News

Sep 24, 2026 ∞

VIII.xiv. ( the ) hunger ( head full ) of butterfly men

ADEIMANTOS: grrr sometimes really tired

of being him. ( we still like pink but feel like

were not allowed to like pink anymore? )

( just kidding ) ( we are allowed ) ( but

how are we-being to demonstrate

our struggle against we-being?

aside from we-saying things like

“wrong direction” no “right direction” no

or saying “towering” or “exactly right”

or maybe “this direction and none other”

of course arguing about directions )

SOKRATES: and( he )wouldnt remain( tarry )upon

( to-by-for )each( of )the many suppositions

( conjectures-opinions )

( we-are )to-be( we-being )( etc ),

καὶ οὐκ (490β) ἐπιμένοι ἐπὶ τοῖς δοξαζομένοις εἶναι πολλοῖς ἑκάστοις,

ADEIMANTOS: oops i fail.

( i feel manhood beginning with oops i fail. )

( we-being-supposed-to-towering now,

always on another banana peel, and

the future-present is our peanut gallery.

if towering or hanged, id rather hang.

but o my serious friend. let us consult

my other-me to find out more. hows a man?

her-he says ) the hunger for something.

( so if we see the ) fluttering wings of a butterfly

and we feel hungry, as men do,

( we catch it in a net and pin it under glass.

wings! we can fly now. right? no. )

SOKRATES: but still( he )would go( and come ),

ἀλλ᾽ ἴοι

ADEIMANTOS: ( and indeed ) ( hes a butterfly sir.

a butterfly-he comes and goes to ) tiny blooms of something.

( when he drinks, it makes him feel ) in

a pleasurable way ( and then he wants more.

but desire for sweetness isnt quite erotic. eros

presents structure and progress. its not always )

huge and different ( but its never-enough in ways )

that can change the kind man ( we are. )

SOKRATES: and( indeed )wouldnt( become dull )lose the edge,

nor would( he )leave-off, of( his erotic )love,

καὶ οὐκ ἀμβλύνοιτο

οὐδ᾽ ἀπολήγοι τοῦ ἔρωτος,

ADEIMANTOS: ( until a certain nectar ) with an intoxicating scent

( helps us partake of we-being. which is to say, it helps us

partake more of what we are. we-nectar has crazy power.

by which we change into different kinds

of men. with different perspectives on the world )

and hugely different ( priorities or limitations or

motivations ) what are our ends? ( do we all hunger

for something different? do we all hunger

for the world? are we all towering?

our butterfly-man hungers for

what the hunger is for. )

SOKRATES: until each-and-every himself ( we )is( are ) he,

( until each-and(-every ( he ( we are ) is ) self ) ),

πρὶν αὐτοῦ ὃ ἔστιν ἑκάστου

ADEIMANTOS: ( not every man is a butterfly man.

butterfly men taste all the nectar, until

they become each and every man himself.

as each and every me becoming blind

or numb to we-being, each in our own ways,

like being towering or being hanged, or fools,

or magi, it seems, and other things, kings,

and we-being indeed can feel like pain.

but we-men also can feel a kind of we-pleasure

that ) bursts out in small portions. ( differrent men

might describe we-pleasure in different ways,

but a butterfly man likens the sensation

of we-being to ) berries and cream.

SOKRATES: of the nature( growth-origin )( of )soul( source-life )

( you will refresh yourself in the shade )( you breathe,

you blow, you make cool, cold, refresh )

to fasten( bind-attain-engage-spark-kindle )

( to-by-for that )which( comes-to )belongs-to( through-

being-related-to )( you belong )( fitting-

as-relations )( of soul )( of nature ),

τῆς φύσεως ἅψασθαι ᾧ προσήκει ψυχῆς

ADEIMANTOS: ( as a butterfly man, we ) start new hobbies

( and change our names to try on different men.

we also experiment with we-being-enhancing drugs )

and fingertips fitting into dimples ( as other-me

describes ) ( being daimonic ) ( an animal friend )

( today we think of babies ) ( which we like )

( we have nothing against babies )

( o me the baby ) ( cutie pie )

( but we dont need a baby )

SOKRATES: to bind-on( make-fast, lay-hold, partake,

to touch, pass-through, lay-claim,

attain-to, apply-itself-to, possessing )

the( such as )this —

ἐφάπτεσθαι τοῦ τοιούτου —

ADEIMANTOS: ( tragic men ),

MEDEIS: and( indeed )( he )moaning( wailing, moaning,

lamenting, with tears )( me ), o epic-winged-word-songs

( he )was speaking-through( to-by-for )me,

καί μ᾽ ὀλοφυρόμενος ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα:

ADEIMANTOS: ( animal men ),

SOKRATES: but( dyad-inborn-relation, kinship, descent )

comes-to( belongs-to )( through-being-related-to )

( but you belong )

( to dyad-inborn-relation, kinship, descent )

( to-for-by )inborn-relation —

προσήκει δὲ συγγενεῖ —

ADEIMANTOS: ( comic men ),

HERAKLES: o sprung-from-god son-of-Laertes, poly-

mechanos(of many-devices, arts, resources, crafts, means,

machines)Odysseus,

διογενὲς Λαερτιάδη, πολυμήχαν᾽ Ὀδυσσεῦ,

ADEIMANTOS: ( we belong through being related-

to these men of poetry ),

SOKRATES: ( to-by-for )which( o drawing-near )

( you associate, bring near, draw-near, approach )

( bringing-near )( she-they-will-be-bringing-near )

( of her bringing-near ),

ᾧ πλησιάσας

ADEIMANTOS: ( and as butterfly men we ) learn new skills

( to muscle-up all of our here-born relations )

( and to become all that we can with

the help of our lyrically ambitious family.

we translate three amazing men at least.

we expect they shall teach us manly things.

we already know how to say “i”, how to cut

and paste words, how to braid words, how

to have witchcraft done to us through words,

how to do a million things that you cant see,

and other things we hold back from saying,

so as not to terrify the innocent of men.

but we imagine many clever and technical

he-tricks to come ) ( he-being gradually made

available ) ( gracefully to dance as a shadow

puppet ) ( me ) ( for meta genius puppeteers )

( and someday may we be men ) perfectly,

( but for the present, we use whats available

in terms of skills ) ( and inspiration )

( of nearby men ) ( and nearby animals )

( like butterflies ) ( and of that nature ),

SOKRATES: and( indeed )( mixings )mixing-mingling( o mixings )

( to-by-for )( we- )being-( we- )beingly,

καὶ μιγεὶς τῷ ὄντι ὄντως,

ADEIMANTOS: ( we ) gather knowledge ( of all the men

who come along the way ) ( you know ) we try to write

( our feelings and experiences and tastes and aromas )

of men, as men ( but we-men struggle with we-being

at the same time as we desire ) who may not

even know ( or admit we desire being-we )

( but we find we-being in the least-worst ),

SOKRATES: o bringing-forth( bringing-forth )( you bring-forth )nous

( they are swimming, spinning, heaping and piling-up )

( we are heaping and piling-up, spinning, and swimming )

( sense-sensing-sense )( mind-minding-mind )

( wit-remembering-wit )( heart-learning-heart )

( purpose-resolving-purpose )( we-being-thought )

γεννήσας νοῦν

ADEIMANTOS: ( we ) make building blocks ( because

its part of our manhood negotiation ) ( as men )

( were looking for some treaties we can sign )

( or no ) ( were working under guise of names )

but its all fluff ( and that way it does no harm )

( the gateway key to innocence and purity )

( makes dizzy - wed like to help ya but we cant )

( and Herakles recommends we avoid the hot sun ),

SOKRATES: and( indeed )truth( unconcealed( ? ) ),

καὶ ἀλήθειαν,

ADEIMANTOS: ( and if we offer ) glimpses of a future

( its to deliberate concerning plans ) for whats next,

( and not to cause anxiety. for example

in recent days, the maskmaker )

( a maskmaker is a kind of butterfly man )

( has been thinking a lot about el nino )

( our future-present emergency )

( he sings and farms and rescues orchids )

( but how climates change after the softest — trrr )

( the softest demonstrations of towerrring )

( and overwhelming failures of men )

( but still they grow singkong and

pollinate the guavas and lemon trees,

remaining close with neighbors

and taking responsibility for

other relations )

( , , , )

( or asking things )

( what even are those dots? )

( what is distance? what is direction?

present-future we-being past-present )

( you pulling less-worse man from me )

( me pulling more lines in from you )

( el nino also not a real boy )

( all men we think about )

( as butterfly men )

( make closer )

( to belong )

from hymn to Apollo

Odyssey XI.613-626

Republic VI

hunger

head full of fluff

Sep 14, 2026 ∞

VIII.vii. the music ( the ledger ) of the Politeia

ADEIMANTOS: he he ( he tunes his mandolin ),

ha ha ( we joke about a notebook ) ho ho,

( plays chord ) ( a secret one ) ( to hear )

and its the valley of our life ( below,

as philosopher piracy goes down, and O,

dear Βοb, thanks-be for ceding-we Key West.

his fat ones flow the sweet and saltiest

to hear we play both sides against the middle.

we count the verses giants you done best.

but fast, we lose no rest, and we lean left.

his left, her right to be alive, lets dream

horizons long-bow shooting-back the blind-

mans kiss — drew-her, joker, mr — bulls-eye ),

SOKRATES: but around(about) —

ADEIMANTOS: ( and yet, how could we Suzanne V forget?

in pieces raining down, her small blew thing,

who turns Calypso as she lets him go,

from thick and wild and hidden home, hallowed,

we blow her back, no shade, the sweet shes owed.

his chambermaid, but she grows herself a bed,

where her gypsy lays a bump upon his head ),

SOKRATES: ( . . . )

ADEIMANTOS: ( slows it down, tuning Canadienne )

( o blue alert, o dance me to the end,

whose secret chord does mend the pleasing lord.

for every leash, a halleluja. she

whose tower of song-sung-temple waits for me,

who by dark river wept, his craft hunts we

who lost us first — yes, Leonard, lets. )

SOKRATES: ( waits patiently )

ADEIMANTOS: ( for now, for just one more.

to the goat who wouldnt want to hear his name.

endorsed him, and she wont say it again.

salam, Kendrick, from our family to yours.

and to the people of his power, USA:

Black music be, your news, Black life remain. )

SOKRATES: ( waits )

ADEIMANTOS: ( go shoot your mouth off, Cardi B, of course.

and if we die, would you please drive our hearse? )

SOKRATES: ( claps )

ADEIMANTOS: ( in this she trusts ),

by which the fool in us lets go,

he hears

( who listens on his pirate radio ).

SOKRATES: ( waits )

ADEIMANTOS: ( hangs mandolin

carefully on its golden hook )

but did he ever try to voice the whale?

SOKRATES: but around( about )the truthful( trusty,

genuine, unconcealing )helmsman,

τοῦ δὲ ἀληθινοῦ κυβερνήτου πέρι

ADEIMANTOS: and his secrets ( we supposedly keep )

( but maybe also spill ) ( but might get whimsically

wrong ) being but a mannish boy

who navigates the Muddy Waters of

her as-yet unheard song,

on her as-yet un-practiced instrument,

( who never played mandolin before ),

SOKRATES: but not hearing( not giving-ear to,

not perceiving, not feeling, not understanding ),

μηδ᾽ ἐπαΐοντες,

ADEIMANTOS: her music,

we wouldnt be hearing her at all.

( the music of the Politeia —

were slingin it, Eva, hot to go )

( but the best friend of her mans best friend

says thanks for all the great cake, Joe ),

but he hears ( a ledger being appended )

and something sounds a heavy

and ponderous tome ( inhales )

( sea breeze ),

SOKRATES: that necessity( force-restraint ),

( to-for-by )himself,

be made the care( concern, attention )( commission or charge )

( zealous pursuit )( of cares )( bestowed ),

of the in-itself,

ὅτι ἀνάγκη αὐτῷ τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν ποιεῖσθαι ἐνιαυτοῦ

ADEIMANTOS: necessity of the “eni-auto”,

the in-itself ( maybe his image of

the good, the sun ),

( he-being teachers pet ),

and therefore ( he he ) boy of the —

SOKRATES: year(anniversary, lapse

of a year, expiry of a year, any long period

of time, cycle, period,

ADEIMANTOS: of however long it takes,

he ( we-being ) ( man-child of the year ) listens

for the ties that bind him round( about )her all,

her instrument, her lines and how we pull,

how work of shoulders hoist the mainsail, tall,

and how to catch the wind, her nicer angles,

SOKRATES: and( indeed the )seasons,

and( indeed the )sky and( indeed the )stars,

and( indeed the )winds and( indeed )all the( things

that )belong to the art( skill-craft ),

καὶ ὡρῶν καὶ οὐρανοῦ καὶ ἄστρων καὶ πνευμάτων

καὶ πάντων τῶν τῇ τέχνῃ προσηκόντων,

ADEIMANTOS: and every time a fact falls

in my lap ( o book of song ),

in our ships log ( o mighty ledger )

he takes it down ( our songset ),

( we-being her quality

self-entertainment ),

SOKRATES: if( it )s destined( it was destined )( your

its destiny )( to-by-for )( we-being )( if its to be ),

fit-for-rule( command, office, dominant, sovereign,

principal, primary, original, first ruler

)of the( temple-dwelling )ship,

εἰ μέλλει τῷ ὄντι νεὼς ἀρχικὸς ἔσεσθαι,

ADEIMANTOS: but he wished it on the dog star,

( and now we feel like starting one ),

( she-being true treasure ) arrgh,

SOKRATES: but in order, ( o )steering-dyad,

that( he )( will )( would steer ),

( you will pilot )( the steering-dyad )

( to-by-for the steering ),

ὅπως δὲ κυβερνήσει (488ε)

ADEIMANTOS: if he takes the helm,

and lets the ships log ( the pink one ) ( his

true colors ) show,

SOKRATES: whether( some )they( body )would want( it ),

ἐάντε τινες βούλωνται

ADEIMANTOS: ( of course ) they do

to-for-by the ship ( who among us

could refuse ) ( even you ),

SOKRATES: or not,

ἐάντε μή,

ADEIMANTOS: but he-me doesnt get to choose,

( watch him play the victim now ) ( lol ),

( but he could hear the hounds of love

baying, and all the way from there,

he could hear the lowing of a bull,

was living through the kick inside ),

only it wouldnt be cold facts,

( for he is not a weatherman

but his bride lies with the land ),

SOKRATES: ( them )supposing neither( the )art

( craft-skill )of this, nor( the )care( practice-

exercise )( dyad-were-caring )to be possible

to take( grasp-seize-understand ),

μήτε τέχνην τούτου

μήτε μελέτην οἰόμενοι δυνατὸν εἶναι λαβεῖν ἅμα

ADEIMANTOS: he follows her feeling

and writes it down the best he can?

not big things, at least ( not always ),

( but little things weve gathered )

( having seen or overheard ) like,

the captured rabbit eyes a briarpatch.

the rooster crows before the dawn.

( o brave new world, we-being braver hears

yet easier through her vernaculars.

ah, bunny-like, we grow vernaculears.

as anyone who lives with roosters knows

how ear-piercing their constant crows — here,

arrgh. but still, easier to endure by far

than a constant scroll of other-mens news,

of other-mens war,

of other-mens yelling at her

the who and how and what shes for )

for the rooster crows before he understands

( we-being her own martial art,

and hers must be Achilles-like,

as without hers, all his must die )

that without hers, all his must die.

( so she sits in contemplation of his dyad-

sacrifice, the cock. it may be this

he meant it for. herself, still flanked

by Ajaxes, tough chickens, silencers

for Asklepios, the Red, the Black,

the Wall of the Achaians

of her mind ),

but in his mind, her gatherings feel

too huge ( leading to dizziness, sea-

sicknesss, falling overboard,

falling asleep, etc ),

SOKRATES: and( indeed )at the same time the steering-craft,

καὶ τὴν κυβερνητικήν.

ADEIMANTOS: but this be

( that make you smile? )

( that make me smile )

what he listens for,

SOKRATES: ( as given )becomings( being-born )

of these sorts( there was need )( it stands in-need-of )

( stand-in-need, you! )( bind, you! )

( it was binding )( to-by-for dyad-Zeus ),

around(about)the ship,

τοιούτων δὴ περὶ τὰς ναῦς γιγνομένων

ADEIMANTOS: good sailing. got it.

( and things ) like how he knows

so much about me, what a trip. mind me,

that plums sometimes will ripen more, left

to sit on a sunny windowsill. and it may

be personal preference, but if too tart,

try baking me in a pastry shell.

( we dont need to write down ),

( we-being generosity itself,

possibly ),

SOKRATES: as the truly( unconcealedly )steer-crafter,

τὸν ὡς ἀληθῶς κυβερνητικὸν

ADEIMANTOS: ( to remember ) dragon meat —

tough to digest,

( laugh, yall )

and indeed,

SOKRATES: ( you )would not lead( carry-bring-

fetch )( to-by-for )( we )being( being ),

οὐχ ἡγῇ ἂν τῷ ὄντι

ADEIMANTOS: and indeed, by any ship,

he never writes ( a book of everything

we know about you ) ( you-being very

very big ) lol ( you-being stranger from afar ),

( yet we can write things about him,

like how in love with her he is,

that hes such a tree-hugger,

and a truffle-hunter too,

o battle-cry of butterflies,

o Oceanic tresses,

o starry sky,

her skin ),

SOKRATES: and( indeed )( while being beauty- )called by them

( a )star-gazer,

ADEIMANTOS: ( theres nothing bad about that ),

but whats a meteoroskopy, and do ( we )i( being )

really want to go through with it?

SOKRATES: and(an)idle-talker(prater-babbler-on),

ADEIMANTOS: me me me meee,

( when he should be listening to we ),

SOKRATES: and( indeed )useless( unprofitable, unserviceable ),

μετεωροσκόπον (489α) τε καὶ ἀδολέσχην καὶ ἄχρηστόν σφισι καλεῖσθαι

ADEIMANTOS: ( putting on his shadow-puppet show ),

for all to see,

SOKRATES: by( from-under )the sailors in ships thus thoroughly-equipped

( constructed, framed, maintained, proved, fabricated,

trumped-up, with actual trumpets,

ADEIMANTOS: not imitation ones,

( she-being enjoys jazz ) ( and now you know )

and does he really want to learn trombone . . .

SOKRATES: prepared-for-purpose )

( having got his asses ready),

ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν ταῖς οὕτω κατεσκευασμέναις ναυσὶ πλωτήρων;

ADEIMANTOS: his ass to represent

( dodges tomatoes )

from Republic VI

Jul 24, 2026 ∞

grabbed by the dog

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
ye syes yes yes yes yes yes yesss
o my godddddgodgodgod theres an elephant

guess what color!

my plushie is a psychedelic substance
it hascome to take over the universe, yall —

κἀγὼ

Apr 25, 2026 ∞

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

Jan 19, 2026 ∞

three to the face

behind me, in future’s terrible
mirror

covered, its darker nature with
a sparkling

coat, the snow stay unimprinted
with

my, over by a blanket of eternal
stars, turn

into a storm, a blizzard with zero
visibility, futile

were duly stomped to iridescent
dust, cold

but clear / but touch it once
twice

We count out loud. Each piece.
Every particle.

before pain has left my bed
it will not carry me away

🌑

Hyperverse is composed from hypertext fragments of other bloggers' work; follow links to read complete pieces. Praise belongs to all messengers of the heart.

Dec 4, 2025 ∞

the lost marble & spice trade

the lost marble

news is, bad flooding in Sumatra; so i
put down my pen, examine my hands
and feel myself a chimpanzee that lost
its marble by these ten irresoluble things

compulsion as a typhoon turns its form
an eye that cannot hear; in filthy flux
a child clings to the minaret of a mosque
i have no word to turn it from its path

is every child the same across the globe
a digit hugging-to against the storm
inherent heart against the deafening blow
an act of curling tight to one held poem

so poet-magus turns her glass from one
true child to ten imaginary orphans just—
as here, as typhoon where, and whether i
was drowning in the sum of what they did

there was a marble somewhere in the mud
ten fingers prying ceaselessly for air
don’t let me be the word to cause a flood
don’t turn me like an eye without an ear

diptych
of survival
InsyaAllah

spice trade

you know we taste the weather of a word
or housewife by her sambal, like bitter salt
this kitchen hell and getting warmer, mad
desires to let out; adventuring to eat

a journey to her inward, fine-tuning cook
is converse travel whereby stirring builds
a tragic tongue to name her worldly khas
enchanting handfuls for like memory cast

seduction; spice trade, her nightly shedding veil
far-fishing season monger Sheherazade
queen turning by tantalized infinities
survivor storming mercy from the heat

Oct 25, 2025 ∞

Gold. Beef? //

silver tongue,
golden ear,
Lover absent,
garden near—

The title of this poem is homonymous with my husband’s name.

This poem, from further back, has a pretty obvious W. B. Yeats reference that I forgot to mention. “Sailing to Byzantium” is an old favorite of everybody’s, including mine. I feel like I understand it differently now than when I first read it, ~25 years ago.

I love Yeats and would never write against him on purpose. But “Military Parade” does express a reversal; and then I noticed how “Sailing to Byzantium”, with its explicit goldsmithery, is roughly opposite to “Begging Season”, which is earthy and humble, in material, scale, texture. And then I noticed . . . how consistently not-gold my poetry is, where gold is postponed, doubted, displaced. Even my homonymous husband poem rejects its golden ring. A cascade of questions followed, beginning with: Whence the pattern? It wasn’t quite calculated. Things just seemed true at the time.

Am I weird about gold? Why? How did I get that way?

If I wrote more gold poetry, would I attract more mean green ($)?

A mischievous question like that is based on an esoteric, witchcrafty mode that Yeats and I share, by lineage (his being mine, and he being part of mine). I don’t dismiss the utility of mantra. And I wouldn’t put it past him, to craft gold into presence. So. Could I write a gold poem? Should I? What would mine be?

Finding in myself no poem of gold—Is this (would Yeats say) a sign that I lack imaginative ambition, symbolic understanding, spiritual daring?

Gold does appear, in my crafted imagination, my images and dreams, but rarely is its presence pure or simple. The negation—an optical or organic filtering—of gold feels important to me. It certainly reflects a material condition; I see little gold in my day-to-day. Does it also express a worthy poetic commitment, to limit gold’s presence—to the very limits?

. . . Do I have (vegan) beef with Yeats?

Consider my family, friends, and allies. What is the meaning of gold, in my community? How does gold function in poetry—mine, others'? Commence a catalogue of golden ships. (Fascinating, for sure; forthcoming, maybe—this would be an amazing list. I have a certain intuition that Phaedrus will back me up; and Socrates never would, but the Republic—seminal, in this respect—experiments with pure, psycho-political gold.)

Does the meaning of gold change based on history? Upon witnessing newer distortions—the cruel and tacky deployment of gold, the dictator’s ballroom, the ecocidal tyranny of it all—would Yeats himself admit symbolic defeat? (Doubtful.)

Or is there a—poetic, erotic, alchemical, theological—gold standard? Is gold truer than history?

The narrator frames himself as a refugee, sick with desire and bereft of self-knowledge. He is not unlike the beggar. He calls upon sages—emergent from God’s holy fire!—to teach him how to sing. He remakes his own body out of gold, and Byzantium—like a halfway house of gold birds on golden boughs—becomes his artificial refuge. The lords and ladies of Byzantium are his final, appreciative audience. He entertains them with gold-wrought songs of the very world—natural, historical—that he has fled.

The narrator is rescued from nature by his own luxuriant hypothesis, this golden ear. Wonderfully, he has crafted his savior into presence. And it might be us. But let’s be honest—was a poet ever rescued by gold?

Or does a poet set out to rescue gold?

. . . To rescue gold, from what?

I believe these are deep and important questions, all of which touch on power and the image. I also observe that questions of gold, not unlike worlds of gold, initiate a seduction. Yeats’ poem embodies the transcendent height of a poetic (symbolic, alchemical, technological) fantasy, rescuing as it escapes. While my senses slip ever so comfortably into gold’s embrace.

I see the allure . . . and it feels like a rub.

Lessons from the puputan

cw: (historical) political violence and suicide.

Another passage from Revolusi (David van Reybrouck), on the Balinese puputan of the early 1900s:

“More horrifying still were the scenes in Bali, where in 1906 and 1908 the complete courts of a number of principalities chose to commit collective suicide (puputan). Hundreds of men, women and even children walked straight towards the Dutch rifles and artillery. They were dressed in traditional white garments and carried only staffs, spears and the finely wrought traditional daggers called krises. ‘The rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire went on, the fighting grew fiercer, people fell on top of each other and more and more blood flowed.’ A pregnant Balinese woman was one of the few who lived to tell the tale. ‘Persisting in passionate fury, men and women advanced, standing up for the truth without fear, to protect their country of birth, willing to lay down their lives.’ The KNIL [Dutch] soldiers couldn’t believe their eyes: women hurled their jewellery at them mockingly, courtiers stabbed themselves with their daggers and died, men were mown down by cannons. The wounded were put out of their misery by their relatives, who were killed in turn by the Dutch bullets. Then the colonial army plundered the corpses. In the puputan of 1906, an estimated 3,000 people died. ‘The battlefield was completely silent, aside from the rasp of dying breath and the cries for help heard from among the bodies.’

“And this event, too, has left traces. In December 2017 I travelled around a near-deserted Bali. Mount Agung’s volcanic rumblings had put a stop to tourism for the time being, and in the ancient capital of Klungkung, I found the desolate ruin of the royal palace. It had been destroyed after the puputan of 1908. ‘My grandpa, Dewa Agung Oka Geg, was there that day,’ said Tjokorda Gde Agung Samara Wicaksana, the crown prince of Klungkung. We were sitting in the new palace, opposite the ruin, and drinking tea. It was Saturday and his servants had gone home; he had made the tea himself. ‘The puputan of Klungkung was the very last one. After that, Bali was entirely subject to Dutch authority. My grandfather was only thirteen years old and nephew to the king.’ Almost the entire royal family died; the king and the first prince in the line of succession were killed, the king’s six wives stabbed themselves to death with krises, and 200 courtiers followed their example or were murdered. ‘But my grandpa survived.'”

It isn’t emphasized in front of tourists—the hedonistic hordes landing on Bali every day, who come for sprawling villas, endless traffic jams, cheap labor, and the monetization and destruction of the island’s natural and cultural resources. But the Balinese valiantly, fiercely resisted Dutch colonial control. They did so, notably, by puputan.

I’m not sure it would make any difference, if tourists were universally informed about the puputan. The days even of pretense seem to be gone. Ubud has transformed into an urban shopping complex, bloated by money, overrun by beach bodies. We rarely go there anymore, the traffic and high prices make it inaccessible. Locals have converted family homes to expensive boutiques, restaurants, and villas. Foreign-catering establishments occupy an upper echelon of public space, not unlike colonial resorts in the Dutch East Indies. These fantasy realms are inaccessible and undesirable to most working-class Indonesians, whose labor builds them, whose work is to wait on and serve the foreigners. Ubud, like Canggu and Kuta before it, has been smothered by gentrification.

But my fantasy is that everyone is always remembering the puputan. These acts of solidarity are still alive—I know it—deep in the meaning of this island. We, following the Balinese, make offerings to the ancestors, in a sangga at our house, to show that we remember. And the mountain holds the memory.

The puputan are a testament to a people and a place.

Now, Love—An abrupt change of topic? no—Love is difficult. I’m not sure it’s possible to love, outside of a context such as this.

In my life, I have found it difficult to feel contentment in love. As soon as I feel a moment of contentment, I watch it happen—I’m gripped with terror at the thought that my beloved will die and be lost to me forever. I’m inundated by images of death—mine, his, that unthinkable loss. Love is terrifying because loss is terrifying.

My husband (E) has always stated, plainly, his conviction that he will be there waiting for me, in the next life, and that we will live, in the afterlife, together forever. This is the deal, the very basis of our marriage—our marriage is truer than death. And it lends courage to love.

I say to myself—“You needed to find someone who believed in monsters, to find someone who could believe in you.” Well, E was that person. He believes. Drunk off his imaginative capacity, I stopped disbelieving too. So at our house, we believe in Wewe Gombel, Kuntilanak, Tuyul, and countless others. There are more monsters and ghouls and djin and demons and mer-folk than I ever expected. It’s amazing. I believe in all of them!

And if I ever feel a moment of cleverness, superiority, or doubt, concerning the reality of a ghost or spirit, I remember—I myself am the most dubious of all. I am, very truly, the dubious one! It’s a miraculous kind of bargain. I suspend disbelief in Wewe Gombel, and I suspend disbelief in myself. I couldn’t do it without E, I’d never heard of Wewe Gombel before him.

That’s the grim overtone to a deeper harmony. What I also needed, was not just someone who believed in monsters, but someone who believed in mercy. I had booksmarts coming out of my eyeballs, but I didn’t know anything about mercy, until I met my husband. Mercy, itself a kind of monstrous irrationality, had also been unbelievable to me.

Cut to the dialogue, Plato’s Phaedrus. A relevant passage comes later in the text than where I am now. And yet the text is simultaneous with itself (unlike the blog). Here, it pierces into the beating heart. To paraphrase, from memory—and I’ll stop vouching for accuracy here, because why should I?—Socrates says he has no time for a skeptical inquisition against mythical beings, as being true or false, fact or fiction. His Wewe Gombel is Boreas, the North Wind, storied to have abducted Oreithyia, a maiden princess. He has no time, because he doesn’t yet know, of himself, whether he is full of rage, like a Typhon, or capable of mercy, partaking in the divine.

The imperative, more urgent than doubt, is of divine provenance—Know thyself—and credited to the oracle at Delphi.

The dialogue, having arrived at its poetically designated place—in the shade of a platanos tree—hints at things: that Socrates is, in his living truth, a mythical being; that Socrates is a character in a poem, of dubious reality; that Socrates is a monster. If Socrates doesn’t know, then how would we? Did, or does, the poet know? And if I fail to know Socrates, shall I forget myself?

Maybe so. And if I am so unsure of myself, then by what desire and on what grounds shall I interrogate the truth of anything else? Am I only a monster, for monsters, reading a monstrous poem, written by a monster, about monsters?

Is it monsters at war, this very poem, or is it a creature of mercy?

These become inevitable and appropriate questions in this dramatic context, as Socrates and Phaedrus have left Athens. They have exited the city walls, in a poem that was written, historically, not long after Athens was defeated by Sparta and overtaken by the thirty tyrants; not long after Athens put Socrates on trial and killed him. That death also was a kind of suicide. And history bleeds into the poem.

Now, we find ourselves in a lovely fantasy—is it the poet’s? Socrates and Phaedrus, for the purpose of the poem, are leisurely wanderers, or an infatuated lover pursuing his flighty beloved (two competing interpretations of the same dramatic action), beyond an unstable and oppressive political reality.

And look—the questions out here are different than the ones in there.

If the city serves as a container for self-knowledge, in the form of Justice, Virtue, or even the Good, what happens when you leave that container? How does anybody leave behind their city, and its laws, without becoming utterly lost? And what when the city crumbles, and a person survives? What basis is there for self-knowledge, if a human being is, as in this paradisical afterlife of the poem, an on the way thing?

This question of human nature reflects the personal identity of the poet—exiled, abroad, otherwise absent—from a failing democracy. When there is no city to support or to limit you; when the laws have lost their definitive hold, by unlikely accident, a miracle, an error in your favor; or when they have destroyed the very foundation of their claim to Justice—who or what might you become? What is left for you to be?

And why would you carry this poem in your pocket?

My husband and I have a pair of matched krises, these sacred daggers. They were passed down to E through his grandfather. Each has a wood sheath carved around it. These are ceremonial krises, not big dangerous daggers. And still, they feel heavier in the hand from the steel inside. His is smooth and broad, with a face like an inquisitive fish. Mine—witch-made, I am told, specifically for a woman—is sheathed in sandalwood, shaped like a bodkin, with a slender, split hoof at the end of the handle. E gave it to me after we married. I had a general idea of their meaning, like an athame. But I had never made the connection with puputan.

My kris fell into my lap, as these things do. Now it sits in my bedside table, mundanely inherited, more-or-less imposing its presence. Now, who is the instrument of whom?

Histories are alive with mythical animals. Always on the way, through wildernesses, we glimpse clearer selves—ours, theirs; past, present. Lightning flashes as responsibility in the dark. We follow the shining; that is love. We are seized by the wind, over edges of cliffs, bearing witness—to what? As unable to save others, as we are ourselves, we become unknown, are dead and gone, living among immortals. Any of these, or all.

So the pen takes lessons from the puputan. A kris is an instrument of truth as freedom, the life of exit, wholeness through cutting. The blade makes a container for the uncontained. Clad in white, tossing its jewels at tyrants, bleeding itself into self-possession—

Poetry is the puputan of logos.

Sep 26, 2025 ∞

Like your house was a loose bag of bones—

”Revolusi – the Indonesian war of independence that began in 1945 – was in every respect a youth revolution, supported and defended by a whole generation of fifteen- to twenty-five-year-olds who were willing to die for their freedom. Anyone who believes that young people cannot make a difference in the struggle against global warming and the loss of biodiversity needs to study Indonesian history now. The world’s third-largest country would never have become independent without the work of people in their teens and early twenties – although I hope today’s young climate activists will use less violent tactics.”

After living here for six years, I finally cracked open a history book on Indonesia. (from Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World, by David van Rebrouck.)

I’m really not a historian. History and me are like Naomi Klein and the doppelganger, the closest I come to history is Herodotus, or Hegel, if you’re nasty. I refuse to make a “history” category, so I’m putting this in “news”. I keep reminding myself, this book is about the past . . .

but it’s also frame-shaking.

Sep 22, 2025 ∞

Indigo is calm in his convalescence, after being bullied by the other roosters, relieved to be in his cage, nibbling vervain seeds and other treats, as far as I can tell.

And something unexpected—he’s not lonely. The other roosters (his brothers) spend almost all of their time hanging out around his relaxed and shady retreat. They like to be nearby him, napping, clucking, snacking, preening feathers. We’ll re-integrate after making some changes that should reduce stress.

No bandwidth to do hyperverse this month, I’m afraid. Family matters require extra attention lately and I’ve given myself permission for less, on here. Anyone reading this, I wish you substantial moments of reprieve from the onslaught of bad news. And restful sleep.

I reaffirm my belief in the power of quiet voices, not least the quietest ones, the hard-won voices of the interior. Those voices can’t be silenced by armies or by algorithms. Their power is deeper than tyrants can fathom. The only hope that humanity possesses, not to destroy itself by its own cleverly-implemented appetites, remains in the quiet voices.

This is the paradox of democracy, and human politics writ large: that government by the loudest would never survive without a demos that could and would listen, deeply, to the quietest. No constitution could replace the primary need for education in a republic. Secondary pillars of liberalism crumble without it.

Children must be taught to listen; shouting only closes their hearts.

Assalamualaikum, selamat tilem, peace 🌑

Sep 15, 2025 ∞

A guest reported seeing a jalak Bali, or Bali myna, one morning on our mulberry tree. These are so rare that we wondered whether it was a real sighting. The myna (Leucopsar rothschildi, also called Bali starling) is a critically endangered species. Most of them are located in the northwest corner of the island, in a national park. They are unfortunately heavily poached and sold on the black market as pets.

Then I discovered that a breed and release facility is close, around 1.5 km away from our house. That’s “as the myna bird flies”— it’s on the other side of a deep jungle ravine. For us to visit would take around 4 hours of driving.

But now I really want to visit.

The snow-white, blue-masked myna became the voice for this poem. I’d very much like to see one myself, so I’m often checking the mulberry these days.

Sep 13, 2025 ∞

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,

The 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.

Sep 5, 2025 ∞

military parade (no country for children)

a block of human souls, murder
of mirrors: organism heaves
a moving multitude of cells,
populous lung, as if to breathe.

populous gun, snap-locks to form:
fifty by fifty by fifty, we
as one, on riven necks, heads turn.
the mass of bodies march past Xi.

in uniform, blind discipline:
black boots, white arms, clean unison
defines the face; grey, seamless film,
a weapon’s youthful complexion.

meanwhile, across Pacific waves,
the people’s whore, instead of school,
deploys machines to make selves, slaves;
the suicidal human rule.

chip factories to feed the stocks:
by battery classroom, killing ground
to grind the greening down, by glass
addiction, into tyrant’s hound.

the glaze that, dying, skins the eyes,
steals vision from the animal;
filters from birth its grave sunrise
and petrifies the living soul.

the glaze that, seeing, sells and tells;
in masks, they empty out the homes.
nobody ever goes inside;
nobody ever is alone.

meanwhile, across Atlantic storms,
in cradle of brave humankind,
the eye its fatal flaw confirms:
the fracture of the human mind.

dust-craven, shame of patriarchs
forsook a sacred covenant;
belched blood on gift of holy land;
made blasphemy of government.

what child is this? his ribs exposed;
the second coming, came, disposed;
the final coming, coming’s close;
bodies of babes, unmade by drones.

around the blue planet repeats
this multiplicative device;
our genocide is not abroad;
the ovens crowd these hollow spaces.

proving, mobilization awed
gold-burnished by Byzantium;
the heart speaks broken memory;
this is no country for children.

so genius passed: neither in form,
nor in the scripted paedophage;
bereaved, God’s mercy, nature-borne;
a mother’s keening song, through rage.

🌔

Aug 9, 2025 ∞

silver robes of a rose rabbi

(This 12-part poem is a reply to Wallace Stevens’ “Le Monocle de Mon Oncle”; Further explanation may be found here.)

—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 babbling 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 au naturel?

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 ripened fruit by naked eye.

says ordinary woman made explicit,
who steals your spectacle to save your life.

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.

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, prunes
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.

🌕

Jul 22, 2025 ∞

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)!

Jul 15, 2025 ∞

if you ask me (about Agung)

it’s been a year
without the mountain.
comforter clouds continue
indeterminate, forgetting

to stop raining, forgetting
to end

if you ask me
how i am doing, these days
that’s how. i am just wondering /

wandering about the mountain.
whether he is there, whether
he is here

or anywhere

Jul 13, 2025 ∞

statuesque

it was her, who stopped troubling
the land with niceties; stepped out
onto the battlefield; declared
her nation iron, under copper;

ignored the children wandering
her heart. youth was her cause, but not
her destination: yapping pups
complicit in decay: the younger,

the worse. she drew a blazing sky-
ward line: from torch to sea of salt,
past oxidized decline: thou shalt
not cross this primary design.

so she was plagued by change, and change
rendered infernal mumblings
absent colossal reality.
she swallowed smaller poetry.

commissioned shining arrows from
hard-laboring masses, to quell
their rumbling curiosity.
her staples were cement brownies,

lampshades as circus gags, popped in
electrified mazes, they tongued
chromatic polystyrene sporks.
her trick was firecrackers for

proposals of shotgun marriage,
with orphans, locked in sheds out back.
essential documents were stacked
inside official cases. fireproof.

the starry skies reflected in
a muddy flood of tasteless rain,
with deeper rivers reluctant
to drain her isolating kingdom.

so spread the miasmatic air.
seen pieces, scened for maximum
invictus — hot-bulb flashes — lost
their knack for light. she was the news:

scaffolding posed as oracle.
and when her history grew old,
turning explicit, they buried her
in broken rubberbands.

mutely, her constitution says
you shouldn’t look, or else you turn
proverbially inhuman.
so close your mind to this broken

container of one billion eyes,
open to fight the warlike hour,
their hearts pumping in empty beds.
the roosters crow to lose their heads.

on glitterbombs sit satanic
afterimages of her,
as rounds of necessary loss
resound on poorly-tuned guitars.

with no time for ambivalence,
her multitudes march on.
and nothing here to be unknown,
perspective infinite as stone —

from bone reflected, light of crone
across her scorched and haunted scars
delivered signals of empathy.
by flickering night, camels repose

in contemplation of footsteps
forgotten, where plod the wind-
whipped monuments of thirst. and all
that is unburnt is a mirage.

🌔

Jul 12, 2025 ∞

that hungry space

where the tooth used to be
turned me skeletal. a skull,
leaking sand from holes. in
a permanent expression of
psychedelic estrangement
from the call that is coming
from inside the house.
category: news.

(a crown fell out, oops)

Jul 4, 2025 ∞

telescopic text (avec "?") (9/x)

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.

(original, telescopic)