Flora
american shade (lost verse)
where i wait a stranger shape
every wave is washing dry and clear
a seashell is a hollow place
an island is an ariel escape
hibiscus flowers are growing near
i put one behind my ear
taste the battle, taste the fear
and when the wind blows straight through here
salt in the chorus
//
and the others were really same-saying
same as these with Chaerephon
i, Heracles, was saying
as (one) battle-less
(unconquerable)
yall speak of the man
συνέφασαν οὖν καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι
ταὐτὰ ταῦτα τῷ Χαιρεφῶντι
κἀγώ Ἡράκλεις ἔφην
ὡς ἄμαχον
λέγετε
τὸν ἄνδρα
154δ
//
at the beach
for Cancer season
🌗
as the tombstone of a dead president
oh sally, oh sally
its always been you
youve always been my one
let me sign that draft
with autopen, in-de-pen-
dence dec-la-ray-shun
did even tender roses
launder their senses
inside the wicker fences
at monticello
//
and (he) Chaerephon(you
summoned)ing me
what to you
appears t(he) young man
(he) was saying
O Socrates
(is he) not handsome (?)
154ξ
καὶ ὁ Χαιρεφῶν
καλέσας με
τί σοι
φαίνεται ὁ νεανίσκος
ἔφη
ὦ Σώκρατες
οὐκ εὐπρόσωπος
tendrils in a warm pumpkin patch
dancing is bondage in freedom
my feet belong (to you, to you)
my eyes belong (also to you)
so that they and i were (glutting ourselves)
having been struck out (of ourselves)
having been thrown into bewilderment
my feet belong (to you, to you)
my eyes belong (only to you)
my ears are the shape of secrets
when he was entering
//
οὕτως ἐκπεπληγμένοι τε καὶ τεθορυβημένοι ἦσαν
ἡνίκ᾽ εἰσῄει
//
changed “seemed” to
“appeared” for ephane
the meirax of moist
for nothing shabby even
then, green and golden
(they were)(i was)(i was saying)
still being (whole)child
and now i guess somehow very
well, flown and flowing
if (they) would already
(let)be of a youth(maiden)
— the meirax is (moist)fluid as a slipper
river maiden golden child
the meirax (is) slippery and loud
river maiden wild
//
for nothing shabby
even then
(they were)(i was)(i was saying)
still being (whole)child
and now i guess somehow
very well
if (they) would already
(let)be of a youth(maiden)
οὐ γάρ τι φαῦλος
οὐδὲ τότε
ἦν
ἔτι παῖς ὤν
νῦν δ᾽ οἶμαί που
εὖ μάλα
ἂν ἤδη
μειράκιον εἴη
154β
//
δαιμονίως
witch piece cake
in skin prick, i fly across oceans
arrive on the lotus-letters island
of the long-lost highland kingdom
stir and spell a terrible journey
through holy wood by central castling.
to announce my flawless fingers
persuade his drawbridges lowered
which were guarded by a giantess
and cross over the lava moat.
with clean hair only do we enter
the dragon reception, a masque
of marbles clouds and berries.
here is where i will eat out
the remainder of my salad days
sweetly, sing the saffron rage of birds.
with which natural-born prince
whisper in the quartz crystal ball
an uncomplicated lover, yes —
of inexhaustible grief and faith
in these wettest, wildest dreams.
but it appears to me
indeed he
(himself) nearly
already (pleasures)
perhaps
to be
approaching —
//
why she (of all those now)
because she is a world
as meditation —
are you noticing each bare blade
of grass, cut green as a fiery warmth.
because immanence, though shy,
is penetration —
are the rays of the sun shining
into the cells of a golden meadow.
because these happening, all in a rush —
are the (ones) running headlong and entering
in advance, are the lovers and the beloveds
of the (one) seeming to be most beautiful
of all those now.
//
οὗτοι γὰρ τυγχάνουσιν
οἱ εἰσιόντες πρόδρομοί
τε καὶ ἐρασταὶ ὄντες
τοῦ δοκοῦντος καλλίστου εἶναι
τά γε δὴ νῦν
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
mother fracas
let her be a just peace
let her be, i want you to
her body is a blossom explosion
just pieces of anti-matter
Ophelia caught a breeze
gone girls light a starry sneeze
to court and spark her in a slow
and simultaneous supernova
love is a universal trigger
her laughter is a harsh word
(t)his life left an uncontainer
and a pistil to uncontain her
unlisted numbers are falling
from a pretty strung-out tree
unstopped daughters are falling
unvesseled veins of (void)milk
when her perfume gets you
death is still (dark)years away
go on, take everything
let her hold you, let her stay
//
(around) about the love of wisdom
how (she) would have (and hold)
the (things) now
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
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
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
//
🌒
rude wisdom
true story, when i was nine or ten
my father, at the time, sat me down
as fathers do, to read Plato’s Apology.
there had been a situation at school.
it was a public school and i was new.
it had to do with bullying and needing
to choose a side. well i guess a child
encounters force beside deliberation.
after i finished reading, he asked me
what Socrates would do. it was not
really a question. and i was no fool.
i said, but papa, i am not Socrates.
this morning, i woke up from a dream
about an oil spill. well the sign put forth.
it grew like coltsfoot in the broken step
where id removed an unbelonging one.
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
well i guess (oimai)
// 234β
ἐγὼ μὲν οἶμαι
//
the daddys issue
some days like i become your magazine
some days like i become your loaded gun
these days it makes no difference which oil( one )spill
yes i read your letter yesterday and all
the days before, your hollow men, your dump
truck spat into my bed, and im not sure
it got there but i wrote you on the third
to say, how dare you write me when you never
learn to read a single fucking word
//
Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)
whether id recommend (para-aineein)
for you
to gratify
all
the not-loving (ones) (me erosi)
// 234β
εἰ ἅπασίν σοι παραινῶ τοῖς μὴ ἐρῶσι χαρίζεσθαι
//
oil spill
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
//