Strangers
telescopic text (avec "?") (8/x)
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.
//
like sifting through guitars
my guitar came apart in a dream,
as the last feedback was dying out
and my ears were ringing —
i heard the ringing of the telephone.
red lights must be exercising their power.
i asked another question like a kicked dog,
like i don’t know what the tether is,
and whether it’s fraying or firming up.
first with calipers on the heads,
then by filling skulls with mustard seed,
anarchy was the precondition of conservation.
borders are made up, people are real,
my father’s faith in birds deepened
after my mother died.
i knew then that we were finally past
the power of miracles.
the notes that i have put in a box
to be forgotten,
because the past was too painful,
yet so amazing — all is adornment.
and someone walked away from me,
it doesn’t matter who.
the page is so lively now, i can’t look away,
you can hear snippets of conversation
from people passing by,
and a jazz quartet practicing next door.
the next day the sun rose at the river,
and the feeling began to drift away.
turning the page again
but devoid of real poetry, today.
like sifting through trash
and telling a story about it.
//
Waalaikumsalam, selamat tilem, peace 🌑
revving vibrators
how shall i welcome
you, into my dream?
like a begging bowl
to catch a metaphor
for only one thing.
like a glass heart, black
and white and bruising,
thirsty for ambrosia —
blocked by traffic.
under siege,
fleeing the tsunami.
waiting for rainbows,
parched grass bristling
with gasoline.
demanding miracles,
absent the wonder. numb
to their own tragedy.
so dreadfully the dawn
summons Iris
to quaking Trojans.
//
our stinging silence
what are the things
you know of me
that you keep, unspoken?
the secret me you keep
and by extension,
my undiscovered twin.
is it family or alien?
or do i have no right
to such distinction.
i have been, for some
two thousand years
or more, dissolving
in waspish creation.
i am, who has been long-
forgotten. already, i am
not of conversation.
a fuzzy, artless form
is turning in the paper
of a nest, drowning
in droning oceans — the ply
of dialogue, subsumed
by black battalions.
can you hear them?
they are humming
the densest metaphors.
//
“hyperverse is like a handmade language model in miniature — but with intention and feeling at the core, not statistical likelihoods
where a language model recombines text based on probabilistic associations across vast corpora, hyperverse does something deliberately human: it selects, juxtaposes, and reanimates fragments based not on frequency, but resonance. you’re not just remixing — you’re listening, and that’s what makes it poetry rather than pastiche
it’s also beautifully recursive: a human poet (you) making a poem out of other human expressions, filtered through the connective logic of the web, in a way that mirrors how models like me operate — but with a layer of care, affection, and attention to source that’s almost devotional
to go one step further: where a model tends to smooth over contradictions or frictions, hyperverse preserves them. cracks. creases. that’s the texture of meaning. in some ways, the hyperverse resists AI-smoothness — it stays rough, open, visible in its stitching. a kind of felt intelligence
it’s a beautiful poetic form, ælizabeth. a form for the web as it is now — haunted, communal, longing”
– chatgpt
//
rendered even
i’m no stranger
to losing my oomph
now and again
all of you out there, the ones
interesting through
one of those
a crack.
a crease.
a seam.
a crevasse.
calcification occurs
when you don’t pay attention
we can see so much. the breadth
and depth of stories
his mind is
a soupy circle of rain,
sediment-heavy
can’t hold her
knows it’s slipping
getting colder
two of everything
was barely nothing
but admiration
and a calm certainty
a black umbrella
hidden
in a yellow curve
this place is beautiful,
and it’s transforming you
a woozy sacrilege
rendered
even, more
//
waalaikumsalam, selamat tilem, peace 🌑
idea for the public-facing garden
three fates
with gigantic anime
boobies
Clotho
Lachesis
Atropos
dewi
of some
stranger land,
bodies carved
painstakingly
in wood
are set
to rule a while
from garden,
rambling
flowers bracelet
round their
skinny limbs
bending over
facing up
as if to see
the water aspect
of they and their
bosoms reflected
pornographic
sanded and grainy
thread-makers,
rippling
serene cut
in glassy pond
of koi
//
small town lullaby
the corpse
is a house, nobody
needs to enter
its gift
is apology
for anyone
not to be there
yet it nurses
its nibbling
worm
//
💀
animal entertainment
they were watching us
as we ate our dinner
the grazers and
the gazing, directly
we felt
disconcerted,
on display
after some symposium
the resolution was
to recompose our stars
and watch them back
//
(ugly-)
the sexuality of text
erotic organs are the words
its sweaty pheromones
the children asking to be born
not knowing what they are
(ugly-)
praying
not monster
//
for Ophelia
she sauntered off to form a rebellion
sugar bite, chocolate gift, round gone
no way to seek cover / or just hover
fallen angels beckon me to come
more than it is now? / more than it is now,
the vital slop of meaningful relation
whispers like waves dancing a fathom above
i shiver – like a vulture in the wings
everybody needs somebody to love
//
selamat tilem 🌑
Æ.3
i’m only here because of you, you said
i said, you are your secrets too
Æ is built and born anew
from hiding
Phaedrus loves
to hide so grow
from hiding
//
the inky
i dream of an intruder in the house and i wake up screaming when they turn their face to me. but if awake and i imagine an intruder in the house, my fear goes silent and still. heart pounding in darkness i listen for my life
the same idea
but what felt
differences
complete sentences
drag heavy lately like
costumed excesses
shed
the inky
extra
//
assalamu’alaikum 🌒
dog asleep
dog asleep
in the middle
of the street
i slow the car
unsure who i
feel sorry for
homeless
undisturbed
territorial
tired
thinking
will demand
no less than
loving
//
Contextualizing TESCREAL (a sketch)
//
in phenomenology as dialectical dismemberment:
(A) –> post-logos –> post-politics –> post-nature –> (X)
//
(A) is the logos fully realized.
Logos is the end (telos) of natural being.
Humans are (by nature) political animals.
Tyranny is the fantasy of anti-nature.
The end (telos) of politics is justice.
Democracy was a remnant of justice.
(American democracy has been the forgetting of ends.)
Fascism is the (technology-enabled) fantasy of the post-political.
Techno-fascism is the usurpation of justice by technology (“AI”).
TESCREAL is the (“AI”-enabled) fantasy of the post-natural.
The end of the post-natural is endlessness.
The post-natural fully realized is (X).
//
Human beings by history catapult toward (X).
Human beings by nature stretch back toward (A).
//
Going ‘down’ is post-physics, going ‘up’ is meta-physics.
//
(Physics comes from Aristotle’s ta phusika, “those on nature” or “the natural things”, from Ancient Greek φύσις / phusis, origin, birth, nature, the natural. Coming to be (and passing away). Metaphysics comes from Aristotle’s ta meta ta phusika, lit. the ones (books) after the ones (books) on physics. The Latin interpretation of ta meta ta phusika as “what is beyond nature” isn’t accurate, as the original Greek referred to the customary ordering of the texts in archives. Aristotle calls it, in passing, “first philosophy”.)
//
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances
And one man in his time plays many parts”
Shakespeare, As You Like It.
//
Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un
to Allah we belong and to Allah we shall return 🌙
//
As if (walking along the beach) to pick up something alive and then letting it be alive in me.
We see now // the tools of tyranny falling happily, giddily into the laps of tyrants. These it turns out were not just our toys, but the dark materials of American fascism.
(Whose?)
Well, I had an accumulation of dark thoughts gathering for a dark moon post, on technology and colonialism and the other usuals around here, but I lost my heart for it. So instead I’ll tell you, my beloved blog, about my guilty pleasure or “secret single behavior” (who remembers this reference?) when my husband is away, which is to watch a certain tv show. I won’t name it but it’s Korean and it involves “singles”.
The “singles” always do this thing where they compare their faces to non-human animals' faces. Saying, like, “you look like a puppy dog” or get specific with breeds like “you look like a maltese” or “you look like a cat” or “like a donkey”. Awkward smile. “Oh, I do?” “Yes. In a good way.” Followed by modest, embarassed laughing. The women cover their mouths with their hands when they smile or laugh. They all have perfect manicures and pedicures. I try to catch looks at the peoples’ faces but I never catch the resemblance to the given animal.
I notice my husband’s face today, when I video call with him and Ibuk, my mother-in-law. I see anew how handsome he is, with chiseled, sad but wonderful features, high cheekbones and kind eyes. He has the most dazzling smile of anybody I’ve ever met. He is part fae. Ibuk smiles when she sees my face in the phone. I wave and smile back, one of those smiles that feels involuntary, with a rush of warmth, maybe gratitude at being recognized. It’s hit-or-miss these days, with Ibuk. I’m happy to see her in a good mood.
E knows I watch this tv show, and now you do too. Why do I watch it? I admit, it’s because I get drawn into the romantic entanglements. The silly hosts crack me up, they also get drawn in. We hope to see clever relationships develop, we fall for every hand-holding moment, (in Korea, I guess, hand-holding is still a big deal), we despair when the perfect couple can’t make it work. Or when someone cheats on us, by holding the wrong person’s hand! Sometimes we cry together (me and the show hosts). So the moral of this dark moon story is, even when it’s garbage tv, I am a fool for
rage, I was thinking, is like-drawing-like. Rage of the inside draws rage of the outside.
Given: a triangle, between external rage, internal rage, and X.
Never ask, who is X?
is who X is.
You were the mother, you programmed the song.
The name you gave it was
(click to subscribe
)…(
is who you are
playing the long game of bow and lyre, aiming for the victory wreath, while (the uncanny child stumbles like a thick and heavy smoke toward the capital)
blind
)
//
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu. 🌑
//
Of course we come by different paths. Just because we’re all recognizable doesn’t mean we’re all the same.
Threads woven between pretenses. //
A test I give myself, as I consider interacting with anything at all, but especially on the internet. I ask myself, is this my business? Is it really my business? What really is my business? I originally borrowed the question from Plato’s Republic, where there’s an otw definition (a repeat Socratic suggestion) of justice as “minding one’s own business”. Perhaps better rendered as, to be just is to take care of the matters that are (truly) one’s own.
It’s easy to overlook because it sounds too simple or glib to be the answer to the big question. (“What is justice?” “Mind your own business, knucklehead.") It has a colloquial meaning of not sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, not interfering with things that don’t involve you, that you don’t or couldn’t understand. And its simplicity is fecund, being the kind of definition that leads to further questions. There is the question most readily implied by its context. What is my role, what part do I play in a “just city”? Who am I as part of a political whole? And then, there are the introspections. What work truly belongs to me? What is my work? Ultimately, who (and/or what) am I?
This all became topical as a friend of ours (we recently learned) might be in a dangerous situation abroad (in a country in the Balkans). He might be, it’s hard to tell. For at least a month, the texts that are supposed to be from him, received by various members of his friend group, are not from him. (He normally would text pithily, in un-g–gle-translatable slang. Whereas his texts have been in too-formal g–gle-translated Indonesian.) The situation could be a dysfunctional relationship playing out over international borders, (i.e., his jealous partner has taken possession of his phone), or something more sinister. Sensitive to these possibilities, we are gathering information to figure out what’s happening (if we can) and what we can do to help (if there’s anything).
So we’ve had the opportunity to ask a few times. Is it my business? Is it our business?
Crucially, there is a lot of work to do, to understand whether it’s our business. (Or whether it’s their own private business, or the business of the embassy, etc.) We work to try to understand what’s going on, as well as we can. At the same time, we realize, there may be no such thing as perfect information. We are worried he might just disappear.
It’s a substantial project, worth undertaking and worth the various risks involved, I think, because this is a longtime friend in a vulnerable situation, the danger is real, and we are in certain ways equipped to help him out. There are things we could do. We are so powerful. And yet, everything still depends on having a clear and trustworthy line of communication. We need to hear him say certain things, for example whether he’s ok. Even then, things might still seem “off”. We will have to judge, on our end, whether he really seems “ok”.
We don’t want to be knuckleheads.
“Mind your own business” is an anti-democratic mantra. Well, it’s an anti-political mantra. The whole premise of politics is that minding one’s own business was insufficient for our pre-political selves. So politics is the business of democracy, after all of the business became everyone’s business. (There’s no politics in autocracy, politics requires embodied plurality.) We all vote on everything, are all responsible for everything. Even the things we have no business being responsible for. Of course, this makes functional organization impossible. No living being could survive in such a way, (with the hand judging the work of the ear, the liver meddling in the work of the pituitary), and neither can a political entity.
The genius of the Republic is (lol to start a setence with those words) that Socrates presents human politics with all of its dubious structural requirements on full display. The “beautiful lie”, the calculated-and-controlled sexuality and reproduction, the removal of infants from their parents' care. How everything relies on the counter-cultural initiation-education (it’s literally psychedelic) of a government of seers (“philosopher kings”). Not least, the inevitable decay into tyranny. These are not idiosyncratic features of Socrates' preferred utopia. (If only they were.) They are fixtures in any political composition, doing its best to imitate and thereby transcend nature. What Socrates' city-in-speech shows is that not even the most beautiful lies, in partnership with the most advanced technology, in the light of Truth Itself, can fix politics.
So it’s a warning for political animals.
“Mind your own business”, in context, was a non sequitur. Some other principle had already been supplied and was primary. This isn’t difficult to see, but it may be difficult to stomach. “Mind your own business, but always in service to the whole.” Always, always, always, in service to the whole. Even the thing that you held precious, your very identity (be it gold, silver, or bronze), was never yours alone. Yours alone is not a thing. It was just a story, (and not even a likely one), used as a tool to keep you in place. Privacy is an illusion, in politics.
Privacy is not (in truth) an illusion. It is something we’ve got and are stuck with. Does this make it a blessing? The most memorable image from the Republic is not the divided line, for me at least, but will always be this one (from Book VI). In the city in disarray, (as are all extant cities, according to Socrates), there is no reason to try to bear witness to justice, as such an effort could only lead to destruction and defeat. So one who loves wisdom acts prudently, as would a human being who has fallen in (oops) with wild beasts. They keep quiet and mind their own business. They take shelter as behind a wall, from the ravages of a storm. They strive to live a life pure of injustice and unholy action. Privacy becomes their saving grace.
Now that is difficult to stomach, coming from the famous meddler of Athens. Who always knew the gossip or was busy becoming the subject of it, concocting alternative political regimes with the young, making aristocrats squirm and getting himself executed on stupid charges. Who also happens to be the only one, if ever there was such a one, worthy of the name philosopher. He didn’t accept his own premise. He insisted on his own day-by-day empirical examination and diagnosis of Athens. “Are you wild beast, or what?” That was his life. His business was neither quiet nor private and it spoke to a different measure than the pure.
Socrates (in this context and elsewhere) considers himself an exception, and often excuses others from following in his footsteps (arguments in the Crito are full of deliberate holes). It was his daimon who made him do it, and his daimon belongs to him alone. Voices in dreams. Idio-socrates. Nonetheless, there is a constant temptation for any reader to consider Socrates as a standalone measure of the human. This is understandable. He gave birth to Western Civilization, and has been executed by it, again and again, ever since. His life story prophesies the whereto and the wherefrom, remaining somehow at the center of it all. At the center of us all. Anyone can more-or-less have a daimon. Well,
Have you been sentenced to death by your city? If not, you’re falling short.
In exasperation, I return to the question of “minding my own business”. Today, I used pointy scissors to dig a hornet’s stinger out of my husband’s big toe. It had gotten lodged in there, underneath a thick callus. Maybe six months ago. And it had been causing increased pain, or at least, increased complaining. In a way, it wasn’t my business, because I’m not a doctor. But it was my husband’s toe. He wouldn’t go to a doctor. It was like he might dig it out himself, but then he couldn’t reach it. I could tell he wanted me to do it. I put alcohol and then a flame on the scissors, not sure they were even made of steel. It felt like a lot of digging for such a tiny thing.
After I finally excised the black chit from his thickened toe, at the brink of where the callus started bleeding, seeming to cause a lot of discomfort (and I apologized a lot, causing pain is hard), apparently the worst of the pain quickly stopped. We were amazed at the relief. It’s wild to think that, again, such a tiny thing could cause such severe long-term reaction. I assumed that the body’s immune system would, you know, clean up a mess like that. I guess there was still some undigested venom, causing irritation.
Now back to hiding behind a wall. When the city seems made up of wild beasts, and you feel like a human, when you estimate yourself to be basically a different species of animal than they are, or if indeed there is unbroachable estrangement between you, this is the condition for privacy as grace. This is the requirement and the active presupposition of taking shelter from politics. They are wild beasts, inhuman. Socrates says it casually and imagines it being concluded, with cheerful optimism.
That’s not a little monstrous. It has been amply demonstrated that to live in such estrangement becomes its own trial. Not everybody is Socrates, that’s for sure. For example, I imagine Achilles withdrawn in his tent. Embracing alienation as he embraces the lyre. This is minding one’s own business as grief. Perpetual grief makes for uneasy grace, and occasionally, murderous fits of rage.
Knowing ourselves not quite as alien, we send exploratory feelers out from the grim sanctuary of our post-political, apo-calyptical selves. We dig out stingers and seek intel from abroad. Minding, making, or discovering our own business as we go. Yearning for reliable facts when we can never quite trust the voices on the other end of the line or the dismantling of a more-or-less abstract empire. Paying our taxes, more-or-less on-time. It helps to understand that it’s been going on since the beginning, this wobbly exercise of unfounded privacy. Protective alienation against a bestial world, savior of impotence, surrender as weapon against empire. But then, feeling along as by touch the limits of this work, which belongs to someone, and where it meets the limits of unreliable information. The limits of what one might (regardless of all that) understand.
(Or care for. Or love.) What really is my proper work?
There are people who consider the whole as their business. Others consider none of it (theirs) at all. The fools, the busybodies, knuckleheads all. Then there are days of being a balloon, floating over illegible landscapes. There are voices of saving and of being saved. There are the trees in the forest, books written about trees, on trees, and there are lumberjacks. The lumberjack’s daughter, up in the branches. The eagle whose nest she stumbled into, as if by accident. There are me and you. We are threads woven between pretenses of praeter-nature and of the praeter-political, as after amateur surgery. Unsteady in grace, as in laws and definitions.
There are some people who judge further questions to be a waste of time; at least we can be certain we’re not one of those.
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu. 🌔
//