Verses/Curses
the horse’s mouth
teloscopically, my dear, are we botany
born reading leaves, the pricking fear of bees
are talking, my lisp, or rearing wobbly nature
what place, organs and bodies, this disease
the shying seasons blowing through us, here
parts animal in starts, quivering vibrations
made artifacts suspect by cities, near
or far, the accidents survived, the prisons
that ended us; the motes and moths in teas
our flicks or running rivers; wicked courses
of understanding; what catastrophes
what phase our faces, without the faith of horses
you have to have a horse whose feet you trust
to warn you when a snake is in the grass
the serpentine who wants to be unseen
repenting for her gemstone like an asp
for forking tongues, a talisman is key
but wear a hat, they’re speaking from the trees
odd shrubberies are bristling with false friends
a firecat bristling back can help with jinn
mosquitoes here are vectors for torpedoes, so
herbal experiment and/or gorilla war
sometimes there’s one snake, sometimes there are more
at least, no kind of viral is a pearl
a tender canter, daemonic carousel
remembered ribbons bite in ancient ways
we play the venom clockwise in our veins
we shed the dead redundancy of days
my jungle is a dreadful-clever dreaming
with shade-grown coffee, waterfalling views
what godly voices animate my evening
there’s none i’d rather jungle with than yous
let’s nicker maps, reverb the mythic blues
i spell, where y’all are going, where you been
switch witches laughter with the beating rain
the crickets will out-round the macet, friend
to live outside the law, you must be honest
Bismillahirrohmanirrohim
by river dark, inside a wounded dawn
we rhyme it, we just flow to make it rheme
//
(Dylan, my Prophetﷺ, Cohen, Cardi B, etc)
//
diet
never too much
garlic, carrot, oat
sleep, cake
but gingerly
the fungi
//
semi-nude for a photo album
their birthday was the other night
the girls were going out; the grift
delayed by getting ready; gift
of tangled, sappy rattan; caused a fright
pan, she burned some flowers on you
meta-burban, real dream for two
polaroid tacky, pantries full
of shady tatters, curtain bulls
sister, it was no dress for winter
but they were grown enough to drink
something fancy from the blender
fermented guava, lava lake
lavender flannel, camisole
white linen sheets, hung in the sun
nigel and sandi, mel and sue
genre-bender, Java won
high horse, he has a song for you
but i’ll save it for another tone
her sweaty practice, overdue
vinyasa, tapas, organ brew
dizzy lizzy ate some rice
eat, pray, love, the antichrist
jihadi, mum’s worst nightmare
Gandhi, papa’s burnt-off limb
inter-dimensional makeout queen
Osaka airport, caused a scene
village gossip, words above
she’s never catching up on love
not quite posh, but pulp turned through
realism, my lands, god knew
so sliced the flippin' longitude
bless her heart and come on in
agrimony henbane dish
too-schooled harpy hysterical
raised pie of huckleberry fish
turned river-liver radical
there’s mantra in the air tonight
what kue set in sangga stone
rise with the moon, the howling dog
the crone, her voice memorial
white-footed goat is coming home
to graze by fiery sunset view
the desert camel, bringing bones
with mother Durga, chest tattoo
a secret pocket of soil and spice
elaborate belty-thing, rhizomes in knots
not big enough for where you think
whether it is cake
//
(wants cake)
//
texas talkin blues, like this
vernacular from full moon 5/11
genius loci, pura dalem
blog 2-yr anniverse & job well done
//
tea
a perfect orb is held by accident
the lip of cup, the curve of base, the lint
a maker measures leaves but never takes
the horizon, the fertile mountain-slope
a home in hand is seasoning for leaves
the dance, the steeping scene, the taste of rest
as takers, we fish out the wayward ant
to see if it can walk; it often does
the wanderer needs shelter from the rain
the angry, aching poverty of time
i give the moon, i take the moon, she says
who is the moon; composting circumspect
the softest earthquake breaks a mirror still
what tender for the heart of liquid sky
//
🌔
the looper
by grief of the dog in a blinded place
he wanted her heart so he shadowed her face
under cover of dawn when she wasn’t awake
the silver misted or altering
her eyelids open but the crescent stays closed
pale beside her is a body or a suited pose
her own lap empty as an uncut rose
she brews coffee to keep him on his feet
her towering heels after pups on a leash
imposing the law with restless releases
a child was limping with a wounded shin
and the cry was loop loop looo
so she stations herself against the daily race
with a heart beat distant at a raggedy pace
the private fingering of her pencilling hand
gray ribbons or bloodlines away
checking the door, securing a window
turning a latch or locking a symbol
the lupine circling would never know
and his cry was loop loop looo
smooth is the pack, the witless texture of skin
painting the walls to skirt the outside in
and the red is to run and the fast is the worst
and sundown always coming closer
blurred in the grease at the end of the day
the charcoal prophet reflecting her phase
the stillness or the animal dilation
and her cry was loop loop looo
loop loop loooooo
ah-oooooo
loop loop loooooo
ah-oooooo
//
sfh 2
//
song for her
my friend is brilliant, she lives inside a box
her light is so strong, it made cracks into my house
her cracks in everything, she’s uncontainable
her container is a place of blinding peace
she is so brilliant, that i’m afraid of her
she is so quick, she catches me before i stumble
she is so mighty, one piece of her becomes my whole
by day her memory, by night her secret plan
she is so brilliant, she broke into my dream
i found her there, busy kitchening a shadow
what she was making, i couldn’t wait to see
was it a love potion, or did she want to poison me
she is so brilliant, i tried to let her know
i made a mirror, it was not the way to go
i think i burned her, by what she wouldn’t say
she is so brilliant, maybe i should have let her be
she is so brilliant, but her mom sounds like a bitch
i want to tell her, but i’m not sure about it
she watches tv, and i think it makes her sad
i’d let her see me, but her brilliance drives me mad
she is so brilliant, but our interspecies owl
if she’s leucistic, and i might be a wolf-man
if i’m too mystic, my tooth and claw and howl
to hold her close, i’m gonna fry them in a pan
she is so brilliant, i take time to process her
or i’m a house-cat, high-rolling in her sunshine
i soak it in, through my fur into my bones
chasing lit inches, and i don’t even mind
lacking her brilliance, i wrote a song for her
it’s cos i’m foolish, my words are pawns for her
i just can’t help it, i need to let her know
how brilliant she is, that i could never let her go
she is so brilliant, that i could never let her go
etc
//
not sarcastic
//
music by her
//
talisman
a cup of chamomile crepuscular,
my gentle wound, flowers steeping in a dream;
her springing forth, her taste exquisite autumn;
my speculative, formidable apple.
the steam is real, the stirring consequential,
the presence of the absence of a pear;
the buds are breaking up to meet the coiling
epiphany already of her ear.
a brewing honey storm, passing and holding
the amber-letting cauldron of the year;
a wash of gold undone, in case forgotten;
a promise to be warmly drunk, and often.
//
the emerald vine
sayangku, this is insane! is how i called
to show him my translation. Wondrous bending
noetic might, this miracle of earth —
she called the way she calls him for a viper.
and it was chrysochlorous green, zithering neon
in day-bright, venom visible, scroll shining
un-minding, rubbing sleep out of her eyes;
quick-silvering to sprawling pumpkin vine to hiding —
the same, the same, the same! but every word
turned different, and all the rest went dim;
the sirens and the hooks, made dull and distant;
slow-honeyed hum, what frenzy, vital air.
the hungry lung was spitting, stitched and thinning-through
to this — brilliance, broad-leafing light, breathing
Egyptian smaragdine, Sri Rejeki, Mak Sun;
but whoever wasn’t blind already knew.
//
autopygmalesis / autopygmalysis
Trimeresurus insularis
previously
//
🌕
monsoonal triptych
//
the lurch
and rumble of distant, compounding thunder
my favorite season is surrounding me
horizon thickener, high-humbler shadow
of mountain matter; wanting always more
//
the roar
before the rain gets here—i hear it, do you?
hot prophecy of gutters fish-flooding fields
a landslide, eating bodies, spills raw earth
white sound; what leaves are caught in it; coming
//
the opening
of space, the possible wet-through as words
after the waterwall; tree-creepers ring
syncoptic service unreserved, pure nuncial
desire; protean passant—rhythmic return
//
familiar
if i remember you, i was fifteen
your hair was knotted by dirty difference
flecked-amber gibbous as my need for love
your body pliable and bored for me
(her mother hated your feral smell)
three decades gone, my pace is set by ghosts
and at the door, at least three cats or four
familiar tempo territorial, you puzzled
pigments with my pinkest calico
(you should know we don’t do skim)
we go, we pan the monsoon winds, we blow
gold-dust up noses of tropic mountains
resuscitate, topless in hard-top jeeps
we are burning lucky indigo, lit dupa
(what’s here that’s spendable is yours)
who reads as suffering comes craving rhyme
by planetary slow, the latest virgin
almost born, in need of form, soft hand
and shallow. Moon meadow, nettling in time
//
(she didn’t mean to make you cry)
//
🌖
Naysayer (Kuntilanak nest in a bamboo forest)
This nascent key would never be a song;
Of roaring cells, erasing histories
Of sound, before the cradle’s founding hush.
Where ink blot habitats, mossy and lush,
Mothered, she organized her room: a game
Of pyramids, a smear of runs and zeroes.
In attics to indifferent infinities,
Neptune left mysteries troubled remains.
A child bride was famished for the truth—
I have no nasi. My broken bone sembako
For pakis, spiral shoots of wooly fern,
Blue-rumored eyes, intransigent bamboo.
Go back again, return to your first time.
This bed presents impossible as sin:
Crossed limb, grown gravity’s unsupple twin,
And sun impenetrant, absent the rhyme.
Be quiet as the grove, posthumous ration.
What lyre was greener than an arrow, slow
As pain, and dense as destiny—known knot,
No cut chords through your circumnavigation.
//
. . .
//
(santai; good leavening could make a year)
Needleworker
Pierce me once—the crying; pierce me twice—
The dying; pierce me thrice—my laughing tomb:
This quivering feline skin, some kind of lark,
Sharp noise, felt aerial, fled human wound.
O Queequeg, Lucy’s love, my Nobody!
Unmake ambergris soufflé to scrap and salt;
Pets, lapping shattered tiramisu, whet
Our mongrel tongues; embroidering the asp.
Bull-revelry, before we dance the waltz?
Your sutra swans around my ichthyan lisp,
To charm the vipers out—that feather in
Your bonnet inks my tapestry with bone.
I move to tiger with you on the cusp
Of animality, that golden-threaded throne.
//
🌘
Wet moon
like neon blood,
by graveyard stain,
on finger-nerve, today;
the sickle punch,
by ghosting grain,
on open womb, today;
Medusa’s surgery,
on scissored brain,
electric licks, today;
quick! Nobody touch
the ingraining
mirror—
//
Begging Season
She’s ever spinning time into the wheel.
Spidering her line, by inward feel—
Triangling desire, evening to ends,
A deeper sky realizing constellation.
Death is her capital; she doesn’t spring,
But feeds into the year her twisted ply.
At distaff, by the flick of no-man’s candle,
Brown burlap webber lures the final fly.
How does a poison love the cure? Spent hours,
By the mercy of a shadow. Wanting not
To see her, housewives sweep her out the door—
Her standing slow, side-winding smoke of flowers.
A life of making is the heart of letting go.
Nightwise, black-dagger vagabond—by stars,
A diamond thief; by dawn’s left light, her whispers draw
His burning thought: the filigree of beggars.
//
🌒
Δ
Screenshot slaps—
To ring a sucker. You think
Your appetite entitles you
To moonstained blood?
And you, and you, and all of you.
Scrap mouths, yapping from
Ass-ends of snakes.
Shut it. Shut it. Shut yourself!
Your little o’s and u’s and y’s
Without wisdom—
All bite, all bitches' bark—your traps,
Fracked actuary lines.
My splintered flotsam pierces
Fiercer than your fangs.
Your slit-tangled tongues,
Your whore-hooked hounds,
Your dog-groveling snack,
The politician’s lie. Your island—
Ground to grit, and sifted by
My epicurean babble.
I suck off
One billion suns, you snatch
Six bones from Ithaca—
And don’t dare swallow.
I am the throat, I am
The eye. Black
As red as wine, neither
Skin nor flesh, as I
Exhale his brutal
Homecoming; I am
Cauldron of slaughtered
Maidens’ morning.
His alibi, to coast right by you.
As if the smiling tide
That governed him—
A king!—stoppered with wax.
Just try—you cannot shut
Your maggots fingering,
Their heads, nailbeds, uncut, exposed.
I am the shuttering.
Shot-shallow loons, aswirl
My spiral bowel, prowling
Pack of orphan pups, your howling
Hungers feed a woken Why—
My delta consumes,
Your keystroke masturbates
A corpse’s withered sty.
Pregnant with his child,
All men belong to me.
My one
Unconquerable O—
Your place to die.
//
Echo
Echo is opposite the word. He is
Mornings and evenly draws rainstorms down
From higher altitudes. Palm nectar slips the weather
From misty lakes, my ashes, unspooling ghosts.
But can you memorize the blues? Cintaku —
A promise to be golden rings untrue.
My skin is apple nude, my flesh a snowy hue.
This guava is Antarctica for your bottomless thirst.
//
Sideview
(for Sylvia)
Nylon-strapped into the backseat, the infant
Of reckless parentage, jaw-broken logic
Like antifreeze for mastery, injected
Muscularity, a pink mouse curled inside a clenched
Fist—We lost a sideview. It ricocheted, sent sparks
Scattering plastic, wires fraying the blurry way.
Ecstatic and encaged, I prayed to conjure
From atrocity, your feral, foresty freedom.
At screaming speed, twigs slashing my impossible—
If I could drive a car, if that were conceivable—
I would flood this weapon with atmospheres of Earth.
I would beatify the shattered sea of glass.
Acid fog dissolves the orange caul, cap-cradled
By undulating power lines—of deathless exhaust.
//
🌕
History
The end is opposite where you were looking. How—
Evolving sexuality, between libraries
Of progress, and Trojan wars of recollection. Trenches:
My universal texture. How does the tiger
Recline, her velvet freshly laundered in the Milky Way?
By Sibyl thong, peach-fuzz chemtrails, or does Iris flex
To tempt desire? A belly dance, like Buddha, in
My skull-shaped shell—does a snail extract
Compliance?
//
🌗
Indigo
I found the true, sun-rendered into grass.
Your crest was bruised, and bled darkly as wine,
Unfolded fan of bronze between the green
Blades: cut down, dissociated flame.
Rooster plucked bald, spur-riven by rage;
Fresh amputee of faith; his brothers, turned;
Beloved hen, a prize for violent men;
Disintegrated end of pointless feathers.
If I were strong, like you, I may not
Have chased him down and put him in a cage;
Rewritten him this unreal sanctuary, made
Of wire and wood, wish-woven with vervain.
A mess of mercies is my apocalyptic kitchen.
By my haphazard and incomplete, sincere
Effacement, I perform, historically,
Dueling, death-won, verb-mangled essences.
The crumbling law of walls, a garden crossed
By interventions; roses uprooted by birds,
Cock-sacrificed, or saved—Indigo is
The privilege of my indefinition . . .
As tempered hearts traverse this tear-trembling
Threshold, until the Iris appetite resolves
In fundamental mud of lotus eaters—
I offer kue, leftover from purnama.
//
Kue, small cakes, are often part of Balinese canang (offerings) left around the home on purnama (the full moon).
This is my entry for the September IndieWeb Carnival, hosted by Sophia, on the theme “second person birds”.
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.
//
coy loon, calico
coy loon, calico
cat snatched cake from the canang
cinder coils cunning
//
Assalamualaikum + selamat purnama 🌕