Flora

    held

    i grasp, i grasp, i fumble empty air
    my fever head green tea cat litter ache
    my cannot place the growing failure make
    my pillow eats the grass until i wake

    //

    pause for illness

    Socrates: (cont.) that it has grown (phuein) in gently to the steep slope, sufficient to hold, for one who has laid down their head, altogether beautifully

    // 230ξ

    ὅτι ἐν ἠρέμα προσάντει ἱκανὴ πέφυκε κατακλινέντι τὴν κεφαλὴν παγκάλως ἔχειν

    //

    of all
    the most subtle
    that of the grass
    that in gently
    to the steep
    sufficient has grown
    for one who laid down their head
    altogether beautifully
    to hold

    //

    photo of maidenhair fern, bright green fronds against a shadowy background

    maidenhair //

    Socrates: (cont.) and most subtle (kompsos) of all is the grass

    // 230ξ

    πάντων δὲ κομψότατον τὸ τῆς πόας

    //

    sound

    returning traces undergrounding borne
    as open airing round, roots longing light
    commemorating leaves inhuman voice
    midsummers dream, a choir, the covered face

    //

    photo of a way through a bamboo forest

    way //

    scent

    no sweeter nothing making than a flower
    sustaining tension, fluttering on the wing
    Papilio memnon round lemon-balmy vervain
    by ghost of anther’s end, the probing hour

    //

    Socrates: (cont.) and as she holds on (echein) to the cusp (akme) of her full bloom, she supplies such a sweet-smelling place

    // 230β

    καὶ ὡς ἀκμὴν ἔχει τῆς ἄνθης, ὡς ἂν εὐωδέστατον παρέχοι τὸν τόπον

    //

    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

    //

    Socrates: (cont.) and of the chaste tree, the height and the dense shade are entirely beautiful

    // 230β

    τοῦ τε ἄγνου τὸ ὕψος καὶ τὸ σύσκιον πάγκαλον

    //

    Vitex Agnus-castus or chaste tree was associated with rituals for Hera and Demeter and medicinally, since ancient times, with women’s reproductive health. The name of the tree (he agnos/agnos) means sacred, holy, pure, chaste.

    //

    hark

    to hear the tonic of their nightly play
    as love is changing eyes in light of day
    and who the lover, who beloved, held
    as shade made young again, the poet shade

    sweet length possessed translucency of leaves
    and valley shelters longing’s grave delight
    how sheer the veil betwixt the true is made
    and barefoot is their tender-stepping sight

    inscript resounding hollow as a tomb
    body beholding spring again and bright
    green heart grows whole again, the tree un-felled
    for midnight girls around a golden wound

    //

    🌔

    //

    stable horses
    night rising
    wave

    //

    my hollow

    your darkness and your might invisible
    to me, my pale eyes sun shy, your body
    at noon, under pitched roof these lines
    of wood i measure, cut, re-stood you up

    to feed an appetite for shade, i am
    a miracle for trees; and what i build i must
    maintain, stretching, pressing, inhaling
    every season warping edges, exhale down

    shelter; my daily coir, your angle slant
    corporeality; my hollow here
    and where to see you, if, once i’d grown
    my fill of this inside, the outside known

    by doorways, windows, the tunnels ants dig
    out foundation for the sponge, this marrow
    empty nest of the mud wasp, left dust
    unsettled; your crevice, my cusp, bright-daggered

    lapses; your love letters, my red rose
    replies; a jepun tree grows over my grave
    shaggy roots to the unscripted bone, home
    to fallen flowers light on my unmet nature

    //

    Socrates: (cont.) wasn’t this the tree to which you were leading us?

    // 230α

    ἆρ᾽ οὐ τόδε ἦν τὸ δένδρον ἐφ᾽ ὅπερ ἦγες ἡμᾶς;

    //

    black and white photo of linear sori on the underside of a frond of birds nest fern

    love letters //

    leaves like stars

    photo of a begonia plant in dirt with three six-pointed leaves in the frame, with speckled white patterning, deeper green veins, and reddish-brown fur around the edges, with red leaf undersides.

    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 🌟

    //

    those two

    today we mampir at the house of Pak Mangku
    his mother passed, so we bring beras, gula, kopi
    in my black linen blouse, my undulant parang
    sarung, my sober face, not quite smiling, leaving room
    for her; the orchids have bloomed, a white cow has died
    to follow, and a sherbet sky breaks chains at sunset
    swallowing a lavender storm; all in a day’s wok

    sometimes i fantasize about the afterlife
    bad habit; my sister and my desister here
    and here; but when i see the bulbuls and the tits
    the fine-feathered egrets’ flight for patchwork light to graze
    in full breeding plume, their eyes intently red
    i return to stanzas that rhyme, like those two
    memory washes the sawah; my season softer by it

    //

    this one

    //

    photo of a pinkish landscape of grass and distant trees and shrubs with an almost silhouette of hanging vining

    pinkish //

    my christmas tree

    by this typical jaw
    with four, six ellipses
    make up arboreal
    chipping ornaments
    icicles of twisting glass
    still if breathing

    needles if leaves
    it was in the drying
    she would spread her wings
    aroaming like memory
    almost belonging
    a sleeping forest

    //

    . . .

    //

    🌘

    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

    //

    🌗

    medium close-up photo of vertical culms of bamboo, ones on the left of the image covered with complex growing formations of lichen and fungi

    lichen et alia //

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