Socrates: (cont.) but for me, there is no leisure (schole) at all for these things

// 229ε

ἐμοὶ δὲ πρὸς αὐτὰ οὐδαμῶς ἐστι σχολή

//

photo of a pinkish landscape of grass and distant trees and shrubs with an almost silhouette of hanging vining

pinkish //

Socrates: (cont.) he will lack much leisure (schole) for himself

// 229ε

πολλῆς αὐτῷ σχολῆς δεήσει

//

in memory of Oreithyia

a pearl exposed
on the one-way road
demands a rocky throne
her tritone howling
unhinging the jewelry jaw
its hunger pretending
its hook line preclaiming
lip angled by whether
lost inseam unseemly loss
the weightlessness of stone

//

Socrates: (cont.) as if consulting (chraein) some kind of rude (agroikos) wisdom

// 229ε

ἅτε ἀγροίκῳ τινὶ σοφίᾳ χρώμενος

//

my christmas tree

by this typical jaw
with four, six ellipses
make up arboreal
chipping ornaments
icicles of twisting glass
still if breathing

needles if leaves
it was in the drying
she would spread her wings
aroaming like memory
almost belonging
a sleeping forest

//

. . .

//

🌘

Socrates: (cont.) if someone, distrusting these, will make each come nearer to a likening (eikos)

// 229ε

αἷς εἴ τις ἀπιστῶν προσβιβᾷ κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ἕκαστον

//

diptych oceanic amechanica

hysteriac at home

woe! i am a not altogether fortunate woman
my pocket seams with potsherds polishing
a bag of skin trailing portentous signs
and i am broken news, my sand is yellow

to find my edge, i walk into the sea
her seaweed briarpatch of gorgons birth
surrendered sky by pegasi recovery
as mermaids sing flat edges for my shanty

woe! her thanatos uncanny, even for me
the horizon roars for blessing every line
shore smashing every bauble blending shades
soft seashells made tangible the breast of ocean

and time is a tangent tracing its beloved snail
and the cradle failing of her continental tail
and she is drawing, drawing, under seasons wax
pink salty glowing in her seamless milk cocoon

woe, woe! my every mask a bending earth
reflowing throng of placeless impossibility
and desires every glance she didn’t chase yet
my marbles rolling in her depthless pocket

//

uteri

get em hot
skim cooling

like sumber bor
in 12 hrs or more
chocolate lava cake
stone melting

tropic shiver
truly your

earth dwelling
tacky decor
tasteless tasty

ova in—
ice tailor—
screaming

wicked

//

. . .

oh no!

dessert
amazing

1, 2, 3, ho!

smashing
to order

. . .

//

Socrates: (cont.) and then out flows a throng of things such as Gorgons and Pegasuses and multitudes of additional impossibilities (a-mechanos) and of such things giving birth (phuein) to placeless (a-topia) storytellings of monsters (teratologos) . . .

//

καὶ ἐπιρρεῖ δὲ ὄχλος τοιούτων Γοργόνων καὶ Πηγάσων καὶ ἄλλων ἀμηχάνων πλήθη τε καὶ ἀτοπίαι τερατολόγων τινῶν φύσεων

//

Plato coins “teratologos” from teras and logos; teras means a sign, marvel, wonder, divine sign, omen, portent, or monster. So teratologoi are words, accounts, stories, arguments, or reckonings about signs, marvels, wonders, divine signs, oments, portents, or monsters.

//

photo of the sea, the horizon, the cloudy sky, with a small boat off to the left edge of the image with a few people in it, one tiny person in neon snorkel gear in the center of the image, and a tiny dim silhouette of a boat to the right of the image, near the horizon

coverage //

Socrates: (cont.) for no other reason than that for him it’s necessary after this to straighten out (epanorthousthai) the form (eidos) of the Hippocentaurs, and then again that of the Chimaera,

// 229δ

κατ᾽ ἄλλο μὲν οὐδέν, ὅτι δ᾽ αὐτῷ ἀνάγκη μετὰ τοῦτο τὸ τῶν Ἱπποκενταύρων εἶδος ἐπανορθοῦσθαι, καὶ αὖθις τὸ τῆς Χιμαίρας

//

pink non eraser

under fan
ceiling
by socks or slippers
whispers inside the softest rain
disordered bee
bonnet be let out
two dimensions on a wednesday
piece of obsidian, cool in hand
her dilating pupils
her pink paper sand
clawless pawing my pencil
.;,,32wu8x
pathomistry traces oily
whiff papyral

//

catspoon
container

//

Socrates: (cont.) yet they belong to an exceedingly terrible (deinos) and laborious (epiponos) and not altogether (panu) fortunate (eutuches) man

// 229δ

ἐγὼ δέ, ὦ Φαῖδρε, ἄλλως μὲν τὰ τοιαῦτα χαρίεντα ἡγοῦμαι, λίαν δὲ δεινοῦ καὶ ἐπιπόνου καὶ οὐ πάνυ εὐτυχοῦς ἀνδρός

//

anywhere but poppies

it’s there
her pane of a window
passing passages

the passing offer to carry
ten thousand atomic lighters
black specks on a braid of challah

or liberate sweet nappers proper
a chilli-laced hotpot, shiitakis, bok choy
garlic, in the valley of compost boxes

loose her transportive reliquaries, poultices
dank delicious opacity compressed of air
silkworms for the mundane pocket

warm pillow for docket signifiers
fingertips heavy with tawny heads
inky notations with nowhere there

to fly, but into the measure, slightly high
pitched on a dry stone wall, for her
a pinkish reddish hazy third, with leaves

to breathe, past purple on the milky way
eclipse, her eyelid, her lippy friend
seamless tracing moving core

//

🌗

Socrates: (cont.) as for me, O Phaedrus, while otherwise i suppose such as these to be graceful,

// 229δ

ἐγὼ δέ, ὦ Φαῖδρε, ἄλλως μὲν τὰ τοιαῦτα χαρίεντα ἡγοῦμαι

//

winter under wax & wick bottled

winter under wax

on church circle, dark december in the upstairs bar
a brass banister slides under my pink merino glove
words quiet, two or four of us at a mahogany table, hunter
green and a glass globe of spiced amber medicinal

or new years post-midnight, lit sobranie at the window
my flat over the cobalt classy resto where i worked
high-waisted and fetching wine for devil’s cash from tourists
my slanted bedroom walls still blue for my boss’s baby

alone finishing a bottle of champagne with poetry
down gazing over main street empty, marketed, icy
and lantern halo; uphill from the glossy wavering city dock
of Annapolis sleeping under the falling snow

in great hall, a baby grand conceived her toasty fingerprints
you found me there, immersive conjecture duo lingual
brought me back to your apartment, requested we tango
through leggy glasses of burgundy whether i broke a heart

doorways into sympathy revolving thresholds of regret
fellowships unbraided by such shallow recklessness
the turning years a blur between slow burns of clarity
or tether to a substance so precious it couldn’t endure

and was sanctuary sweet, i ask at the temple of winter
retasting an icicle of rarity until it self-sealed under wax
and aged like honey; when all around it had decayed
knotwork to dust, the bitterness of ashes and Egyptian sun

//

wick bottled

wax profane
waning lunar
wick bottled

yes

and i, old lady, lug down
but 61 ivories from the loteng
dear i’m sorry for these years
pyramidical procrastination

now

are they enough
for journey to Jeddah

//

Socrates: (cont.) —or else from the hill of Ares; for this word (logos) is also said, that she was carried away from that place and not from here

// 229δ

—ἢ ἐξ Ἀρείου πάγου: λέγεται γὰρ αὖ καὶ οὗτος ὁ λόγος, ὡς ἐκεῖθεν ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἐνθένδε ἡρπάσθη

//

medium close-up photo of vertical culms of bamboo, ones on the left of the image covered with complex growing formations of lichen and fungi

lichen et alia //

adding a note that Pharmakeia’s triptych, especially the part entitled “big girl”, was written in response to this glorious depiction of a windmill and the accompanying poetry; because without the windmill (glorious) a reader might miss the Don Quixote tether, and the thought of that made me sad.

i first read Cervantes' novel in college; Madonna and Man of La Mancha are both nostalgic cultural moments from my childhood; Pharmakeia reaches for the latter

I see heaven when I see thee, Dulcinea
And thy name is like a prayer
An angel whispers, Dulcinea, Dulcinea!

presently weeping luteal for an old man’s impossible dream. happy pmdd! <3

//

Socrates: (cont.) and in this way it ended up (teleutein) said that she came to be (gignomai) carried away by Boreas

// 229ξ

καὶ οὕτω δὴ τελευτήσασαν λεχθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ Βορέου ἀνάρπαστον γεγονέναι

//