Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
river that plucks with the wind at my sleeve
or the hem of my dress for attention—
I love my solitude but I love the light
that bounces back the syllables of your name
and woos me like a lover: then you are chime
on the blade’s metal edge, red thread
running through a vest, that something else
wanting to glint like a brooch or a star
against the breast of an ordinary life.
In response to Via Negativa: Present.
Office very early about casting up the debts of those twenty-five ships which are to be paid off, which we are to present to the Committee of Parliament.
I did give my wife 15l. this morning to go to buy mourning things for her and me, which she did. Dined at home and Mr. Moore with me, and afterwards to Whitehall to Mr. Dalton and drank in the Cellar, where Mr. Vanly according to appointment was.
Thence forth to see the Prince de Ligne, Spanish Embassador, come in to his audience, which was done in very great state.
That being done, Dalton, Vanly, Scrivener and some friends of theirs and I to the Axe, and signed and sealed our writings, and hence to the Wine cellar again, where I received 41l. for my interest in my house, out of which I paid my Landlord to Michaelmas next, and so all is even between him and me, and I freed of my poor little house. Home by link with my money under my arm. So to bed after I had looked over the things my wife had bought to-day, with which being not very well pleased, they costing too much, I went to bed in a discontent.
Nothing yet from sea, where my Lord and the Princess are.
Are we present? I give
my wife this morning
mourning things
in the cellar
of the cellar
of today.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 17 September 1660.
Forgive me for wanting
a plot of land, a bit of porch
from which house spiders might drape
sheer curtains—
Forgive me for transporting
my nostalgia for the stones
of my native land into these
applications for financing—
Forgive me for insisting
on some semblance of choice
between Model A and Model B,
for inquiring into
the neighborhood’s history—
for checking how floorboards
cross the grain of wood,
how doors open,
where the heart
of the house might rest.
Among my kind, abode is sacred,
both land and domicile first
amortized by sacrifice: seeds
planted by the doorstep, blood-
smeared coins sunk in the soil
beneath the stone foundations.
In response to Via Negativa: Dirt Farmer.
(Sunday). To Dr. Hardy’s church, and sat with Mr. Rawlinson and heard a good sermon upon the occasion of the Duke’s death. His text was, “And is there any evil in the city and the Lord hath not done it?”
Home to dinner, having some sport with Wm., who never had been at Common Prayer before.
After dinner I alone to Westminster, where I spent my time walking up and down in Westminster Abbey all sermon time with Ben. Palmer and Fetters the watchmaker, who told me that my Lord of Oxford is also dead of the small-pox; in whom his family dies, after 600 years having that honour in their family and name. From thence to the Park, where I saw how far they had proceeded in the Pell-mell, and in making a river through the Park, which I had never seen before since it was begun. Thence to White Hall garden, where I saw the King in purple mourning for his brother.
So home, and in my way met with Dinah, who spoke to me and told me she had a desire to speak too about some business when I came to Westminster again. Which she spoke in such a manner that I was afraid she might tell me something that I would not hear of our last meeting at my house at Westminster.
Home late, being very dark. A gentleman in the Poultry had a great and dirty fall over a waterpipe that lay along the channel.
Death is walking
up and down
with the watchmaker,
who told me
how a river
I had never seen
was at home in
a great and dirty pipe.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 16 September 1660. Thanks to my friend Hg, a Londoner, for the idea.
Met very early at our office this morning to pick out the twenty-five ships which are to be first paid off.
After that to Westminster and dined with Mr. Dalton at his office, where we had one great court dish, but our papers not being done we could [not] make an end of our business till Monday next.
Mr. Dalton and I over the water to our landlord Vanly, with whom we agree as to Dalton becoming a tenant. Back to Westminster, where I met with Dr. Castles, who chidd me for some errors in our Privy- Seal business; among the rest, for letting the fees of the six judges pass unpaid, which I know not what to say to, till I speak to Mr. Moore. I was much troubled, for fear of being forced to pay the money myself. Called at my father’s going home, and bespoke mourning for myself, for the death of the Duke of Gloucester. I found my mother pretty well. So home and to bed.
Twenty-five ships, and we could not
make an end of Monday.
On land, we met with castles.
Our rest was troubled.
I mourn the death of my bed.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 15 September 1660.
For passage into a foreign country,
a sheaf of stamped documents:
does the photo match the face
pressed into the cellophane window,
does the name in the book match
the one answered to?
The pigeons in the square
squabble over crumbs in their
domestic tongue. The children
want to wade in the fountain.
The mothers and fathers say no,
no, that isn’t allowed.
Recognition is a luxury few
can truly claim— Most of us
walk around from room to room,
in circles, repeat the daily
rituals of arrival and departure
without really going anywhere.
In response to Via Negativa: Martial Artist.
(Office day). I got 42l. 15s. appointed me by bill for my employment of Secretary to the 4th of this month, it being the last money I shall receive upon that score.
My wife went this afternoon to see my mother, who I hear is very ill, at which my heart is very sad.
In the afternoon Luellin comes to my house, and takes me out to the Mitre in Wood Street, where Mr. Samford, W. Symons and his wife, and Mrs. Scobell, Mr. Mount and Chetwind, where they were very merry, Luellin being drunk, and I being to defend the ladies from his kissing them, I kissed them myself very often with a great deal of mirth. Parted very late, they by coach to Westminster, and I on foot.
I go in secret.
The score I hear is my heart,
is for bell and wind.
Drunk, I defend myself
with a late foot.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 14 September 1660.
And the salt never spared an inch
of the slug crawling across its glittering trail—
But the bird with the fractured wing still
troubles the air in her dreams,
and bound sheaves in the autumn field
send up gold sparks of their burning.
So the fire in the throat
is a river’s coursing,
and the moon’s blue tint
is epistle to the harvest blade.
Come closer then as if to drink,
as if to drown, as if to kiss
every surface mirrored,
throbbing, doubled in the glass.
* R.T. Smith recounts in a Richmond Times Dispatch article on Seamus Heaney: “I’ll never forget him saying, after a quick drink in a Sligo pub, “You’ll have another, so.” When I objected that I shouldn’t, as I was driving, he gave me that great joyous smile and said, ‘The bird never flew on the one wing, you know.’”
In response to small stone (256).
Where other farmers sell grain, I sell soil, attractively packaged in ornamental coffins. Though this is the middle of Iowa, urban hipsters drive hours to buy it — “Heated, not treated, to remove Monsanto’s seed.” They pose for pictures next to my two-story tractor. I dress the part and don’t mention the ground-penetrating radar, how it shows me all the lies of the land as I drive my specially modified harvester. Instead, I talk about the healing properties of a mud mask, especially when it cracks in midsummer to let in the sun. My Lithuanian grandmother swore by it! When the soil is gone, will I sell rocks, they want to know. No, I want to say, I will sell the empty space to you to put all your goddamn garbage in. It’ll be the last landfill you’ll ever need. Instead I laugh and say in my best hick drawl: This here’s Iowa loess, son. Ain’t nothing but soil all the way down.
Old East comes to me in the morning with letters, and I did give him a bottle of Northdown ale, which made the poor man almost drunk.
In the afternoon my wife went to the burial of a child of my cozen Scott’s, and it is observable that within this month my Aunt Wight was brought to bed of two girls, my cozen Stradwick of a girl and a boy, and my cozen Scott of a boy, and all died.
I in the afternoon to Westminster, where Mr. Dalton was ready with his money to pay me for my house, but our writings not being drawn it could not be done to-day. I met with Mr. Hawly, who was removing his things from Mr. Bowyer’s, where he has lodged a great while, and I took him and W. Bowyer to the Swan and drank, and Mr. Hawly did give me a little black rattoon, painted and gilt.
Home by water.
This day the Duke of Gloucester died of the small-pox, by the great negligence of the doctors.
Letters made the poor man
almost drunk.
He went to the burial of a child
and was ready with his writing—
could eat a swan.
A black rat, painted and gilt,
died of negligence.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 13 September 1660.