Flora
Rafflesia arnoldii
it smells like a rotting corpse
they say, of the reddish-brown giantess
whose speckled blossom murks the jungle cloud
in Kalimantan with her foul putrescence.
blowflies in frenzied ritual surround
her swollen beef-like lips, unfurling with
a steamy hiss.
you steal the kiss.
and wipe your conscience with
a bloody handkerchief.
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
and not (to gratify or make well) those who
having done-it-through (dia-prassein)
will befriend honor (philo-timeomai)
toward others
but those who
(self-)uglying (aischunein)
will keep silence (simopaein)
toward the all
οὐδὲ οἳ διαπραξάμενοι πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους φιλοτιμήσονται
ἀλλ᾽ οἵτινες αἰσχυνόμενοι πρὸς ἅπαντας σιωπήσονται
//
Out of wood
I come to, in a cold sweat, twisted in
the linen sheet. These nights, I’m shivering
again. As overhead, the rain continues on
and on, like a forgotten faucet in the clouds.
In darkness, the rooster crows. His hens
crowd under eaves to avoid the downpour.
The cats are asleep. And I sense your body,
tossed limbs and derelict, fragmented speech.
I dream you’re at a diner, in laughter with
some other family. Beside you sits a woman
who is blonde, like me; while I sit with your kin.
I dream we’re in a doubling argument.
When the waitress brings coffee, my cup
is shallow brew in bone. I want to raise it
to my lips. The taste recedes, an emptied kiss
of blackest mud into the muffled dawn.
A steel blade scrapes the pale surface. A piece
we salvaged from the giant, fallen pule tree.
The base diameter was twice, at least,
your height. I snapped a photo to document
the ancient proportion. The storied work.
Spent shavings accumulate in piles, on piles.
Among them, I find you; wrestling with his grim
resolve to shape a smile out of wood.
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
for those ones will show affection (agapeein)
and will follow after (akoloutheein)
and will come to the doors
and will take exceeding amounts of pleasure (malista hedomai)
and will not know (eisontai) the least grace (charis)
and will pray (euchomai) for many good things for them
// 233ε
ἐκεῖνοι γὰρ καὶ ἀγαπήσουσιν
καὶ ἀκολουθήσουσιν
καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς θύρας ἥξουσι
καὶ μάλιστα ἡσθήσονται
καὶ οὐκ ἐλαχίστην χάριν εἴσονται
καὶ πολλὰ ἀγαθὰ αὐτοῖς εὔξονται
ngaji for beginners
toss your compost out the window here
and wake to find a garden of impassables.
the rainy season, barely holding on, nurses
refuse; i think the earth cant help itself.
of course i arrived on an airplane of garbage
along with other harbingers of the end
of the island. i remember motorbike rides
across the sawah during the pandemic,
when it was sinking in how forever i was
here; the tropical scene windswept and quiet,
the people returning to their villages
to farm; it felt as if everyone was home.
back then, we couldnt mampir yet
and i didnt know that if you let a chili grow
it can live for years; it can become a little caterpillar-
munched tree, studded with flaming-hot fruit.
our neighbors treat me like Princess Di.
it doesnt help that i am shy; when we try
to take a walk, we end up seated, with coffee,
small-talk and gossip peppered with serious
conversation; which is my husbands work.
he cultivates connection, setting down
our roots, as i behold, just stupefied
by the spongey texture of community.
and then, i watch out of the corner of
my eye; i fall asleep amidst rotations of rice
and peanuts, tomatoes blushing on the vine
with fields of corn and sugarcane, rows
of marigolds and magenta gomphrena,
patches of green mustard and frilly cabbage,
near densely-shaded thickets of coffee and cacao.
i would absorb the pace of those in steady
negotiation with the sky, and what it gives
the terraced land, absorbing what it can,
for what it gives us — and by my daily plate,
it gives me very, very much.
and too, i read an article about a strong El Niño,
and one about the AMOC shutting down,
and news of friends in Denpasar, their flooded
houses and kos kosans; and always stuck
in traffic, in service to dollars, rubles, yuan,
the concrete surface spreading ever closer.
the village priest asks to send his daughter
to me, so she can practice her English.
of course, i say, let her come, frozen inside
with something like a knot that i cant name.
so im old enough (for here) to be a grandmother
but all the children say i look like Elsa.
so i let them see me picking up plastic,
and in the dirt, on my hands and knees, digging
up peanuts. it used to be my daily task
to ask the young, what is justice?
these days i find my figure lined and lit
inquiring at the city of necessity, ex-
perimenting with my best friends hair — ngaji.
so how shall i explain this, and to whom?
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
yet if it is necessary (chre)
to gratify (charizesthai) most
the ones most lacking (deomenoi)
it is also fitting (prosekein) for the others
to make well (eu poieein)
not the best ones (beltistos)
but the ones most at an impasse (a-porotatoi)
// 233δ
ἔτι δὲ εἰ χρὴ τοῖς δεομένοις μάλιστα χαρίζεσθαι
προσήκει καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις
μὴ τοὺς βελτίστους ἀλλὰ τοὺς ἀπορωτάτους εὖ ποιεῖν
broken poem / ugly poem
broken poem
if this presents itself to you
that friendship is not born
unless somebody happens
to be hungry for your heart
if this presents itself to you
that children are not made
much
nor are fathers and mothers
if this presents itself to you
finding your heart in need
and needing to acquire
a trustworthy friend
i believe you
i do not wonder why
i have been there too
but this
is not that place
so
make me
a broken poem
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
then if this presents (itself) (paristanai) to you
that such strong friendship (ischuran philian)
is not born (gignomai)
unless someone happens (tugchanein)
to be loving (eros)
it is necessary (chre)
to (go) into the heart (en-thumeisthai)
that neither would we make (poieein)
children
about much (peri pollou)
nor fathers and mothers
nor would we have acquired (ktaomai)
trustworthy (pistos)
friends (philos)
who have become (gignomai) such
not from desire (epi-thumia)
but from other (heteron)
practices (epi-tedeumaton)
// 233ξ
εἰ δ᾽ ἄρα σοι τοῦτο παρέστηκεν
ὡς οὐχ οἷόν τε ἰσχυρὰν φιλίαν γενέσθαι
ἐὰν μή τις ἐρῶν τυγχάνῃ
ἐνθυμεῖσθαι χρὴ
ὅτι οὔτ᾽ ἂν τοὺς ὑεῖς περὶ πολλοῦ ἐποιούμεθα
οὔτ᾽ ἂν τοὺς πατέρας καὶ τὰς μητέρας
οὔτ᾽ ἂν πιστοὺς φίλους ἐκεκτήμεθα
οἳ οὐκ ἐξ ἐπιθυμίας τοιαύτης γεγόνασιν
ἀλλ᾽ ἐξ ἑτέρων ἐπιτηδευμάτων
//
ugly poem
lettuce share
sandwich of ends
open-face
if-only
our eggs are smeared
with chickenshit
no lie
look at all those words
does it mean
i can take
the weekend off now
does it mean
my broken poem
is being swallowed up
(may it
be so)
and digested by
the ugly one
you turn
me into
//
🌓
in papyrus
oh my, it took you long enough
and did you take it all the way
to plant a marbled egg in two
by two to taste a golden yolk
our hungriest return the view
by which wonder, the cry by then
names fire, brilliant ballistic ire
a bulls-eyed planet sunside-out
i see my linen shroud unshred
unread by your unlovers touch
by now and just the way you are
by here, to lay me in papyrus
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
not under love (eros)
lesser-being (hessaomai)
but over myself
being strong (krateein)
// 233ξ
οὐχ ὑπ᾽ ἔρωτος ἡττώμενος
ἀλλ᾽ ἐμαυτοῦ κρατῶν
//
(also muddy)
Ophelia revisited
my grief remains for the flowers, the herbs,
the growth habits i learned to recognize,
the pungent smells of bruised leaves, and
a lake with which i had grown familiar. only
with hesitation do i crush a sprig of rosemary.
the plants and seasons here are different.
i try not to use Latinate species names, or
the determinacy of words to describe life, as
a guest. sometimes it seems inevitable, and
i contribute to the loss already underway.
nothing is more miraculous than a human
body. becoming container for the self-strange,
unbecoming as that may be, mine followed me
here, reiterating its lesson without the black-
clad metaphor: no entry gained by force, beyond
barest survival. and the last time you
came begging here; when her hand was offered
to mine in marriage, now as i was candlelit royalty
in a fortress built of aging apples; the last time i
invited forth the rampaging fourth wall, to cross
the threshold of my door, to hold the iffy
soliloquy of me; would be the last time for
it all. no other help to meet the human
who doesn’t make and keep a home to serve
the stranger, the migrant, the nameless refugee.
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
primarily not
to present-being (pareimi)
pleasure (hedone)
(for you)
will i together-be (suneimi)
(with you)
attending (therapeuein)
but to lingering-doing (mellein)
help (opheleia)
to-be (esesthai)
by you
// 233β
πρῶτον μὲν οὐ τὴν παροῦσαν ἡδονὴν
θεραπεύων συνέσομαί
σοι
ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν μέλλουσαν ὠφελίαν ἔσεσθαι
//
photo from April 2019
fast by you
body of grass
black earth body
body of an ask
three billion years
four billion blades
body yet new
when i lie still
fast by you
you find me
//
lipsblum and parfum ooze
the cherries fell and placed their fingerprints
between my feet like small mouths of a month
of its here its a bloody wee well of a red whale
her fluke-petals strewn long the grey and white tile
and smudge of a moth in the blossoms to clear
but im always her hem and im on the sore brink
of love with the let-jet and inky-bruise style of it
like my pussy would write her own un-willing book
would underwear-stain me an avant-garde blotch
of enfant terrible for primordial brood
elsewhere wind-egg dramatic and lithe acrobatic
some brown-wise residuum to raging en rouge
sex-flowing battle and kiss-knowing cramp
my blew-brewing worm of verbage vole-damp
a crescendo howled in my bowling-ball clamp
and how you offered to switch off the lamp
so i wouldnt need to move at all
so i lie lust-fallow-unfastened at last for now
and i shower near the violet melati that you grow
with slugs softly tucked in a wet toilet paper roll
//
🌖
//
after
the easy way out
saucy
like a bruise
cherry
&c
& the maskmaker
who called lip balm that
hot fast & the slow burn
eat in the dark
shit quest
love fast
sleep like the sun
die like the day
dream of your almighty face
devouring
in darkness again
//
its sambal tomat
under nights black thread
and the rivermouth on fire
its filling but on isis time
so i haw and fret
to make counter time
for my ligatory chord
for my throwing bones
for the holy month
for otherwise
//
tempe & daun salam
//
🌒
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
adaddy (of lies)
she sings full coverage seashells for sirens
on oceans stews of roiling fatted wine
she forks her sunset locks for nobody
her cockled chains abreast the silvered brine
she quacks and its a salty bouillabaisse
a diddys rouille on croutons midnight crime
she lays to bed adaddy of earthquakes
her morning simmering the sky star-peppered
//
lemon & roses
//
🌘
tiger nest //
laron
pulse, on paper-smoke and shadowing; a word
kept embers leaping, or whittling laced attention
when the swarming cloud was passing out and in
to the conic torchlight, flint-yellow, on a smudged
and charcoal night; the humid heart grew lungs
at the carpal joint, let choirs through the rupture
soft cedar traces wrinkles into the maiden mask
of the moon; the flickering phase transfixes them
//
🌔
feelings //
the good shit
for Petals in her present pleasure zone
she’s rolling round inside the one, the good shit
the fine, the best, ye olde Platonic shit
no hydroponic, just sanctified dank
under Sumatran sun; for snub-nosed exodus
in summers mud, her laurel wreath of sticky bud
up drug botanical by trashy magazine
like chocolate pharma-chronic feuilletine
and toke thine truffled nugget whilst ye may
my silk-eared pig for liplined valentine
today her carrot conversation hearts the play
her eats the emptiness of tools as feels divine
//
E=m11!1
//
🌒
crossing //
ovarian //
Socrates: by Hera, it is a beautiful resting place
this platanos tree is hugely wide-spreading (amphilaphes) and high (uphelos); and of the chaste tree, the height and the dense shade are entirely beautiful; and as she holds on (echein) to the cusp (akme) of her full bloom, she supplies such a sweet-smelling place; and also the graceful stream is flowing under the platanos tree with exceedingly cool water, by the witness (tekmairomai) of my foot
and by the girls and the statues it seems to be the temple (hieros/hieron) for some kind of Nymphs and of Achelous; and again, if you wish, the good breath (eupnous) of the place, how sufficient (agapeton) and violently pleasurable (sphodros hedu) it is; summery and clear, it responds to the chorus of cicadas; and most subtle (kompsos) of all is the grass, that it has grown (phuein) in gently to the steep slope, sufficient to hold, for one who has laid down their head, altogether beautifully
so it has been the best stranger guide for you, O beloved Phaedrus