Song of My Beard

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Dave Bonta

I sang a song to my beard,
overgrown powder
of my neck and altered head,
brown thing of thorn, bridge
to a brave day abominably bare.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 22 February 1659/60.

About Dave Bonta

Dave Bonta (bio) crowd-sources his problems by following his gut, which he shares with 100 trillion of his closest microbial friends — a close-knit, symbiotic community comprising several thousand species of bacteria, fungi, and protozoa.

View all posts by Dave Bonta →

Posted in Pepys Diary erasure project | Spot a typo? Please let us know

8 Responses to Song of My Beard

Peter says:

February 23, 2013 at 12:20 am

Whitman-esque. But did he ever erase anything?
- Dave Bonta says:
  
  February 23, 2013 at 1:44 am
  
  I doubt it. Lord knows some of his works might’ve benefited if he had.
Rachel Barenblat (@velveteenrabbi) says:

February 23, 2013 at 7:23 am

Oh, I like this one a lot.
- Dave Bonta says:
  
  February 23, 2013 at 5:49 pm
  
  Thanks.
lucychili says:

February 23, 2013 at 9:43 am

happy birthday for samuel pepys =)
- Dave Bonta says:
  
  February 23, 2013 at 5:50 pm
  
  Yes, indeed! He mentions it in the entry for the day, but I’m not sure whether that will make it into tonight’s erasure or not.
marly youmans says:

February 23, 2013 at 3:14 pm

Nice & strange, that beard! I wonder how your non-erasures will be when you return to them…
- Dave Bonta says:
  
  February 23, 2013 at 5:51 pm
  
  Possibly not too different. I am old and set in my ways, I’m afraid. But we’ll see.