Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Original poetry, translations and videopoems by the authors of this blog. (See Poets and poetry for criticism, etc.)
A spectre is haunting my Instagram page — the spectre of Trumpism. But more cheerful subjects, such as death, imprisonment, and the evolution of teeth, also continue to pop up.
Continue reading “Tongues make the best flags: more instagrammatic photos”
(Lord’s day). Up pretty early, and having last night bespoke a coach, which failed me this morning, I walked as far as the Temple, and there took coach, and to my Lord’s lodgings, whom I found ready to go to chappell; but I coming, he begun, with a very serious countenance, to tell me that he had received my late letter, wherein first he took notice of my care of him and his honour, and did give me thanks for that part of it where I say that from my heart I believe the contrary of what I do there relate to be the discourse of others; but since I intended it not a reproach, but matter of information, and for him to make a judgment of it for his practice, it was necessary for me to tell him the persons of whom I have gathered the several particulars which I there insist on. I would have made excuses in it; but, seeing him so earnest in it, I found myself forced to it, and so did tell him Mr. Pierce; the chyrurgeon, in that of his Lordship’s living being discoursed of at Court; a mayd servant that I kept, that lived at Chelsy school; and also Mr. Pickering, about the report touching the young woman; and also Mr. Hunt, in Axe Yard, near whom she lodged. I told him the whole city do discourse concerning his neglect of business; and so I many times asserting my dutifull intention in all this, and he owning his accepting of it as such. That that troubled me most in particular is, that he did there assert the civility of the people of the house, and the young gentlewoman, for whose reproach he was sorry. His saying that he was resolved how to live, and that though he was taking a house, meaning to live in another manner, yet it was not to please any people, or to stop report, but to please himself, though this I do believe he might say that he might not seem to me to be so much wrought upon by what I have writ; and lastly, and most of all, when I spoke of the tenderness that I have used in declaring this to him, there being nobody privy to it, he told me that I must give him leave to except one. I told him that possibly somebody might know of some thoughts of mine, I having borrowed some intelligence in this matter from them, but nobody could say they knew of the thing itself what I writ. This, I confess, however, do trouble me, for that he seemed to speak it as a quick retort, and it must sure be Will. Howe, who did not see anything of what I writ, though I told him indeed that I would write; but in this, I think, there is no great hurt.
I find him, though he cannot but owne his opinion of my good intentions, and so, he did again and again profess it, that he is troubled in his mind at it; and I confess, I think I may have done myself an injury for his good, which, were it to do again, and that I believed he would take it no better, I think I should sit quietly without taking any notice of it, for I doubt there is no medium between his taking it very well or very ill.
I could not forbear weeping before him at the latter end, which, since, I am ashamed of, though I cannot see what he can take it to proceed from but my tenderness and good will to him.
After this discourse was ended, he began to talk very, cheerfully of other things, and I walked with him to White Hall, and we discoursed of the pictures in the gallery, which, it may be, he might do out of policy, that the boy might not see any, strangeness in him; but I rather think that his mind was somewhat eased, and hope that he will be to me as he was before. But, however, I doubt not when he sees that I follow my business, and become an honour to him, and not to be like to need him, or to be a burden to him, and rather able to serve him than to need him, and if he do continue to follow business, and so come to his right witts again, I do not doubt but he will then consider my faithfulnesse to him, and esteem me as he ought.
At chappell I had room in the Privy Seale pew with other gentlemen, and there heard Dr. Killigrew, preach, but my mind was so, I know not whether troubled, or only full of thoughts of what had passed between my Lord and me that I could not mind it, nor can at this hour remember three words. The anthem was good after sermon, being the fifty-first psalme, made for five voices by one of Captain Cooke’s boys, a pretty boy. And they say there are four or five of them that can do as much. And here I first perceived that the King is a little musicall, and kept good time with his hand all along the anthem.
Up into the gallery after sermon and there I met Creed. We saluted one another and spoke but not one word of what had passed yesterday between us, but told me he was forced to such a place to dinner and so we parted.
Here I met Mr. Povy, who tells me how Tangier had like to have been betrayed, and that one of the King’s officers is come, to whom 8,000 pieces of eight were offered for his part.
Hence I to the King’s Head ordinary, and there dined, good and much company, and a good dinner: most of their discourse was about hunting, in a dialect I understand very little.
Thence by coach to our own church, and there my mind being yet unsettled I could mind nothing, and after sermon home and there told my wife what had passed, and thence to my office, where doing business only to keep my mind employed till late; and so home to supper, to prayers, and to bed.
night is coming
and the whole city is in on it
though nobody told me
I know what I see
I sit quietly with the strangeness
my mind full of voices
like a dialect I understand nothing of
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 22 November 1663.
This animal leathery in its hide,
snuffling in mud, noisy at dawn.
This animal tusked and gloved, trotting
the gravel path, yellowing snout to the wind.
This animal with its hide singed, turned in-
side out like a purse, entrails laid on the grass.
This animal turned on a spit, guttered
in fat, torched to a sheen.
This animal’s meat in your mouth
rank as ripe heat, full as a teat.
“When I reached the Che-La after fleeing Norbulingka, I turned back to gaze at Lhasa and looking in the direction of the Potala said, ‘Goodbye.” Later, I realised that I could have died, which wouldn’t have been of any help; instead we escaped and survived.” ~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 2013
On the first day we pick the lint
from each other’s sleeves and pack them into balls;
this is mostly to make a distraction from tears.
On the fourth day someone speaks of inventory: by which
he means a listing of the ways in which parts of the world
that we know could not completely disappear in six months.
In a fortnight, the old appetites
of animals that prowled our dreams come out,
proclaiming the beginning of their holidays.
Out in the open,
the young continue to knit defiant fingers together.
They shield their beautiful children with green eyes
and mixed skin from whips of spittle sailing
out of some foaming mouth on the train station.
We sit with girls carrying their hearts
like birds inside floral headscarves.
We look for translators among us
for the construction worker
needing a course of physical therapy. Dolor
de hombro means pain of the shoulder: so the doctor
says punch your arm up like you’re raising
a fist at a rally.
Make little crosses in the air
and when lightning tears across the proscenium
look around. We might not believe
in salvation but we can pull at the fabric
until all the remaining light from the sky falls in.
In response to Via Negativa: Renewal.
At the office all the morning and at noon I receive a letter from Mr. Creed, with a token, viz., a very noble parti-coloured Indian gowne for my wife. The letter is oddly writ, over-prizing his present, and little owning any past service of mine, but that this was his genuine respects, and I know not what: I confess I had expectations of a better account from him of my service about his accounts, and so give his boy 12d., and sent it back again, and after having been at the pay of a ship this afternoon at the Treasury, I went by coach to Ludgate, and, by pricing several there, I guess this gowne may be worth about 12l. or 15l. But, however, I expect at least 50l. of him. So in the evening I wrote him a letter telling him clearly my mind, a copy of which I keep and of his letter and so I resolve to have no more such correspondence as I used to have but will have satisfaction of him as I do expect.
So to write my letters, and after all done I went home to supper and to bed, my mind being pretty well at ease from my letter to Creed, and more for my receipt this afternoon of 17l. at the Treasury, for the 17l. paid a year since to the carver for his work at my house, which I did intend to have paid myself, but, finding others to do it, I thought it not amisse to get it too, but I am afeard that we may hear of it to our greater prejudices hereafter.
a letter from the past
respects no expectation of
a better account
so I clear my mind of such
correspondence
I will have to carve other dice
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 21 November 1663.
We were always
Trying to run toward each other.
Luisa A. Igloria, “Landscape in an afterlife“
Once again, you find yourself
on the old revolutionary road
with the houses that once hid
the asylum seekers.
The long road stretches
before you, overgrown
with brambles and struggling seedlings.
You see the fires
ahead, burning cities
or perhaps the lights
of fellow travelers.
Smoke hides the mountains.
The road is lined
with the suitcases of immigrants
who abandoned all the essentials
they once lugged to a new country.
You have kept your treasures
sewn into your hemlines, heirloom
seeds and the small computer chip
that holds your freedom papers.
Your grandmother’s gold hoops dance
in your earlobes and twinkle
around your fingers.
You hear the voices of the ancestors,
colored with both reason and panic.
Go faster, they urge.
You are needed up ahead.
Up, and as soon as I could to my Lord Sandwich’s lodgings, but he was gone out before, and so I am defeated of my expectation of being eased one way or other in the business of my Lord. But I went up to Mr. Howe, who I saw this day the first time in a periwigg, which becomes him very well, and discoursed with him. He tells me that my Lord is of a sudden much changed, and he do believe that he do take my letter well. However, we do both bless God that it hath so good an effect upon him. Thence I home again, calling at the Wardrobe, where I found my Lord, but so busy with Mr. Townsend making up accounts there that I was unwilling to trouble him, and so went away. By and by to the Exchange, and there met by agreement Mr. Howe, and took him with a barrel of oysters home to dinner, where we were very merry, and indeed I observe him to be a very hopeful young man, but only a little conceited.
After dinner I took him and my wife, and setting her in Covent Garden at her mother’s, he and I to my Lord’s, and thence I with Mr. Moore to White Hall, there the King and Council being close, and I thinking it an improper place to meet my Lord first upon the business; I took coach, and calling my wife went home, setting Mr. Moore down by the way, and having been late at the office alone looking over some plates of the Northern seas, the White seas, and Archangell river, I went home, and, after supper, to bed.
My wife tells me that she and her brother have had a great falling out to-night, he taking upon him to challenge great obligation upon her, and taxing her for not being so as she ought to be to her friends, and that she can do more with me than she pretends, and I know not what, but God be thanked she cannot.
A great talke there is today of a crush between some of the Fanatiques up in arms, and the King’s men in the North; but whether true I know not yet.
I am defeated and changed
believe less and hope little
my wife in her garden
and I to my thinking place
down by the sea
the sea
an angel falling into being
here
now
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 20 November 1663.
We never see the signs until
they’re right above our heads
and never think to take the turn
until the junction has been missed
We climb the black and white stairs
looping eternally into themselves
The lights on the streets go out
one by one and the bridge descends
beneath the bay— Faraway stars
watch as we enter the narrowing throat
of darkness but they are too far away
and too dead to tell us what they know
In response to Via Negativa: Fabulist.
Up, and to the office, where (Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten being gone this morning to Portsmouth) the rest of us met, and rose at noon. So I to the ‘Change, where little business, and so home to dinner, and being at dinner Mr. Creed in and dined with us, and after dinner Mr. Gentleman, my Jane’s father, to see us and her. And after a little stay with them, I was sent for by Sir G. Carteret by agreement, and so left them, and to him and with him by coach to my Lord Treasurer, to discourse with him about Mr. Gauden’s having of money, and to offer to him whether it would not be necessary, Mr. Gauden’s credit being so low as it is, to take security of him if he demands any great sum, such as 20,000l., which now ought to be paid him upon his next year’s declaration. Which is a sad thing, that being reduced to this by us, we should be the first to doubt his credit; but so it is. However, it will be managed with great tenderness to him. My Lord Treasurer we found in his bed-chamber, being laid up of the goute. I find him a very ready man, and certainly a brave servant to the King: he spoke so quick and sensibly of the King’s charge. Nothing displeased me in him but his long nails, which he lets grow upon a pretty thick white short hand, that it troubled me to see them.
Thence with Sir G. Carteret by coach, and he set me down at the New Exchange. In our way he told me there is no such thing likely yet as a Dutch war, neither they nor we being in condition for it, though it will come certainly to that in some time, our interests lying the same way, that is to say, in trade. But not yet.
Thence to the Temple, and there visited my cozen Roger Pepys and his brother Dr. John, a couple, methinks, of very ordinary men, and thence to speak [with] Mr. Moore, and met him by the way, who tells me, to my great content, that he believes my letter to my Lord Sandwich hath wrought well upon him, and that he will look after himself and his business upon it, for he begins already to do so. But I dare not conclude anything till I see him, which shall be to-morrow morning, that I may be out of my pain to know how he takes it of me.
He and I to the Coffee-house, and there drank and talked a little, and so I home, and after a little at my office home to supper and to bed, not knowing how to avoid hopes from Mr. Moore’s words to-night, and yet I am fearful of the worst.
his mouth rose at noon
a red sad thing
we should be the first to doubt him
lord of nothing
his thick white short hand
like a letter to the void
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 19 November 1663.
Up, and after being ready, and done a little business at the office, I and Mr. Hater by water to Redriffe, and so walked to Deptford, where I have not been a very great, while, and there paid off the Milford in very good order, and all respect showed me in the office as much as there used to be to any of the rest or the whole board. That done at noon I took Captain Terne, and there coming in by chance Captain Berkeley, him also to dinner with me to the Globe. Captain Berkeley, who was lately come from Algier, did give us a good account of the place, and how the Basha there do live like a prisoner, being at the mercy of the soldiers and officers, so that there is nothing but a great confusion there.
After dinner came Sir W. Batten, and I left him to pay off another ship, and I walked home again reading of a little book of new poems of Cowley’s, given me by his brother. Abraham do lie, it seems, very sicke, still, but like to recover.
At my office till late, and then came Mr. Hollyard so full of discourse and Latin that I think he hath got a cupp, but I do not know; but full of talke he is in defence of Calvin and Luther. He begun this night the fomentation to my wife, and I hope it will do well with her. He gone, I to the office again a little, and so to bed.
This morning I sent Will with my great letter of reproof to my Lord Sandwich, who did give it into his owne hand. I pray God give a blessing to it, but confess I am afeard what the consequence may be to me of good or bad, which is according to the ingenuity that he do receive it with. However, I am satisfied that it will do him good, and that he needs it:
MY LORD,
I do verily hope that neither the manner nor matter of this advice will be condemned by your Lordship, when for my defence in the first I shall alledge my double attempt, since your return from Hinchinbroke, of doing it personally, in both of which your Lordship’s occasions, no doubtfulnesse of mine, prevented me, and that being now fearful of a sudden summons to Portsmouth, for the discharge of some ships there, I judge it very unbecoming the duty which every bit of bread I eat tells me I owe to your Lordship to expose the safety of your honour to the uncertainty of my return. For the matter, my Lord, it is such as could I in any measure think safe to conceal from, or likely to be discovered to you by any other hand, I should not have dared so far to owne what from my heart I believe is false, as to make myself but the relater of other’s discourse; but, sir, your Lordship’s honour being such as I ought to value it to be, and finding both in city and court that discourses pass to your prejudice, too generally for mine or any man’s controllings but your Lordship’s, I shall, my Lord, without the least greatening or lessening the matter, do my duty in laying it shortly before you.
People of all conditions, my Lord, raise matter of wonder from your Lordship’s so little appearance at Court: some concluding thence their disfavour thereby, to which purpose I have had questions asked me, and endeavouring to put off such insinuations by asserting the contrary, they have replied, that your Lordship’s living so beneath your quality, out of the way, and declining of Court attendance, hath been more than once discoursed about the King.
Others, my Lord, when the chief ministers of State, and those most active of the Council have been reckoned up, wherein your Lordship never used to want an eminent place, have said, touching your Lordship, that now your turn was served, and the King had given you a good estate, you left him to stand or fall as he would, and, particularly in that of the Navy, have enlarged upon your letting fall all service there.
Another sort, and those the most, insist upon the bad report of the house wherein your Lordship, now observed in perfect health again, continues to sojourne, and by name have charged one of the daughters for a common courtizan, alledging both places and persons where and with whom she hath been too well known, and how much her wantonnesse occasions, though unjustly, scandal to your Lordship, and that as well to gratifying of some enemies as to the wounding of more friends I am not able to tell.
Lastly, my Lord, I find a general coldness in all persons towards your Lordship, such as, from my first dependance on you, I never yet knew, wherein I shall not offer to interpose any thoughts or advice of mine, well knowing your Lordship needs not any. But with a most faithful assurance that no person nor papers under Heaven is privy to what I here write, besides myself and this, which I shall be careful to have put into your owne hands, I rest confident of your Lordship’s just construction of my dutifull intents herein, and in all humility take leave.
May it please your Lordship,
Your Lordship’s most obedient Servant,
S. P.
The foregoing letter was sealed up, and enclosed in this that follows
MY LORD,
If this finds your Lordship either not alone, or not at leisure, I beg the suspending your opening of the enclosed till you shall have both, the matter very well bearing such a delay, and in all humility remain.
May it please your Lordship,
Your Lordship’s most obedient Servant,
S. P.
November 17, 1663.
My servant hath my directions to put this into your Lordship’s owne hand, but not to stay for any answer.
like a prisoner reading
a poem in his own hand
fearful of a sudden summons
or of becoming the bread I eat
I make myself but the relater
of others’ wonder
I have questions about that wound
we know as heaven
which I confide in
as an open ear
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 18 November 1663.