Flora
The Myna // Sang Jalak
The Myna
So here we are, in this
Third World. Palm trees,
Rice paddies, machetes.
Doves couple on concrete walls.
Seasalt breeze, like surface
Fire . . . Sapphire, emerald.
Sanctuary comes, commands
Silence. Our mothers cut
Tongues to police. Masked—
Myna bird speaks, on the
Mulberry tree. Elsewhere,
Ants against an elephant.
//
Sang Jalak
Jadi disinilah kita, di
Dunia Ketiga ini. Pohon palem,
Sawah, parang.
Merpati bercinta di dinding beton.
Angin laut asin, seperti permukaan
Api . . . Safir, zamrud.
Suaka datang, menuntut
Keheningan. Ibu-ibu kita memotong
Lidah ke polisi. Bertopeng—
Jalak Bali berbicara, di pohon
Murbei. Di tempat lain,
Semut melawan gajah.
//
endives and mallows
this morning, handsome as a child, touches
with warming fingers the amethyst mallow.
delivers, gladly, each from darkening time:
the businessman, lucid as professor;
the tyrant, same as refugee, receives
his quickening caress, the goldenlight of youth.
but not each child. nor any child— the sun
has blinded all with his apparition.
a forest of light is teething in the seed,
dog star, a diamond cleverly effaced.
her baby will be different from the rest:
impeccable smile, a garden’s wondering, walking train—
daily untangling from the priest’s embrace;
to carry off, intact, her very name.
//
oyi //
while waiting
i seemed to hear a new leaf budding from
outside, across the garden. i, pristine
sat on our bed— the future strange, deranged—
an alien inventing self-erasures.
is it normal, in my crone, to feel this way?
i missed a contentwarning— fingering machines,
scissored by shades of glass. the news,
the look of starving innocents; the bud,
not yetgreen, also not yet visible.
hallucination of the woozyqueen
or turquoise bees, copper goldenbuzzing
around the vervain; a shipwreck from afar
in language of my nature, or astray
unfounded tear, some private pearl, ruptured—
//
🌘
earthquake
it felt like grass, before it felt like stone.
the other side of flame, igneous black
or tattoos grappling for your diamond face.
so i grew roots in water, he in bone.
and what if i abstain from apples for
a year, a tear, a deathtime. would he still be
indifferent? or disappeared into
his silverriver hair, my cloudy mountain.
your wooly light tempted discovery,
pulsating veins of mercury, the ground
mantle unbound. it whispers— not a limb
of you is immune to this hungering human.
//
🌓
silver robes of a rose rabbi
(a reply to Wallace Stevens’ “Le Monocle de Mon Oncle”; introduction here.)
I.
—and did you ordinary women mock
in liturgies of utterances contained,
lines overwrought by time-keeping cant of yours?
and did you burst from bullied syllabub,
or clockwise stiffen into winter walls?
the musicals of ghosts, midwives and angels
echo, hollow, down stone-cold corridors.
and did you consecrate your spectacle,
coupling one who spoke—no, no—not nothing,
a stand-in that you killed while playing swords?
to quell the bubbling spring by means of rain?
or merely quote the Mother’s name in vain?
she has been up at nights, considering
how to un-kiss this devil-gendered thing.
II.
well, i make believe an uncle, dead
and dear. less clear is fortune of the bird.
to fly, to seek, and what on earth to find
but torrent of an obsolescent mind
—he said, obscure and arduous to hear.
and yet, it flies. and though he doubts her crown
and midnight sight, she will fly too. and though
her silver glows in anecdotal mood,
her lilt, of stellar tilt, still loving, lingers
in braided dancing round a pool of blue,
tuning her clutch in nesting eddy of
said bird, whose course is old and hardly true
—and yet, it lives. rising, as golden-red
in flight, crowing like Scorpio in the East.
rest easy, uncle cold and fluttering
and lately of rambunctious residue;
a dove survives heaven to choir anew.
III.
O man, if you could see her witchlocs now,
or what’s become of Eastern expertise.
she is swamp-bitch, and twisted, twined and hitched
without romance by ruby claw to thorny crown,
her hair—each barb a bell, each bloody herb
a suicide. she’s heard of nobody’s
outrageous feats of raw technology.
in wracked rumors of Western fantasy
she knit a while textiles anti-exotic,
but sweaters have no use in the tropics,
where skin is king. and now we’ve come uncrimped,
uncrumpling, algal Anadyomene
of muddy water, Charybdis of the bog.
what’s history is past—nevertheless, he asks
why, woman, have you gone eau naturelle?
IV.
that spotless glass is not the book of Adam.
that trinity you stole cuts like a knife.
to be uncrumpled is to be un-uncled—
un-uncled, i become the poet’s wife.
i am un-hidden woman of the garden,
body un-ridden by the dust-bound word.
the queen of poet’s tongue, i lounge and lean
as music on my salivary throne.
the syllable you speak, my roundness is
her shapely immanence. our rectitude
is life—of tree—of life. so eat me, fallen
father of mankind, and know your foolishness.
speak again, brother—madly, as husband.
my honeyed bone un-spells your make-believe
kafir—he sees his wife sans négligee
who tastes the naked fruit by ripened eye.
says ordinary woman made explicit,
who steals your spectacle to save your life.
V.
can we remember together, after all
or does my voice harden the picture frame?
by being body, do i gather you
intolerably, or spread you thin as kin,
one stroking throb of summer esoteric—
you tickle me with feather of a peacock.
a gazer’s gloomy imagery is perfume
of incense, arousal at great distances,
long-smouldering and lit by tender match.
far from the proximity of virgins
there burn the Verbs of Love, arrayed
as galaxy of irretrievability—
before my eyes, you took and held my hand.
VI.
we used to call you man of twists and turns,
the dynamo—reckless, drowning, sea-rendered
until perennial blue, the one i knew
well enough to know, i loved nobody.
his thirst, prostrated, clutched me from below,
desperate to conceal from wingèd word
a history of suffering. a babe
buried his need in bosom of my nature,
drunk on the deep milk of disappearance.
his subterfuge despair was mythical,
until he made her fiction. he may not
remember me—but i keep by my heart
a wavy lock of sunset-auburn hair.
VII.
suppose a parable is just like her:
desired and defiled in equal measure.
his chivalry requires a blushing knight
to guard the word, who is incarnate treasure.
i heard of one such rescuer of women.
who, for his lovely sin, was de-mountained
by crippled foot, and fated never nimbly
to climb again. but faith in constancy
makes deliberate gifts, arms built from hours
spent torquing tongs before roaring earth-core.
therefore, no purity of heart is borne
that lacks an alloy in the sooty forge.
thou shalt not fear the courage of your virgin
is the limping gist of this comparison;
her shining is at once translucent bloom
and armor’s lustre, welded by humble Vulcan.
VIII.
if doom begins to seem antipathy,
baby, you’re scrolling past the blues. that time
of year thou mayst in our humanity—
but not the Muse—behold, of warty gourds'
cosmic grotesquerie. and there’s the rub.
as long as tongue still holds a gentle fold,
i will elucidate your grim hallucination.
launder and bandage the decaying limb
of sense, of memory, of time. wed heaps
of conscious compost consummate the bloom
in star-swept dimensions of titanium,
where whorls of microplastics never end—
machine poetic, of pumpkins meteoric,
becoming metaphysic—tender beings,
fizzing histories apocalyptic,
chime and rhyme as flutes of pink kombucha.
we sing the tropical-epochal view
at end of universe, or two. until
séance à trois, with chaperone of grackle,
i love the laughing sky—let’s make it crackle.
IX.
most oblatory heart, i bring you news.
despite our deadly faith in prophylactics,
resourceful Cupido pricks porous tactics,
ever hanging hymenal fools. behold:
on spun-gold surface of radiant yolk,
in sky-strewn milky way of albumen
suspended, questing’s lustiest conceit,
the part-less heartbeat of a person third:
as ancient aspect touches youngest plume
to stir, pure destiny, the origin
of life, as love, in pilgrimage secured:
the red point points, and to itself—as bird.
O holy gift, O crack in everything!
the mad midwifery of paladins
births not a baby, but a voice on fire:
ecce peep. now go, and meet your daddy-o.
his name’s Pipit the cocky chickadee;
he is a theory of fertility;
enthusiasm incommensurate
with clock-a tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum.
X.
a balmy chickadee alights on bough
of jepun tree—gigantic, bristle-trunked,
beatified—by tipped cosmos of day
and melting star of paradise, bodies
unveiled. we lie in kindred shades of them,
verbing and flowing, in blues made legible
by greenborn leaf. in leaves there hides a forest
where braid the wanderers their briared maths.
a souvenir shelters nectonic paths,
ancestral courses wild with counterpoint,
and mercy of geometry—proffered
by rivered children of Love’s oblivion.
XI.
dilated pools, star-gazed—surrender pinkly
to phobia of frogs. if you dismember
those bracing, faceless bodies—lost in love
their coiling gyres, desiring—helixing
directions inward, home. or intervene
against the skyward cough—raw, gaping need
to swallow more—when pollywog is strung
by lunar air. ritual drowning of gills,
suffering insurgency—the gulping word,
fata Morgana flooding Camelot
is twinned ecstasy of triple betrayal.
for swimmers' lust, the sea is all. and still
her cries are not for us, alone—we hone
the bluest chord of velvet-driven reverberation.
XII.
now all of us have lost our taste for mince,
the history of grinding, darkly, Adam;
so schooling blade, student of buah, will prune
til circumspect the hour. and she has thorns,
forms of her own—we prick ourselves and bleed
to name her flower. bending the voice to crown,
we’re drunk by literal skies of melody.
you found her singing by the sea, where she
had fled, as she remembered you were drowning.
who is the rose rabbi? i read, she comes
and goes. knows herself not. how would she know?
if glass were introspect, Iris of time—
to find she had been borne, a cradled question.
//
Wa’alaikumsalam, selamat purnama, peace 🌕
zero belongs to no man
i’ve heard of angels snaking down and up
the ladder of your lust, like cats on herbs.
smudged pawprints on faces of hierophant
or lovers or tower or devil or —
free spirit stumbles on the way, or trips
it upside-down, or stops to make a Friend.
a clock never belonged to her, the fool
is led by blooming tendrils of ylang ylang.
each word escapes the putri, playing prince
of winding wildernesses in beeswax.
tracing a comedy of errors, miss —
fit daughter of the whore of Babylon!
//
incense of apples
rosy for harvest
the corn lifting her brow
woken to see, to please
interior pearls
of vegetal readying
silver to sunny yellow
the wind caught her silk
like paper, billowing husk
parched with radiance
cerulean burning
alive, by chattering birds
the reaper turning
against the blinding
day, a farmer is shaded
black bladed in gold
knowledge of dual-
lit flicker, the letting heart
the heartless taking
aroma of apples
as if autumn could visit
the island of gods
on rolling tropic
whiter sky and violet flight
they fall to the light
for all of the past
a year, the gravelling ground
a measured after
verdant and weeping
sweep the coconut trees, stray
air from everywhere
//
fungi in the filesystem
event: it needs
new categories.
local zoology lately
portends mycelial memes:
“camels” vs. “dissertations”.
monkeys on the roadside,
— laughing. un-officially, i
am giddy to be their fool.
follow-up: mushrooms
of animal entertainment,
best medicine?
antidote of day-
glow (glitch)!
//
red stone
here is where
greenway unwound
by time, by time.
here is where
salt, rust, corrosion
the wound word.
here is where
given untimely springs
sprung locket.
here is winding
roses and figures for
give, by vigil, by rest.
//
telescopic texts (avec "?") (12/12)
now all of us have lost a taste for mince,
the history of grinding, darkly, Adam.
a schooling blade, student of buah, will prune
til circumspect the hour. and she has thorns,
forms of her own — we prick ourselves and bleed
to name her flower. bending the voice to crown,
we’re drunk by literal skies of melody.
you found her singing by the sea, where she
had fled, as she remembered you were drowning.
who is the rose rabbi? i read, she comes
and goes. knows herself not. how would she know?
if glass were introspect, Iris of time —
to find she had been borne, a cradled question.
//
on bad days
on bad days, the silence
has more to say to you
than i do. and yet
every day i worry
you’re not a reader
of silence.
if only i could give
my shape to silence, then you
might hear the crickets.
if silence
were nothingness, then
i would be green leaves.
but i saw the silence,
its air of winter,
its shape of clear empyrean.
its emptiness, strewn jewels —
all of it was precious;
none of it was secret.
above the radiance, i heard
earth is a place of rest —
and i believe it.
i press patchouli
to your wrist, your temple.
i draw the covers.
//
telescopic texts (avec "?") (10/x)
a balmy chickadee alights on bough
of jepun tree — gigantic, bristle-trunked,
beatified — by tipped cosmos of day
and melting star of paradise, bodies
unveiled. we lie in kindred shades of them,
verbing and flowing, in blues made legible
by greenborn leaf. in leaves there hides a forest
where braid the wanderers their briared maths.
a souvenir shelters nectonic paths,
ancestral courses wild with counterpoint,
and mercy of geometry — proffered
by rivered children of love’s oblivion.
//
the carrion
by Charles Baudelaire (original translation. cw: necrophilia.)
remember the object we saw, my soul
that summer morning, soft and sweet
at a twist in the path, a foul carrion
in its bed, seminated with pebbles
its legs in the air, as a woman aroused
hot and dripping with poisons
splayed in a cynical, nonchalant way
womb swollen with expirations
the sun shone fully on the decay
as to roast it, until just right
to return as millions to Nature’s noblesse
the cosmos she had contained
and heaven saw the magnificent carcass
as a blossoming flower
the stench was so potent, there on the grass
you thought you might collapse
the flies buzzing around the putrid belly
were issuing black batallions
of worms, pouring forth, pustulent
along the living tatters
the whole descended and rose like a wave
or sprayed in a sparkling spume
one could say the body, swole by murky breath
flourished in its inflation
and the world was rendered a stranger song
of watery flux and the wind
or grain that a winnower’s rhythmic geste
turns and churns in a basket
the shapes dissolved, no more than a dream
a sketching slow to arrive
on canvas forgot, where the artist derives
from memory alone
behind the rocks, an anxious bitch
watched us with angry eye
le squellette awaiting a chance to reclaim
the morsel that she had left
— and though you will be the same as this filth
as this horrible infection
stars of my eyes, sun of my nature
you, my angel, my passion!
yes! such will you be, O queen of graces
after the last sacraments
when you go, beneath fatted flowers and grasses
to moulder amongst the bones
then, O my beauty! say to the worm
who is eating you with his sex
i have kept the shape and essence divine
of my loves' decomposition!
//
waalaikumsalam 🌒
snow white turning
has the twinkle ever
been for nothing
more than
to leave
a loving
artifact
to make
a deathless
hen,
whose faith outpaced
her season’s augury
this fruit is sticky
stretchy,
furious
its nectar possessed
of Lethean ambience
my arms are glittering
swans, my pillows
pur de lait, my eyes
are royal-blooded
blue navé, my dreams
are dialogues
of dolphins
how can she
believe the verbs
you writ, when all
you tender-left
were winterscape, or
sidereal tongue-
traps, of snowmen
that psychedelic night,
she sapped the wine
and stole the spade
howl-lit, she went
digging
in mud of your
decaying spring
for word-eaten
bodies
to meet
the gristled
marrow
to touch and leave
fingerprints
melting
on tongue
rose red grows
from a hollow bone
while moon-
shot belladonna
is kissing cousins
with bull-horned
hemlock, reckless
and honest
//
they have all been mothers' days
i can’t remember
what my skin was like
before i moved
to Indonesia
or if, back then
i ever examined
my own face
in the mirror
but if i had, my skin
would have been
blurred
like
powder makeup
young, dry
unburnt
and smudged
around the eyes
in this country
my skin is almost
always shiny
shining
blushed
amphibian
for some reason
or other, me
or the island
it is full
of almost
too much life
but it, my skin
is pale again
and my cheeks
and chin
are rounder
now, i look
many times a day
at my own face
in the mirror
and
all i see
is my grandmother
from a photograph
in sanguine greys
taken when she
was younger
and from
a recenter one
in springtime shades
of rose and ivory
carefully strewn
with flowers
//
nothing loves better than a tree
nothing loves better than a tree
drawing to itself poetry
consider its unfolding smile
when i admire for a while
the glow expressive moods create
as poetic pupils dilate
how do you seem to be so still
yet so alive, how do you mean
to be speechless and yet so wise
to show the world in mystic green
to grow so lush without disguise
you clear exhaustion from my eyes
your branches make a lattice ceiling
new leaf-buds tender hearts of spring
deep roots tap elemental healing
dense foliage shelters birds that sing
your memory is gentler song
plain counterpoint when i’ve done wrong
you fear not, by your strength serene
a standing stone of forest dream
i hold your trunk i climb your branches
i rake your leaves into big piles
you always give me second chances
my poems for you, still off by miles
//
if leisure
if leisure in the morning
then spare me a glance
if leaf-buds are forming
then we have a chance
if dew-drops are adorning
then the roses free
if leisure in the morning
you’ll also have me
if dreaming at noon
let’s meet in the shade
if weary come june
then put down your spade
if love is a simple tune
and laughter the key
if dreaming at noon
you’ll also have me
if easy in the evening
then let’s read a book
if lazy to be reasoning
come hide in your nook
if candle flame is flickering
close your eyes and see
if easy in the evening
you’ll also have me
if longing at midnight
go walking on the sand
if reaching for moonlight
you will hold my hand
if starlight is the invite
sing beyond the sea
if longing at midnight
you’ll also have me
//
Assalamu’alaikumwarahmatullahiwabarakatuh 🌔
marigolds
what a week to take vacation
some time to recompose
to get back from the deadness
questions that i never chose
my instrument is alien
my hands remote-controlled
i cannot see my own two feet
the way is lined with marigolds
i have no numbers to report
no news in a ghost town
there is no story to be told
the wind already took it down
go diving in the deadness
go breathing in the deep
go dancing in the marigolds
but never fall asleep
what a day to wade back in again
the sunlit flowers cold
what a way to chase the day again
to watch the underworld unfold
//
Eve’s ultimatum.
//
Do you see yourself (in his mirror) as
The summarized insanity of Adam?
Your heart is his gateway to the garden.
Be probable, or be perennial.
//
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu. 🌔