Fault Lines

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
Trembling, fault lines run through 
everything. You don't see them, but
you know they're there. A yellow chorus
of sunflowers shouts from the hills;
the smell of woodsmoke pulls apart
the curtains. Your heart lies inside a pile
of bedclothes when it's hard to get up
and walk outside again into the world.
It regards the quiet industry of a spider
and marvels at how surely it sends
forth filament after filament into
empty space. How do you learn
to be brave like that, learn to trust
that something could carry you?

Hither/yon

Sam Pepys and me

I went this morning with Sir W. Pen by coach to Westminster, and having done my business at Mr. Montagu’s, I went back to him at Whitehall, and from thence with him to the 3 Tun Tavern, at Charing Cross, and there sent for up the maister of the house’s dinner, and dined very well upon it, and afterwards had him and his fayre sister (who is very great with Sir W. Batten and Sir W. Pen in mirth) up to us, and looked over some medals that they shewed us of theirs; and so went away to the Theatre, to “The Joviall Crew,” and from hence home, and at my house we were very merry till late, having sent for his son, Mr. William Pen, lately come from Oxford. And after supper parted, and to bed.

this morning pen
done with 3 Across

the war is up
over the house

a hiss
a pen come apart


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 1 November 1661.

Day of the Dead

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
Flowers and votives attract the souls of the departed; 
and bowls of food, glasses of their favorite drink.

Flying creatures draw near—wings like stained
and soldered glass; feelers that curl and uncurl.

Across thousands of nights they've hovered,
spellbound by light, trying to sort blue from silver,

broken glass from the startling sheen on bellies
of fish. You no longer want to believe in endings—

Years after a fire razed a building to the ground,
you find a creased photograph in a sheet of plastic,

the shape of a foot still molded to a tattered
curve of leather. What you are, what you

become; what remains after you've stopped
trembling—Fault lines run through everything.

Conventions

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
The way we read from left to right, from top
to bottom of the page. The way buttons
fasten differently on men's versus women's
shirts. Houses on one side of the street
are even-numbered, and on the other, odd.
Surely there was a time before someone
decided only men could inherit property
or go to school, before someone thought it
best to walk or drive on the right side of
the road. Wise men are always saying things
like soup is supposed to come before the main
course, and breakfast is between 7 and 9 AM.
What is the right mood to wear over the rest
of the day? Life has no script for the way
ligiht falters, nor for the kind of rain that should
have fallen for this time of year. The river
rose only so high many years ago. Yesterday
it decided to buck its own conventions.

Reductive

Sam Pepys and me

This morning comes Prior of Brampton to me about the house he has to buy of me, but I was forced to be at the office all the morning, and so could not talk with him. And so, after the office was done, and dined at home, I went to my brother Tom’s, and there met him. He demanded some abatement, he having agreed with my father for Barton’s house, at a price which I told him I could not meddle with, but that as for anything to secure his title to them I was ready, and so we parted.
Thence to Sir Robert Bernard, and as his client did ask his advice about my uncle Thomas’s case and ours as to Gravely, and in short he tells me that there is little hopes of recovering it or saving his annuity, which do trouble me much, but God’s will be done. Hence, with my mind full of trouble, to my uncle Fenner’s, when at the alehouse I found him drinking and very jolly and youthsome, and as one that I believe will in a little time get a wife. So home.

in house or office
we abate

fat or thin our grave
is God’s
little home


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 31 October 1661.

Haunted

the grave of Patrick Caulfield, Highgate Cemetery, London

early in every creature feature
someone screams it’s alive

and i wonder if this is how the dead feel
when we disturb their rest

with our roots and shovels
our engines our blind snouts

are we the zero at their bones
the transparent shades

of unremembered life
empty as gris-gris bags

each with a single
spidery line of text

do they watch us creep
and crepitate like lava

destroying and destorying
everything green and pungent

by the end of the flick
an indifferent sun

will have vaporized
the whole rotten lot of us

but until then we intersect
only in brief spasms

and we’re listed in the credits
for rattle and moan
and almost imperceptible sigh

*

A revision of this poem from 2011.

Informant

Sam Pepys and me

All the morning at the office. At noon played on my Theorbo, and much pleased therewith; it is now altered with a new neck. In the afternoon Captain Lambert called me out by appointment, and we walked together to Deptford, and there in his ship, the Norwich, I got him to shew me every hole and corner of the ship, much to my information, and the purpose of my going. So home again, and at Sir W. Batten’s heard how he had been already at Sir R. Slingsby’s, as we were all invited, and I intended this night to go, and there he finds all things out of order, and no such thing done to-night, but pretending that the corps stinks, they will bury it to-night privately, and so will unbespeak all their guests, and there shall be no funerall, which I am sorry for, that there should be nothing done for the honour of Sir Robert, but I fear he hath left his family in great distraction. Here I staid till late at cards with my Lady and Mrs. Martha, and so home. I sent for a bottle or two of wine thither.
At my coming home I am sorry to find my wife displeased with her maid Doll, whose fault is that she cannot keep her peace, but will always be talking in an angry manner, though it be without any reason and to no purpose, which I am sorry for and do see the inconvenience that do attend the increase of a man’s fortune by being forced to keep more servants, which brings trouble.
Sir Henry Vane, Lambert, and others, are lately sent suddenly away from the Tower, prisoners to Scilly; but I do not think there is any plot as is said, but only a pretence; as there was once pretended often against the Cavaliers.

I am in every hole and corner
to find things out

a corpse they bury privately
nothing but fear in a bottle

a doll who can talk
be it only a pretence


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 30 October 1661.

Development

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
The silence of the long unspeaking,
and the silence of the twilight trees;

the silence that is now a stump
and was once a living limb—

It's taken many years but here I am
as life begins to fold toward more

and more silence. I don't mean
that there's no more bright noise

in the world; and stubborn noise, and
sputtering. Only that even the raucous

questions have learned to repeat
themselves in a quieter key.

Scavenger

Sam Pepys and me

This day I put on my half cloth black stockings and my new coat of the fashion, which pleases me well, and with my beaver I was (after office was done) ready to go to my Lord Mayor’s feast, as we are all invited; but the Sir Williams were both loth to go, because of the crowd, and so none of us went, and I staid and dined with them, and so home, and in evening, by consent, we met at the Dolphin, where other company came to us, and should have been merry, but their wine was so naught, and all other things out of order, that we were not so, but staid long at night, and so home and to bed. My mind not pleased with the spending of this day, because I had proposed a great deal of pleasure to myself this day at Guildhall.
This Lord Mayor, it seems, brings up again the Custom of Lord Mayors going the day of their installment to Paul’s, and walking round about the Cross, and offering something at the altar.

I put on my black coat
to go feast as a crow

on things of night
all day at the altar


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 29 October 1661.