Verses/Curses
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
//
Aristotle on techne
ἡ μὲν οὖν τέχνη ὥσπερ εἴρηται ἕξις τις μετὰ λόγου ἀληθοῦς ποιητική ἐστιν ἡ δ᾽ ἀτεχνία τοὐναντίον μετὰ λόγου ψευδοῦς ποιητικὴ ἕξις περὶ τὸ ἐνδεχόμενον ἄλλως ἔχειν
// nic. ethics 1140a20
so then techne is
as has been said
poetic hexis
with true logos
while a-techne
is oppositely
poetic hexis
with false logos
( poetic hexis is
present practice
of poetry )
about what might
be otherly
//
(Art, then, as was said, is an active condition involving a true rational understanding that governs making, and inartfulness, on the contrary, is an active condition involving a false rational understanding that governs making, concerned with what is capable of being otherwise. — trans. Joe Sachs)
//
ælizabeth is
(for a new about page)
moonchild
mother of cats
mask-maker’s wife
wholly enthused
by gift of life
dust weeper
and dabbler in
girlish games
waggle dancer
rhymes with rain
inexpertly forgets
how to explain
sassy
midnight train
seer of self
in silvered waters
beggar’s bowl
auditioning
translator of one
worldly thing
porous
and learning
how to breathe
(again)
sayer of no
didact of pain
ambassador of monster
in the main
decaying
maybe insane
but fascinated by
reptile wile
lover of light
but versatile
hallowed home—
if in a dream—
maker and
amatrix in æxile
meeter of Muses
student of Prophet
rememberer of Names
servant of Allah
humble as ever
always on
the way and
doubtless never
lost for words
//
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
//
if leisure
if leisure in the morning
then spare me a glance
if leaf-buds are forming
then we have a chance
if dew-drops are adorning
then the roses free
if leisure in the morning
you’ll also have me
if dreaming at noon
let’s meet in the shade
if weary come june
then put down your spade
if love is a simple tune
and laughter the key
if dreaming at noon
you’ll also have me
if easy in the evening
then let’s read a book
if lazy to be reasoning
come hide in your nook
if candle flame is flickering
close your eyes and see
if easy in the evening
you’ll also have me
if longing at midnight
go walking on the sand
if reaching for moonlight
you will hold my hand
if starlight is the invite
sing beyond the sea
if longing at midnight
you’ll also have me
//
Assalamu’alaikumwarahmatullahiwabarakatuh 🌔
Æ.2
ok computer whereto and from
dragging chains against the sun
the name of both is Æ
(orthœpy in play) and
ælizabeth is setting honey traps
for dragons
//
Æ.1
we visited your grave the other day
how’s that thought for you?
Æ went there to kiss the sky
because a chariot
is life’s emancipation of
the written word
//
a chariot is
reply to Isthmian I, via Phaedrus 227β
//
a chariot is artifact entombed
beneath packed sediment
an imprint on the earth
of acts not of the earth
sightless as solitude
lifeless as time itself
rotting perpetual
vehicle disposed
it falls apart
a chariot is
impervious
to crying
a chariot is a paragraph
about ancient technology
symbols illuminated by
old photos from museums
shaded settings in relief
straight lines on pregnant-bellied vases
fragments of singed and tattered verse
reasons described almost
as spatial motion re-constructed
of kingships and bloodline races
past endings to beginnings of
gods animals and man
words used as tools
each one to fix and justify
as evidentiary groping at
a world of human things
we still don’t know
a chariot is an easy gift
against a multitude
of horses
the machines we used to get
from place of rest to planet mars were splendid
magnificent creatures in their own
golden-
ratioed
grammars
and dragons that took hold of drivers' eyes
they thought the wind but caught to ride
a flaming sword instead between her thighs
maidens of modern mythologies arrived
on cliffside edges wearing white
translucent coats
arousal com-
partmentalized
to celebrate new body parts cognized
the jewel-tones of her lacquered toes
the scent of ozone taste
of toxic fizz behind
her sucking nose
her mouth disclosed
she swallows apples licks
a rose the absolute
glory hallelujah
ravenous grows
vulva exposed for clicks
each flick a seed she sows
from echoes loaded lead
her rainbows red as victory
she was the counting down to blasting off
she was four hundred thousand horses yoked
by arc of axel angel burnt tendrils
smoke billows over rocky rough terrain
past battlefields and nations past
her recent childhood and
arsenic smile
their eyes went to
her nippled curves and angles
her thorough flexibility
her starry nights and spangles
her lashes cruelly clawed
her pussies pawed
and oh how they
to her with her and of
her came
as realism
inscribed by god
rendered maidens un-made
oiled python sheen of ageless skin
she was the beauty left in violence
they were materials for war
sapphire eyes emerald or amethyst
you chose the crystal the correction and
the facets for
some child in Africa
was orphaned by each armored scale to feed
her un-weaned toddler burger meat
( at least the blacks buried
and did not eat
their very
fathers
a chariot is
from-dust-
arisen life transcribed )
annunciations posted inter-angel
a holy home a web apart
filters of pale ethereality
content implicitly divorced
from earth’s divided continent
baptismal diamantine written
laws skinlessly conceived that we
may find and hold as work of art
your child’s hunger as forgiven
a chariot is
already cleansed of blood it is
excerpted rage it is
brave forms we made
from partial purpose or
how to make pure
a brilliant woman true to life
but honestly a whore
a chariot is what you drive to get
to work your nightmares harnessed by
engines of piston pretenses
at likely sentences
a chariot is nothingness herself
but full of manliness
the games we play when we
make love in light of day
driving endlessly divine
at origins as orifices flying
a chariot is
a summary
of dying
//
selamat purnama 🌕
3 cats
//
Lalah loves nothing better than to get
her cat smell all over a freshly laundered
human and then go and scratch some wood
//
meanwhile Ismail
is trying to puke
something unwanted up
//
Sri Rejeki
gets scary
after dark
//
body’s most wondrous lesson was
turning raw wounds into desire
as ripening longing to be eaten
as eyes longing to see and be open
//
broken machine of tentacles and teeth
war is what monsters are and what they do
monsters are monsters at war with monsters
useless becomes another name for peace
//
Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh 🌖
marigolds
what a week to take vacation
some time to recompose
to get back from the deadness
questions that i never chose
my instrument is alien
my hands remote-controlled
i cannot see my own two feet
the way is lined with marigolds
i have no numbers to report
no news in a ghost town
there is no story to be told
the wind already took it down
go diving in the deadness
go breathing in the deep
go dancing in the marigolds
but never fall asleep
what a day to wade back in again
the sunlit flowers cold
what a way to chase the day again
to watch the underworld unfold
//
a dream
a dream
swimming
diving under
taking a deep breath to do it
not knowing when i would be coming up for air or knowing it was never
//
our exercise as exorcism of time —
the oddly-staggered rhyme leaves bruises
on buds stringently-steeped, the undisclosed
grays of grass groped in dark of morning that
took hold as roots in midnight, not knowing color
not knowing how seemly to be in sun —
steps right into the rhythm of blinding fire
this prism of shadows is highways home, revealed
in daylight’s reconciliation with desire
//
Selamat Idulfitri, Eid mubarak, blessed Eid to those who observe.
Alhamdulillahirabbil’alameen. 🌙
//
Eve’s ultimatum.
//
Do you see yourself (in his mirror) as
The summarized insanity of Adam?
Your heart is his gateway to the garden.
Be probable, or be perennial.
//
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu. 🌔
Notes on techne.
//
There is no eros in technology.
(Technology is anti-erotic,
Ending in the endlessness of desire.)
Techne is the technology of Allah.
(Techne is Al-Khaliq, Al-Bari, Al-Musawwir.
Eros is Ar-Rahman, Ar-Raheem.)
Poetry is erotic techne.
(The Qur’an is poetry of poetry.
The basmala —
Bismillah hir rahman nir raheem
By the Name of Allah, Ar-Rahman, Ar-Raheem
— is the poet’s seed.
The poet of poets is the Prophet,
Recollection as Self-conservation.)
The stranger (X) is the poet as lover.
Thoth is the poet as technician.
//
Phaedrus is a (the) passion.
//
Prayer becomes mantra
And we are taken for a ride —
//
her place, her body,
her ecosystem
the things you took are empty, cast-off and
abandoned spells, porcelain and wooden shells,
remnants of oceans past and absent wonder —
tombs wherein she gave birth, by way of earth
to visions that unfold, un-helled, in dark
of pockets, moon-mothered, saturn-supressed
and mars-propelled past deeper houses that
she’ll build, nightmares of sword-swallowing flesh
without a bone, without a government,
letters of constitutions burned, laundered
in surf, your teeth, your plastic handicaps,
your non-fungible bird, your poems unheard
through algorithmic feats of isolation —
when all she ever wanted was (your heart, stirred)
for one watery moment to be the law
in her place, her body, her ecosystem
//
Ismail
It looked like neon green beans, to my eyes,
The sorry viper he’d regurgitated at
My feet, when I bent lower to examine
The finger-lengths of body gnawed
In pieces, coated with digestive slime
And barely small enough to swallow. So
I knew that he could make, from serpent’s
Suffering, a hearty gift. I also knew
Our little life would never not be on
The line, each day one hundred unseen times
(Between the drunken swagger and the lap,
His cradled body gone loving-limp in mine)
We would match teeth and tongue with death, and that
Valor would be more holy than satiation.
//
Alhamdulillahirabbil’aalameen.
Selamat purnama. 🌕