Dogs
wherein fearlessness be found our freedom
and once more, again, anew, how — possibly back-
wards, by the beach dog — bow wow — aouuu . . .
the aim — waiting and looking — for the she-head —
if someday, dri nkinsymposian-drunk, would be —
to take care — you take care — it would take care —
of herself by herself —
but without — us finishing it — we being — her soul —
we sending her up — in fearlessness — letting her howl —
O whole of a body, make me whole, to be whole —
our lunations, as do we, as we do — toward home —
remain many un-thinking-fool-ish-nesses . . .
καὶ αὖ
τὸ τὴν κεφαλὴν οἴεσθαι
ἄν ποτε θεραπεῦσαι
αὐτὴν ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτῆς
ἄνευ
ὅλου τοῦ σώματος
πολλὴν ἄνοιαν εἶναι
//
mogis pos
psuche
wild
🌒
his own death
πρὸς οὖν ἐμὲ ὁ Κριτίας
Ἔναγχός τοι
ἔφη
βαρύνεσθαί
τι τὴν κεφαλὴν
ἕωθεν
ἀνιστάμενος
ἀλλὰ τί σε κωλύει
προσποιήσασθαι
πρὸς αὐτὸν
ἐπίστασθαί
τι κεφαλῆς φάρμακον
nothing
(they are)(it was)i was(saying)
Critias calls
to the follower
and at once to the follower — Child
he was saying
(beauty)call(and
always be calling)
Charmides
καὶ ἅμα πρὸς τὸν ἀκόλουθον Παῖ
ἔφη
κάλει
Χαρμίδην
to the graveyard woman (who keeps his kid) (goat)
saying that i wish
(with)by the doctor
(you)to put it(self) together
(around)about the (she)weakness
of which before
(it)was telling(laying) me
that (it)(you)(are)weak
εἰπὼν ὅτι βούλομαι αὐτὸν
ἰατρῷ
συστῆσαι
περὶ τῆς ἀσθενείας
ἧς πρῴην
πρός με ἔλεγεν
ὅτι ἀσθενοῖ
and the blanket on his bed (small print re: freckles)
guess im on vacation yall
being told nothing
the valley out
dont forget to use sun protection
get your skin check
at the dermatolologist
sh(weakness)
🌕 x 3
alone on earth
the creative, on a plastic-woven recliner
being-held on the garbage-strewn beach
starts creating as dawn reaches across the sea
her icy fingers peach and violet, ideas spark
and sparkle, that my iphone cant capture
joy found, not only because its broken
after seven years of coercion, in tiny moments
we are surrounded by beach dogs
wagging tails and paws searching
me for snacks and company which
we surrender as we pat and scratch many
ears and necks and sleek black faces
and nuzzles of muzzles into my arms
they bury me in studious welcome
the poet was blind so hes
brushed by the rosy fingers
hes drinking the wine-dark sea
the sunrise of such sweet dreams
as momentary pouring out on me
me and all of these excitable dogs
its shocking( shared )hot-pink allusion
//
altogether(yes) at least
(he) Critias was saying
(since)(you are) (by you)(look you) and (he) is
both a lover of wisdom and
as it seems both to others and to (it)(him)self
altogether poetical
καὶ πάνυ γε
ἔφη ὁ Κριτίας
ἐπεί τοι καὶ ἔστιν
φιλόσοφός τε καί
ὡς δοκεῖ ἄλλοις τε καὶ ἑαυτῷ
πάνυ ποιητικός
154ε
american shade
well that was a beautiful city
i think he had a beautiful tan
i heard he tried to make peace
in the tropical asian southeast
left footprints on bigfoot and a beach
made marilyn milkmaid the moon
runaway chevy fifty-seven bridegroom
the flag that got left on her face
and then he lost interest
when he lost faith in my body
i assumed it was me, in washington d.c.
my mother my father implicitly
somersaulting the scene
there were sprinklers and sparklers
and lipgloss from a rich invitee
at my eleventh birthday party
so it must have been me
was i jackie or sara
should i have offered my face
like courtney then lana and everyone else
become a magazine fiction
lolita fillers, no filters, no friction
trade a dick in for my diction
go down for an icy-hot la embrace
but i assumed it was me
i bought in, i got out, i was clean
now im your summer ambition
if you cut me down to your size
you can grab me by the waist
be the one to take me back
if you put me in my place
will you teach me willing words
will you rearrange my face
i strip naked for a tune
if you touch me like i touch me
reach for my dangerously thin body
when i put makeup on my eyes
i can still look twenty-one
its when i start to cry for him
its clear im done and dying again
but now that ai fills the sky
we could really write a hit
throw pinecones from behind a tree
and when you dont show up for it
ill cry for a squirrel
he got famous with a book
from a girl it took the look
but it will never be okay
for me to hook an iamb
i tried to be a flesh machine
i fucked the literary scene
all the women there were mean
and the fathers gave me hpv
i thought it was a dog disease
that was the shape of me then
when he lost faith in my body
and i assumed it was my face
i took ballet classes in houston
practiced lightning earns his grace
i was too stubborn, it was me
everyday a tempest fought a system
i parted so many ways i parted
the ocean
even so, most days i dont know
if i can make promises again
even for roses, violets for you
eve or the planet or my ghost best friend
for who made me, who left me, i left him
cherry-black abortion vasectomy
and he was a baby then too
and i know what it looks like now
babies having babies
he was the last american man
it was a dream and he was dead
before my life even began
face of an unsolved mystery
slid right through when previously
sleeping through history
i assumed that bob did it
but it was just he, most easily
who delivered the unfortunate news
//
nevertheless, this
he was saying
if he would be willing to strip
he would seem to you to be faceless
so all-beautiful is the form
οὗτος μέντοι
ἔφη
εἰ ἐθέλοι ἀποδῦναι
δόξει σοι ἀπρόσωπος εἶναι
οὕτως τὸ εἶδος πάγκαλός ἐστιν
154δ
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
desert likeness //
animal ownership
i am in love
with a real animal
she feels strangely familiar
she feels strangely kind
i am drawn
by her steady warmth
by her interior calm
she seems to understand
i am tempted
to bring her home
i want her to be safe
i am afraid she is not safe
i am bound
by animal ownership
my dog is not my dog
she is her own beach dog
//
disproportionate luxury
my three cats are
as kept-healthy housecats
i daily reckon a deep
irresponsibility
//
date night and an opened fast
the bistro grows further away with every date
the one at the end of the island where we go
to visit our phantom habit for public hunger
your eyes say its not fair to look with my pit
but the opened fast maneuvers greed into survival
so we chew but cannot swallow what we see
is this then what judgment is my lips will ask
this polyester napkin and those contactless faces
our eyes held hands fed body before what future
you drive us home in the twisting dark as i nod off
the headlights reflected in dogs eyes like coins
as the unfed guard the way by broken asphalt
we arrive and flavor seems to have returned
we bite a grey macaron speckled with black sesame
seeds soft as the crack at the back of a cradled head
//
takjil classic
my mind is frantic
in the hour before sunset
when the annunciation pangs
i hunted double by the fangs of love
am drawn cold into the pit of hunger
so i pace your perimeter like a wolf
i trace the confines of my sensate cell
then burning captive as the passing sun
and growing tidal as the shadows long
now soon again is never times enough
i dont know what takes hold of me
when i press your body to the earth
when i am the salivating predator
as fingers ten my teeth and tongue
as sticky sweet your parted pliable
to taste the heart deferred
three medjool dates
//
🌓
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
that they claim
they most love (philein)
those whom they love (eran)
// 231ξ
ὅτι τούτους μάλιστά φασιν φιλεῖν ὧν ἂν ἐρῶσιν
//
philos and eros
cacao and sea salt
or the dog
//
inhuman allusion (where)
in shredded shadow hums her corners beastly nerve
end-hounding at the anklets of my wandering
by prowling tigers milk and heat evisceral
cuts lip to tongue amnesiacs re-hysteried word
stalks fear in what like a magician i have bound
blush turns like a trick pony shes ground me into
and if there was a choice that voice has been erased
thigh-hollows skittering rush from goose-flesh alter-flight
laughterless laugh to pique the predatory mask
high valleys ridges brimming overrun of rage
down slouching bowels round rapt plum of panic like
the sparrow silent as a fork in my ribcage
and somewhere in this feckled wilderness her heart
is pounding proud and naked by the rivers dark
on the doubled drums of gods anarchic metaphor
//
warm to a thremma
//
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
heart of sand //
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
//
the goodliest
all unrestraint, all treats this island takes
by forest, mountain, mangrove or the beach
an altar lit with incense, sticky cakes
and coins, by slobbery foam, licks of brimstones
and muddy sticks and well-chewed-over bones
what rainbows churning in her tempest heart
what spilling cordials, bloody clots of earth, and all
may find rest in her furry green account
at restless earth-born sings a twilit face—
my valley for a storms! all to the tree!
and all to thee, the goodliest pan, O Pan—
of setting rings, pure nuncial—of place!
//
genius loci
ribbitere
//
🌓
the seams of Saint Veronica
i was digging in the garden
i was rooting up a rose
dreaming of a buried bone
listening to my nose
i sewed your face into it
and you told me no
my unclean mystery
i’m tearing up tatami
do you need the dog in me
should i paw at your door
i was sniffing in a corner
now i’m passed out on the floor
i smell like cat piss
i’ve been running in the rain
what is your mercy for
a reckoning of typhons
i’m in a foreign country
and i never knew a law
i weep at every stranger
my long tongue and stupid jaw
you don’t even want it
until you’re dying
and you don’t look at me
i miss you only
wandering the streets at night
‘cause good girls love to roam
and if i lost my reason
would i find you at home
all your mixed signals
i chew them into air
your body is so visible
bones buried everywhere
the wooden cross you carry
the weight on trembling knees
how do you carry crosses
if you don’t believe in trees
why do i bury them
why am i depressed
why am i in your garden
my garden is a mess
six angry shades of rosary
and every count has thorns
and if i turn the light on
what takes a shadow’s form
and could i fight it
or am i just a bluff
my smoke at midnight
my nothing is enough
three verticals upon the hill
at dawn there’s five or more
their arms the work of windmills
guardians of metaphor
vermilion edges
my painterly lines
flashing iridescence
my greener stigmata
the seams of Saint Veronica
the tilt of her golden leaf
and if the suffering savior
had denied her that relief
beloved breaking
my faltered knowledge
she’s in the dirty street
the hounds of resurrection
//
(a song /
a howls)
//
my dog sings
and my gremlin
speaks in iambs
or
currently reading:
The Tempest
//