Breakdown

This morning came my brother John to take his leave of me, he being to return to Cambridge to-morrow, and after I had chid him for going with my Will the other day to Deptford with the principal officers, I did give him some good counsell and 20s. in money, and so he went away.
All this day I staid at home with my workmen without eating anything, and took much pleasure to see my work go forward. At night comes my wife not well from my father’s, having had a fore-tooth drawn out to-day, which do trouble me, and the more because I am now in the greatest of all my dirt.
My Will also returned to-night pretty well, he being gone yesterday not very well to his father’s.
To-day I received a letter from my uncle, to beg an old fiddle of me for my Cozen Perkin, the miller, whose mill the wind hath lately broke down, and now he hath nothing to live by but fiddling, and he must needs have it against Whitsuntide to play to the country girls; but it vexed me to see how my uncle writes to me, as if he were not able to buy him one. But I intend tomorrow to send him one. At night I set down my journal of my late journey to this time, and so to bed. My wife not being well and I very angry with her for her coming hither in that condition.

With my night tooth
and my dirt fiddle I
broke down,
nothing to live by
but to play the country
uncle, write
a journal of my journey
to this bed.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 8 May 1661.

First hot day

This entry is part 90 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

 

Huge tulip poplars
holding tiny leaves to the light,
each with its four incisors—

the sun doesn’t stand a chance.
Already it’s staging a sunset
on the back of my neck

as I crouch down
to puzzle over the maze of roads
on a yellow morel.

Conscript

In the morning to Mr. Coventry, Sir G. Carteret, and my Lord’s to give them an account of my return. My Lady, I find, is, since my going, gone to the Wardrobe. Then with Mr. Creed into London, to several places about his and my business, being much stopped in our way by the City traynebands, who go in much solemnity and pomp this day to muster before the King and the Duke, and shops in the City are shut up every where all this day.
He carried me to an ordinary by the Old Exchange, where we come a little too late, but we had very good cheer for our 18d. a-piece, and an excellent droll too, my host, and his wife so fine a woman; and sung and played so well that I stayed a great while and drunk a great deal of wine.
Then home and stayed among my workmen all day, and took order for things for the finishing of their work.
And so at night to Sir W. Batten’s, and there supped and so home and to bed, having sent my Lord a letter to-night to excuse myself for not going with him to-morrow to the Hope, whither he is to go to see in what condition the fleet is in.

To go to war
is to muster and shut up,
to exchange cheer for a cell.
I stay drunk, a thing
for finishing.
(No hope is to go.)


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 7 May 1661.

The Buddha doesn’t give a damn

You look so beautiful, at peace
and in your own spirit
, says a friend
that the Buddha has not seen in a while.
She beams and hugs her back, while mentally
reminding herself to check in the mirror
for what might have spurred this compliment.
The Buddha has her hair loosely pinned up
because of the humidity; she’s in dark-
colored jeans, a t-shirt, and faded cardigan
even on a workday, just because comfort
now comes first. Every so often, on special
occasions, she’ll wear a dress and heels,
put on some makeup— foundation, eye
shadow, lipstick, mascara. Now that she’s
past 50, she finally knows what it means
to not give a damn: to be unbothered
by the decision to not go out drinking with
her students; to eat breakfast for dinner
and dessert for breakfast; to not be non-
plussed when a wind lofts her skirt above
her knees, when a rolling wave slaps down
the top of her strapless swimsuit at the public
beach. She simply tugs the offending garment
back in place, smiles, shrugs, carries on.

Counting warblers

This entry is part 89 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

 

Hooded, worm-eating,
cerulean, black-throated green.

I tick off the names

like prayer beads,
and later, when a black snake
rears up like an instant tree,

I remember all
the deadly false Edens,
the acres of glass.

Absent

Up by four o’clock and took coach. Mr. Creed rode, and left us that we know not whither he went. We went on, thinking to be at home before the officers rose, but finding we could not we staid by the way and eat some cakes, and so home.
Where I was much troubled to see no more work done in my absence than there was, but it could not be helped.
I sent my wife to my father’s, and I went and sat till late with my Lady Batten, both the Sir Williams being gone this day to pay off some ships at Deptford.
So home and to bed without seeing of them.
I hear to-night that the Duke of York’s son is this day dead, which I believe will please every body; and I hear that the Duke and his Lady themselves are not much troubled at it.

No thinking or cake,
trouble or work
in my absence.

No father or son.

A dead body, I hear,
is not much.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 6 May 1661.

Immortals of the Wine Cup

(Lord’s day). Mr. Creed and I went to the red-faced Parson’s church, and heard a good sermon of him, better than I looked for. Then home, and had a good dinner, and after dinner fell in some talk in Divinity with Mr. Stevens that kept us till it was past Church time.
Anon we walked into the garden, and there played the fool a great while, trying who of Mr. Creed or I could go best over the edge of an old fountain wall, and I won a quart of sack of him.
Then to supper in the banquet house, and there my wife and I did talk high, she against and I for Mrs. Pierce (that she was a beauty), till we were both angry.
Then to walk in the fields, and so to our quarters, and to bed.

A red-faced divinity, the fool
who won a quart of sack.
He and I talk beauty
till we’re both angry,
then walk in the fields.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 5 May 1661.

Graffitied beech

This entry is part 88 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

 

The beech tree has seven eyes
where limbs used to be,
each of them gazing upward.

Down below, the scars
of old, knife-cut graffiti:
Smoke Up. Fly High. Manson Lives.

A warbler in the crown
of a neighboring oak,
its shadow crossing my face.

Lay

Up in the morning and took coach, and so to Gilford, where we lay at the Red Lyon, the best Inn, and lay in the room the King lately lay in, where we had time to see the Hospital, built by Archbishop Abbott, and the free school, and were civilly treated by the Mayster.
So to supper, and to bed, being very merry about our discourse with the Drawers concerning the minister of the Town, with a red face and a girdle. So to bed, where we lay and sleep well.

I lay at the Red Lion,
lay in the room
I lately lay in, ill
and to bed with
a red face, I lay well.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 4 May 1661.

Nagual

The Buddha listens as her friend G
remembers the day a pair of cops came
to her home, to break the news:

they’d fished out her son’s body
from the Shuylkill river— no marks
of violence, his pockets empty, his feet

unshod. You know in your bones, says G.
Her mother, who opened the door, crumpled
to the floor like a sheet yanked

from the line. In old myths and sacred texts
are passages which describe how, when a child
is born, a life index plant is set in the soil

by the front door, along with his mother’s
afterbirth. Whatever happens to the child
is mirrored in the curling vine, the wild

hibiscus, the golden shower tree. No words
were needed for what shriveled like a leaf
in the heart, constricted the gut:

invisible blow dealt to the base
of the staff, lone bird that held out its
familiar note in the wood, now stilled.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.