Flora

    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 //

    Pharmakeia’s triptych

    trippy destiny

    true story: in her salad bruising days
    her myspace name was like a prayer, Pharmakeia
    the profiled face was drawing of a death
    cap mushroom; well, consistency

    and every day a salad day
    and every day un po’ di morte

    today, when sniper scopes an urban label
    the same shaded and subtle botanical
    renderings pop up from top of neon heap
    left truffles for her canny little pig

    for snorts and tickles, yet
    a fact; and do you trust it

    //

    what marriage

    the maskmaker who daily carries her
    drew sigil gold and black on brown bag paper
    Al-Lateef—his soft likeness sleeping by her pillow
    beloved names for her beloved way

    what reck does come to find
    what wreck that came to ground

    as travelers witness landslides and inundations
    upheavals that by eagle’s eye the aftermath
    counts losses, failure, countlessness; what hand
    to brush a tawny cow, her long-lashed eyes

    what blinded word to see
    what marriage of then and now

    //

    big girl

    she sees, by name, the blue of heaven’s white
    behind how obvious a giantess
    the light, the light, it hurts to look at it
    so brightly shines a lofty signature

    built body born from Isis warm
    and catching form her dulcet veil

    some Aphrodites are, it’s said, too tall
    to be from brick wall read, too high to see
    by tools of masonry; how broad her arms
    great fools embracing sky of marbled earth

    her reckoning like reckless love
    big girl logician

    //

    🍄

    if not, xmas

    I. fuck Sean Combs

    headlice scratching
    is garbage gothic like
    urban mosquitoes

    softballing curses
    fuck Neil Gaiman too
    on behalf of decent goths

    other things said: sister, i know
    you know a tall stupor too
    like gutted up measured

    rage, i’ll pour you tea
    and tell you it’s whisky, if
    you need empty or harder

    i’ll give you my mask
    i won’t even look
    or obviously touch

    a much drowned witness
    when sunken city found
    on too traceless tracys

    rage, this harp is yours
    sofa, word of an angel
    bed, wish by a sigil

    out winging like Ajax
    the greater, vintage & archive
    party discourses natal

    twelve salt dissing courses
    won’t tire her horses
    bit ironies of Christmas

    dirt snow glitter chain
    gutter drain service entry
    and no such thing as no

    red-bottom chariot and pony-
    tail hair, projectile vomit
    acid tongue at the crossroads

    an orphan army of kunai
    invective & lashing 4 trash
    Erinues down the river

    //

    II. if not, xmas

    missing body
    if a hinge

    if a fold
    in the cold

    could hold
    if not, xmas

    //

    III. pink parasol

    is she meditating subtly for or
    against me, this extraordinary tree
    is her shady cooler or desiring me on
    her radiant day of rest

    if all the mended earth could be a bed
    made lavender to fit her silent shadow
    rough linen-covered pillow for a dream—
    or both my heads grove bother

    as she was oiling glass to sleep last night
    trapped in the loudest windows of my head
    her muscles pacing trafficky and sore
    rewinder daily but more

    and Jeki caught a mouse, that pitter-patter
    crossed exposure with a vengeance, like
    the summer used to blind and burn me, so
    i veil, i veil, i veil

    increasing constant collection of hats
    my polarized knockoffs make me famous
    pink parasol for pointillism in the park
    to cover ankles, hands

    and when i see her at the museum
    like pastel whiteness for nobody happening
    together all alone, closer with drawing
    a disappearing lady

    //

    desaturated photo of a group of trees standing in the middle distance providing an area of dense shade from the overhead sun.

    the river lapis lazuli

    no, O shining one; blue is not that place
    where winter did reach down with hoarfrost arms
    bent bones to bruise the springtime of your face
    and turn bare beauty’s promise into grief

    real damage there was done; i can’t pretend
    my drunk neither forgets, nor lying, amends
    that hunting season waiting down our tears
    cool river measures turquoise, there to here

    still no; blue shall not sing by Tristan’s chord
    raw wounding round its thralling emptiness
    how many months hungering that underworld
    she spends, grave daughter, eating bitter ashes

    if she is me, let sapphire be my child by you
    whose ugly was the laughing sky of love
    my labyrinth, your golden through-and-through
    soft multitudes, the movements of your dying

    and no; your course was not a trap for girls
    exquisite river lapis lazuli
    blue hemlock was your legendary cure
    a momentary how it is, it is

    azure, just piece enough for memory
    what graces by your leaves still green in me
    this grove might tender shelter; with blue to show
    by silence of the tree who names it so

    //

    selamat purnama 🌕

    //

    & ten candles

    on my horse loverly
    logician patrician
    still finishing his still
    blue earthy pastel
    for brave accompany
    her genus differentia
    mycelia mysteria
    her lightest touches
    dear puffins, potatoes
    & tatami gauze

    //

    photo of a grove of palm trees with sunlight hitting the leaves in an illuminated diagonal expression, with a high and distant bird accidentally in the frame

    sharps & feathers //

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