Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
In earlier travel posts about the Isle of Arran, I’ve shared photos of Neolithic remains and fairy glens, as well as the petroglyphs at King’s Cave. But that doesn’t begin to exhaust all that we found worth seeing (and photographing) there. Continue reading “2013 in photos: The Isle of Arran”
This morning, news was brought to me to my bedside, that there had been a great stir in the City this night by the Fanatiques, who had been up and killed six or seven men, but all are fled. My Lord Mayor and the whole City had been in arms, above 40,000. To the office, and after that to dinner, where my brother Tom came and dined with me, and after dinner (leaving 12d. with the servants to buy a cake with at night, this day being kept as Twelfth day) Tom and I and my wife to the Theatre, and there saw “The Silent Woman.” The first time that ever I did see it, and it is an excellent play. Among other things here, Kinaston, the boy; had the good turn to appear in three shapes: first, as a poor woman in ordinary clothes, to please Morose; then in fine clothes, as a gallant, and in them was clearly the prettiest woman in the whole house, and lastly, as a man; and then likewise did appear the handsomest man in the house. From thence by link to my cozen Stradwick’s, where my father and we and Dr. Pepys, Scott, and his wife, and one Mr. Ward and his; and after a good supper, we had an excellent cake, where the mark for the Queen was cut, and so there was two queens, my wife and Mrs. Ward; and the King being lost, they chose the Doctor to be King, so we made him send for some wine, and then home, and in our way home we were in many places strictly examined, more than in the worst of times, there being great fears of these Fanatiques rising again: for the present I do not hear that any of them are taken.
Home, it being a clear moonshine and after 12 o’clock at night. Being come home we found that my people had been very merry, and my wife tells me afterwards that she had heard that they had got young Davis and some other neighbours with them to be merry, but no harm.
This new, great stir: who killed the city?
The poor in morose clothes,
the two queens,
the wine in many places?
Or the great fear?
Fanatics shine at night.
We found a neighbor with no arm.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 7 January 1660/61.
In the mountain city,
twelve cats gathered
in the alley behind the dim
sum restaurant with my name.
I do not believe
the urban legends—
I like my steamed meat bun
best with Chinese sausages;
I’ve had a few with salty
duck egg. The puckered,
fluted edges are stamped
with the end of a chopstick
dipped in red food dye so you
can tell which one is which.
So long since we beheld
the glory of a whole
suckling pig, lechon
de leche. How many of them
could you fit lengthwise
like a ship in a clear
glass bottle? Do you want
to know how many heirloom beads
were given for my hand at my
first marriage? (None.
That was just a joke.)
My father, when he was still
alive, tore off the crackling
ear, the whole savory tongue
to put into my babies’
mouths. We do not have
Rosetta stones, but o
we have taste buds.
Desire was our first
teacher: blood, guts,
marrow, mineral tang;
gristle, and then the long
sweet shank that simmered
until the meat fell off
the bone. Taste made us
learn as much as we could
about the world, before
we even saw it. Taste
made us restless: rooting,
sniffing at the door
of all we imagined
we could have.
In response to Via Negativa: Divided loyalties.
Yes, it’s cold. Continue reading “Cold snap”
(Lord’s day).
My wife and I to church this morning, and so home to dinner to a boiled leg of mutton all alone.
To church again, where, before sermon, a long Psalm was set that lasted an hour, while the sexton gathered his year’s contribucion through the whole church.
After sermon home, and there I went to my chamber and wrote a letter to send to Mr. Coventry, with a piece of plate along with it, which I do preserve among my other letters.
So to supper, and thence after prayers to bed.
My wife is an oiled leg of church,
a long psalm,
sex the red letter I preserve
among my other prayers.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 6 January 1660/61.
There’s that plucked
melody again, the same
but different, space
of a water drop between
two notes then five,
returning but not
to the same stone
rough shod and green
as a lizard’s skin—
pick it up
and turn it over:
yes like that.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Less than 1 percent of the ancient Caledonian forest remains, much of it in the Abernethy region, where Rachel and I camped for a week in mid July. She wanted to prove to me that real forests still existed in the British Isles. Our first evening there, I went for a walk and discovered this dead sheep. Continue reading “2013 in photos: A week in the Caledonian forest”
Home all the morning. Several people came to me about business, among others the great Tom Fuller, who came to desire a kindness for a friend of his, who hath a mind to go to Jamaica with these two ships that are going, which I promised to do.
So to Whitehall to my Lady, whom I found at dinner and dined with her, and staid with her talking all the afternoon, and thence walked to Westminster Hall. So to Will’s, and drank with Spicer, and thence by coach home, staying a little in Paul’s Churchyard, to bespeak Ogilby’s Æsop’s Fables and Tully’s Officys to be bound for me. So home and to bed.
Desire is a mind
with two ships in it.
I stayed with her
and walked—
staying in a fable,
bound for bed.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 5 January 1660/61.
“In the daytime also he led them with a cloud,
and all the night with a light of fire….”
~ The Psalms 78
Under that flank
I can touch, a ripple
that grows to my fingers
with a bulge like a fig—
Quicken is the way
night turns, rapid
as the valance
of morning. Sh sh
say the birds
in the tree,
purpling sonnets
and psalms for silence—
No need to drink
that poison. No need
to lie down and cry.
Nothing is wasted,
my dearest love;
nothing is lost.
Come out now and eat
the sugar from the offered
hand; bite of apple,
salt of the bridle
leading again to the gate
and the track beyond.
In yesterday’s post, I mentioned our visit to the studio of the Welsh artist Meri Wells. That was last July, in the course of a weekend with Clive Hicks-Jenkins (pictured above with Meri) and his partner Peter Wakelin. Continue reading “2013 in photos: A visit to Meri Wells’ studio”