Would you say animals
are lonely, or that a cloud
yearns for what it doesn't
understand?
Even a puddle left over
from last night's rain, drying
in the sun, holds what it can
of the sky.
Unfeeling
Debtor
Rose very well, and my hearing pretty well again, and so to my office, by and by Mr. Holliard come, and at my house he searched my ear, and I hope all will be well, though I do not yet hear so well as I used to do with my right ear.
So to my office till noon, and then home to dinner, and in the afternoon by water to White Hall, to the Tangier Committee; where my Lord Tiviott about his accounts; which grieves me to see that his accounts being to be examined by us, there are none of the great men at the Board that in compliment will except against any thing in his accounts, and so none of the little persons dare do it: so the King is abused.
Thence home again by water with Sir W. Rider, and so to my office, and there I sat late making up my month’s accounts, and, blessed be God, do find myself 760l. creditor, notwithstanding that for clothes for myself and wife, and layings out on her closett, I have spent this month 47l.. So home, where I found our new cooke-mayde Elizabeth, whom my wife never saw at all, nor I but once at a distance before, but recommended well by Mr. Creed, and I hope will prove well. So to supper, prayers, and bed.
This evening Mr. Coventry is come to St. James’s, but I did not go see him, and tomorrow the King, Queen, Duke and his Lady, and the whole Court comes to towne from their progresse. Myself and family well, only my father sicke in the country.
All the common talke for newes is the Turke’s advance in Hungary, &c.
I hope I do not yet owe
my right ear
of no account
I am one little person
abused by a creditor
I never saw
at a distance prayers
become the only country
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday30 September 1663.
Old soldier
Took two pills more in the morning and they worked all day, and I kept the house. About noon dined, and then to carry several heavy things with my wife up and down stairs, in order to our going to lie above, and Will to come down to the Wardrobe, and that put me into a violent sweat, so I had a fire made, and then, being dry again, she and I to put up some paper pictures in the red chamber, where we go to lie very pretty, and the map of Paris. Then in the evening, towards night, it fell to thunder, lighten, and rain so violently that my house was all afloat, and I in all the rain up to the gutters, and there dabbled in the rain and wet half an hour, enough to have killed a man. That done downstairs to dry myself again, and by and by come Mr. Sympson to set up my wife’s chimney-piece in her closett, which pleases me, and so that being done, I to supper and to bed, shifting myself from top to toe, and doubtful of my doing myself hurt.
I work to carry several
heavy things
a lie the war
that fire-red
map in my gut
enough to have killed me
my wife in bed
shifting
doubtful
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 29 September 1663.
Not Just Suffering
It was a time whose fine details are blurred,
like landscape through a window streaked
with rain. The city I grew up in, mirage
of lights and midnight arrivals, departures.
Who said to me once, You write so well
about suffering? That gave me
pause. And another time, I am so glad
I don't have to think of things like that.
Trees bent by the long monsoon,
unceasing eddies in the lake; mildew
collecting intentions on the bathroom
walls— Do these, too, speak of suffering?
One afternoon we listened to music
composed on the spot, pulled as if silk
out of the air by numinous beings.
Years of training and practice
behind the sureness of the first key
touched, and then the next. Perhaps
this is how the agonies of choice
and doubt can be haltered. There
they are, where you've led and left
them in the meadow, quiet now
in the clover. They nuzzle the grass,
the soil, each other. When you call
to them, they come. It doesn't
matter if one limps, or if they've
seen better days.
Prayer Against Approaching Zero
May the falling needle stop short of disaster, and the reaping
just short of grim. May the curtains open again to let us know
there is an encore or an interim.
May the miracle of your blueprint system create a new
defense against attacking cells, and the lesions on
your back transfigure into a blindingly empty field.
May the atoms of a pure and orderly crystal
attempt (in theory) to reach precisely zero, but
may this state remain impossible to achieve.
May the many sums subtracted from my life-
time (work, years, tears, failure) build back
an edifice impossible to subdue.
All-consuming
Up, though with pain in my head, stomach, and ear, and that deaf so as in my way by coach to White Hall with Sir J. Minnes I called at Mr. Holliard’s, who did give me some pills, and tells me I shall have my hearing again and be well. So to White Hall, where Sir J. Minnes and I did spend an hour in the Gallery, looking upon the pictures, in which he hath some judgment. And by and by the Commissioners for Tangier met: and there my Lord Teviott, together with Captain Cuttance, Captain Evans, and Jonas Moore, sent to that purpose, did bring us a brave draught of the Mole to be built there; and report that it is likely to be the most considerable place the King of England hath in the world; and so I am apt to think it will. After discourse of this, and of supplying the garrison with some more horse, we rose; and Sir J. Minnes and I home again, finding the street about our house full, Sir R. Ford beginning his shrievalty to-day and, what with his and our houses being new painted, the street begins to look a great deal better than it did, and more gracefull.
Home and eat one bit of meat, and then by water with him and Sir W. Batten to a sale of old provisions at Deptford, which we did at Captain Boddily’s house, to the value of 600l. or 700l., but I am not satisfied with the method used in this thing.
Then home again by water, and after a little at my office, and visit Sir W. Pen, who is not very well again, with his late pain, home to supper, being hungry, and my ear and cold not so bad I think as it was. So to bed, taking one of my pills. Newes that the King comes to town for certain on Thursday next from his progresse.
in my stomach I have met
mole-like
most of the world
and I am full
better than full
of meat and visions
but I am not satisfied
again and again
being hungry
and an ogre
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 28 September 1663.
Poetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 39
A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere, including Substack, with a commitment to following a somewhat haphazardly chosen selection of poets, poetry lovers, literary critics and publishers over time. Although I tend to quote my favorite bits, please do click through and read the whole posts. You can also browse the blog digest archive at Via Negativa or, if you’d like it in your inbox, subscribe on Substack (where the posts might be truncated by some email providers).
This week: September tomatoes, ghost pixels, locoweed, rejection season, an ode to the multiple orgasm, and much more. Enjoy.
Continue reading “Poetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 39”The Entropy of Isolated Systems
The heel that falls clean
off a shoe. The fray
that begins before the garment's
final stitch. Shards of torn
underlayment the roofers
tossed to the ground.
Massive sheets of ice
and rock that shear
off the mountain, plunging
7,000 feet into the river
below. Displacement
releases energy in all
directions. Then retreat,
followed by a wave
that knocks down everything
in its path.
The First Law of Thermodynamics
There is a grief that grieves before it is time to grieve.
You know it's because love precedes it. You hold the beloved's
face in your hands and it is both a morning greeting and a prayer
you are beginning to compose. There is weak light spilling
through the blinds, after a week of damp and rain and flood.
The tree outside your window is still fully dressed in green,
though its sleeves are beginning to slowly unravel. Where
have the noisy crows of summer gone? And yet you do not
miss them, their sombre coats, their sharp punctuation
of the air. Of course there is nothing in the world in your
control. Your shadow is longest in the morning and shortest
at noon; it only seems invisible at night. You can't outrun
your shadow. Somehow you know, whatever is taken
from you can still be called to, can still answer.
Explorer
(Lord’s day). Lay chatting with my wife a good while, then up and got me ready and to church, without my man William, whom I have not seen to-day, nor care, but would be glad to have him put himself far enough out of my favour that he may not wonder to have me put him away. So home to dinner, being a little troubled to see Pembleton out again, but I do not discern in my wife the least memory of him.
Dined, and so to my office a little, and then to church again, where a drowsy sermon, and so home to spend the evening with my poor wife, consulting about her closett, clothes, and other things. At night to supper, though with little comfort, I finding myself both head and breast in great pain, and what troubles me most my right ear is almost deaf. It is a cold, which God Almighty in justice did give me while I sat lewdly sporting with Mrs. Lane the other day with the broken window in my neck. I went to bed with a posset, being very melancholy in consideration of the loss of my hearing.
far enough out
that wonder is a church
I spend the evening
in her clothes
finding my head
great in a hat
while I net the wind
with a melancholy ear
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 27 September 1663.