Altered states

Lay pretty while with some discontent abed, even to the having bad words with my wife, and blows too, about the ill-serving up of our victuals yesterday; but all ended in love, and so I rose and to my office busy all the morning. At noon dined at home, and then to my office again, and then abroad to look after callicos for flags, and hope to get a small matter by my pains therein and yet save the King a great deal of money, and so home to my office, and there came Mr. Cocker, and brought me a globe of glasse, and a frame of oyled paper, as I desired, to show me the manner of his gaining light to grave by, and to lessen the glaringnesse of it at pleasure by an oyled paper. This I bought of him, giving him a crowne for it; and so, well satisfied, he went away, and I to my business again, and so home to supper, prayers, and to bed.

words blow out and in
flags on a globe of glass

oiled light to lessen the glaringness
of oiled prayers


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 7 October 1664.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.