fold them behind my ear // great gong agung / deep expanding / down belly through feet // make space for sesuwunan / come the barong / guardian of the street // women carry offering / towers balance on their heads / jeweled baskets overflow with cakes and fruit // see the dewa / vision loves them / eyes following // golden armor / grassy black mane / bulging eyes // then start shimmying / snapping teeth / shuffling the feet // flip-flops in the front / flip-flops in the back / shaggy with a bouncy tail // barong is dancing / attendants touching calves / steady exhausting underneath // forest guardian / body bearing sun-wheel / banjar medicine // then we follow / walk the family / take it through the street // walk with sesuwunan / holding hands again / don’t let him disappear // pray for island / pray for family / pray for banjar // boys are laughing / keep the music / challenging the air // in the made space / music opens it / opening is here // pray for earth / pray for spirit / pray down hard // see it feelingly / cracking open / then deplete // campaka blossoms / in barong beard / my favorite part of him // makes him handsome / red hibiscus / jepun ylang ylang
the fragrance / how it follows me / into the next day
//