Dialogue
in a moment
the broad brim of my hat
never did conceal
the quick movements of
my eyes. but i put it on
for you.
after the first glass
or two, my high heels
wouldnt hurt so much.
i would be ready
for dancing.
//
(around) about the beautiful ones
he said
O Socrates
in a moment it seems to me you’ll (rush in and) know
περὶ μὲν τῶν καλῶν
ἔφη
ὦ Σώκρατες
αὐτίκα μοι δοκεῖς εἴσεσθαι
witch in the fire department
hid underneath my flowy dresses draped
in cool blues and soothing beachy tones —
i cant help it, i confess it, father —
i am a woman on fire.
and when i spy them entering a door
i watch their simple, rugged carelessness
and how they handle one anothers
bodies beyond all clothes or covers . . .
as leaves are born in screaming reds
and oranges each wicked September,
so i am born again into this burning
and my roaring flesh becomes the tinder —
and if i cry for help, it only brings them closer —
this crucible — my rose garden — a hose, for water —
//
and Critias
looking towards the door
seeing some young men entering
and (playing?) abusing one another
and another crowd following in the rear
καὶ ὁ Κριτίας
ἀποβλέψας πρὸς τὴν θύραν
ἰδών τινας νεανίσκους εἰσιόντας
καὶ λοιδορουμένους ἀλλήλοις
καὶ ἄλλον ὄχλον ὄπισθεν ἑπόμενον
bare blade of grass
is it different to use a knife
on wood than on flesh?
doctors use knives now
to carve out faces.
they cut eyelids and noses,
they cut lips and jaws.
they cut silent words
to feed the switch.
i put it on a page,
skin should touch skin.
i write it, over and over,
this is not my face.
this is not your face,
i write it, over and over.
somewhere, i hear, we are
born young and beautiful.
//
and about the young
whether any in them(selves) carrying over
would have been been born in
to wisdom or beauty or both
περί τε τῶν νέων
εἴ τινες ἐν αὐτοῖς διαφέροντες
ἢ σοφίᾳ ἢ κάλλει ἢ ἀμφοτέροις
ἐγγεγονότες εἶεν
moving (on purnama) with sisters R. and N.
yesterday, the family toppled
an altar and dug up the vessel
of ancestors who had been
held there in the earth.
they cradled the thing.
they placed it amongst sacred
objects and offerings on a truck.
they drove it across the island.
we drove it over and around
the lakes and the mountain
on roads like melting hairpin loops.
we called them wrinkles.
we arrived at the older
the older-newer
present home
where home would be.
they placed the ancestors
underneath the altar
in the older shrine, to be
held there in the earth.
over sticky jajan and sweet coffee
we were laughing about
how complicated everything was.
any simple story.
imperfectly
a jepun tree was in bloom. the night
sky was almost free of clouds,
turning and keeping it alive.
//
and after we have had (or held) our fill of such as those
in turn i was questioning them(selves)
about the (things) by this
ἐπειδὴ δὲ τῶν τοιούτων ἅδην εἴχομεν
αὖθις ἐγὼ αὐτοὺς ἀνηρώτων
τὰ τῇδε
dry season blues
im posting from the backseat of a car
caught in a family conflict today
there is a freedom that comes to my imagination
but not inside this atmosphere
maybe the minimum temperature here
maybe the maximum temperature there
and strapped into this turbulence
with too much motion for me to move
i could make so many calculations
but couldnt do poetry to save my life
//
therefore sitting-down-beside
i was greeting Critias and the others
and i was guiding-through for them
those away from the army camp
whatever someone would ask me
i was questioning
they were questioning
and each was questioning an other
//
παρακαθεζόμενος οὖν
ἠσπαζόμην τόν τε Κριτίαν ἄλλους
καὶ διηγούμην αὐτοῖς
τὰ ἀπὸ στρατοπέδου
ὅτι μέ τις ἀνέροιτο
//
🌕
agon onomatos
outside of the boxing ring
the whos and whats
become a blur.
outside of our bedroom,
outside of our bed,
the same.
there is the one who put me here,
there is the one i face.
there is the rain.
all tongue,
all friction,
ugly against beautiful.
//
and at the same exact time
he sits me down
(and you sit down)
leading me
beside Critias
of Callaischros
// 153ξ
birth of a tragic aorist
i search history
for our battle
unsatisfied.
i search my search history
to set down (again) in words
paregenomen - for para-gignomai.
i see - to be beside, to be by, or to be near.
but clearly, these words lose gignomai.
they lose - coming into being.
para-gignomai is not - to be.
it is not - not to be.
but - becoming beside.
it is not - being there.
it could be - to become near there,
or - to come into being - beside.
i become beside.
i come-to-be beside.
i am born beside.
for not anything
up until this time
all clearly have i learned.
//
right here then
he says
sitting down for us
lead (us) through
for not anything
up until this time
all clearly
have (or had) we learned
// 153ξ
the witness
and true love drew a blinding triangle.
the first burn was hollow parallels
desiring scent. when nothing wood was new.
dustbody takes no refuge from a wave.
our battle comes in tangled limbs of loss.
pink button of a clove, warm feet of sandalwood.
the trust we nuzzle into his jugular.
heartsick, i beat myself for thirty years.
the last bird landing on his sea of troubles.
my stranded sail gets nailed at drowning depth,
lust-jumbled junk under a yellow sun.
i touch my hope to his bronze-burnished skin.
i am the phantom i have always been.
and true love draws a binding triangle.
//
do you come beside
(i am) he says
the battle
//
i come beside (her)
// 153β
bling
my dessert comes salted
her spoonlicked sins of virgins
her cruelty is caramel
my man comes from the desert
he tethers me with whispers
the musk of his camel
who am i
//
and the sending
fitting (you)
let go and loosened (upon you)
(i) am (it) is (they) are i say
has brought
(a message)
(wandered)
unconcealed
// 153β
καὶ ἐπιεικῶς
ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ
ἀληθῆ ἀπήγγελται
oligen orgen skips through the giant step
horses into Potidaea
as orders taken, given. your hands
across my escalating
surface. unrolling
her
slight
resistance. as
i grow dependent on the flow
and pressure. here, faint
ridges. your soft uneven. catch,
drag,
time,
deposit. yours
until lazy again. until we depart,
until we let loose
the battle. they had
been born into Potidaea.
//
slight
until we depart
until we let loose
the battle
they had been born
into Potidaea
(her) this very moment they were (surfeit)
by this(her) those having learned it(her)
// 153β
Ὀλίγον
ἐγεγόνει
ἐν τῇ Ποτειδαίᾳ
ἣν ἄρτι ἦσαν οἱ
τῇδε πεπυσμένοι
serious ontology
is fan service. you who are about
to read, please understand. he will be born
the dirtiest ever poem — a thrusting savior
delivering so many ins and outs.
our she-body-battle is hare to meet Rocky.
his being a-lie-high-hive — abs flashing
in gold lamé underwear — running
mascara like horses. out-of-bounds
kissing, destination sen-
sa-si
//
O Socrates —
which i was —
as he says
how do you thrust into —
were you saved from out of the battle?
// 153β
//
camp army camp
wild rabbit habit gone wild
and Chaerephon
being just such a maniac —
you leap up — leaping — jumping — springing forth
out from the center of a lute, vibrato —
out from your tightrope string —
out from her thorny mean —
both (of you) in the (briarpatch) habit —
and he is shining —
and he runs toward me, like a hare —
and of me —
as my most inexhaustible lover —
he takes hold — of
my hand —
// 153β
Χαιρεφῶν δέ
ἅτε καὶ μανικὸς ὤν
ἀναπηδήσας
ἐκ μέσων
ἔθει πρός με
καί μου
λαβόμενος τῆς χειρός
//
shall we
go
down
to the oracle
again
black milk glass
i look down at the body
to see what shape its in.
earth-born son, turquoise slap
of my mother against the golden-
bangled mother. i let them come.
my dark tongues flickering, my heads
Cancerian fire. every tip would touch you.
the shoulders of a bull, eyelashes lower
over tender pools obsidian. im a cow.
a ticket to the fight. my velvet
suit. warm press of skin.
i drink, i let it come.
dragging behind its un-
translatable blade.
//
Socrates: (in Charmides, cont.)
and in that same spot
i (they) take hold altogether of many
those (on the one hand) unknown by me
those (on the other hand) the most thoroughly-known
// 153α
animal event (at the school of Taureos)
into the animal event
i have been dragged and well
indeed
every year the same, i guess, except
this time
its me
and like the bull, whos horn, whos unbroken
rage
your hand anointed
when they seize the bodied, lashed and harnessed
nerve by muscle to
the craters edge
as trampled roses bruised into the pass
will grind in
to mud by mountain makers hooves
in magenta-black menstrual blood
my terror
my appetite
//
Socrates: (in Charmides, cont.)
and well indeed into the wrestling-
school of Taureos (where bulls are offerings)
straight down from the temple
of the Queen (of whom nothing is known)
// 153α
καὶ δὴ καὶ εἰς τὴν Ταυρέου παλαίστραν
τὴν καταντικρὺ τοῦ τῆς Βασίλης ἱεροῦ εἰσῆλθον
news of orchids
Phaedrus:
isn’t it overgrowingly (huper-phuos)
(in) other things
and also by the names (honomasin)
joined (together) (eresthai)
οὐχ ὑπερφυῶς
τά τε ἄλλα
καὶ τοῖς ὀνόμασιν εἰρῆσθαι
//
yesterday, in the kitchen, our friend whos out
from prison, was sharing gossip about a junior
being caught and being sent to aranjep
over kampung coffee and orchid media.
and no, they never tell me how it works.
the violet news arrives always from inside
the shackled parallel, the humbled inflorescence.
recirculating sources its own mystery.
war-salvaged rumors from the streets are white
like mouses ears that dream into my peers.
we build them nests from all our mixed-up hair.
the silver blacks the blonde. the ashen thatch.
the trees trail overgrowingly through tails
and tubers until, tangled up, the bearded roots.
to found us here. among inmates and outlaws
and songs, as clove tobacco blanketed our evening.
did you know, they blow the breath of dust
until a fungus makes the faerie home?
a thinking blink is how they move from there
to here, a mayfly mask, the wake to name a wink.
the jungle knows no law, leastly, my wooden sanity.
and when reports an owling bloom, my nervous cell —
i dont believe in walls, i saw you on the battlefield, and
i dont believe youre dead, how could you trust me.
so we have come to be present, by the previous
of evening, out of Potidaea, from the army.
and as having arrived, through time, gladly
i go. and two-thirds of the words are backwards slang.
//
Socrates:
we have come to be present (hekomen)
by the previous of evening
out of Potidaea from the army-ground (stratopedon)
and as having arrived through time
gladly
i go
upon the together-dwelling (sunethes)
rubbed-throughs (diatribas)
ἥκομεν τῇ προτεραίᾳ ἑσπέρας ἐκ Ποτειδαίας ἀπὸ τοῦ στρατοπέδου
οἷον δὲ διὰ χρόνου ἀφιγμένος
ἁσμένως
ᾖα
ἐπὶ τὰς συνήθεις διατριβάς
//
🌒
commandment
the clay was in your hand. life turned
onto the skin. a fountain was desire.
i dipped my fingers in, day after day
to taste this young and yearning body.
you didnt have to tell me even once
until my garden was creased and crinkled.
as later fell, we were unfolding it all
together. the sweet milk of a whisper.
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
(love) (ask) (erota)
// 234ξ
ἐρώτα
burlesque empire
to cross the Rubicon, where left meets right,
we found a body. being unrecognized,
we hold it side-by-side her photograph.
the printed animal in black and white
was captive to the scene: how Bettie used
the furniture, her pose and what it meant
to her, her legs and what they wore for us.
stilettos pointed out the stars. surely
they were not hours in bondage to a fault.
the leather business never skins enough,
as keys to pleasure play the vault betrayed,
and suits around her salivate like wolves.
the burlesque empire folds itself around the twain:
a missing woman tangled in the pin-up queen.
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
but if
(on the other hand)
you still long for (potheein)
anything
leading (the way) and holding (it) (hegoumenos)
to have been left aside (para-lepein)
// 234ξ
εἰ δ᾽ ἔτι τι σὺ ποθεῖς
ἡγούμενος παραλελεῖφθαι