In response to Via Negativa: Heritage.
Heritage
At the office all the morning, and at noon Mr. Coventry, who sat with us all the morning, and Sir G. Carteret, Sir W. Pen, and myself, by coach to Captain Marshe’s, at Limehouse, to a house that hath been their ancestors for this 250 years, close by the lime-house which gives the name to the place. Here they have a design to get the King to hire a dock for the herring busses, which is now the great design on foot, to lie up in. We had a very good and handsome dinner, and excellent wine. I not being neat in clothes, which I find a great fault in me, could not be so merry as otherwise, and at all times I am and can be, when I am in good habitt, which makes me remember my father Osborne’s rule for a gentleman to spare in all things rather than in that. So by coach home, and so to write letters by post, and so to bed.
The ancestors give us
a foot, a good hand,
a great fault, all.
I am born
to all things.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 19 October 1661.
Into winter
To White Hall, to Mr. Montagu’s, where I met with Mr. Pierce, the purser, to advise about the things to be sent to my Lord for the Queen’s provision, and was cleared in it, and now there is all haste made, for the fleet’s going.
At noon to my Lord’s to dinner, and in the afternoon, leaving my wife there, Mr. Moore and I to Mrs. Goldsborough, who sent for a friend to meet with us, and so we were talking about the difference between us till 10 at night. I find it very troublesome, and have brought it into some hopes of an agreement, I offering to forgive her 10l. that is yet due according to my uncle’s accounts to us. So we left her friend to advise about it, and I hope to hear of her, for I would not by any means go to law with a woman of so devilish a tongue as she has.
So to my Lady’s, where I left my wife to lie with Mademoiselle all night, and I by link home and to bed. This night lying alone, and the weather cold, and having this last 7 or 8 days been troubled with a tumor in one of my stones which is now abated by a poultice of a good handful of bran with half a pint of vinegar and a pint of water boiled till it be thick, and then a spoonful of honey put to it and so spread in a cloth and laid to it, I first put on my waistcoat to lie in all night this year, and do not intend to put it off again till spring. I met with complaints at home that my wife left no victuals for them all this day.
My vision is going. I hear
a devilish tongue—
cold as a tumor,
vinegar boiled till thick.
I put on my coat
and do not put it off again till spring.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 18 October 1661.
Sunset Boulevard
At the office all the morning, at noon my wife being gone to my coz Snow’s with Dr. Thomas Pepys and my brother Tom to a venison pasty (which proved a pasty of salted pork); by appointment I went with Captain David Lambert to the Exchequer, and from thence by appointment he and I were to meet at a cook’s shop to dine. But before I went to him Captain Cock, a merchant I had not long known, took me to the Sun tavern and gave me a glass of sack, and being a man of great observation and repute, did tell me that he was confident that the Parliament, when it comes the next month to sit again, would bring trouble with it, and enquire how the King had disposed of offices and money, before they will raise more; which, I fear, will bring all things to ruin again. Thence to the Cook’s and there dined with Captain Lambert and his father-in-law, and had much talk of Portugall; from whence he is lately come, and he tells me it is a very poor dirty place; I mean the City and Court of Lisbon; that the King is a very rude and simple fellow; and, for reviling of somebody a little while ago, and calling of him cuckold, was run into … with a sword and had been killed, had he not told them that he was their king. That there are there no glass windows, nor will they have any; which makes sport among our merchants there to talk of an English factor that, being newly come thither, writ into England that glass would be a good commodity to send thither, &c. That the King has his meat sent up by a dozen of lazy guards and in pipkins, sometimes, to his own table; and sometimes nothing but fruits, and, now and then, half a hen. And now that the Infanta is become our Queen, she is come to have a whole hen or goose to her table, which is not ordinary. So home and to look over my papers that concern the difference between Mrs. Goldsborough and us; which cost me much pains, but contented me much after it was done. So at home all the evening and to supper and to bed.
In the glass city there are
no glass windows,
the king is kin to his own nothing
and the queen is a whole table:
so the difference between
gold and evening.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 17 October 1661.
[poem temporarily hidden by author]
Accident of Birth
At holiday gift exchanges, the doll
in the other child’s box is always more
appealing, with its shiny ponytail and pert
nose, the nip-tucked waist, the cheerleader
outfit and the matching pink plastic Ferrari.
And later, in middle school and high school,
she’ll get to go with some of her class
on the optional field trip to Italy or Paris,
or preselect courses for advanced college credit.
Elsewhere in the world a class of 52 students
shares 1 workbook, 1 makeshift schoolroom
with a dirt floor, 1 box of broken crayons.
I could go on, and I suspect you also could
go on about the argument that states how no one
can be held responsible for what is beyond human
control, since no one chooses the conditions of
one’s birth. At least acknowledge that the field
has never been level: that the work of counting
and ministering to dying bodies is underwritten by prejudice.
Though when you look out the window at the sea, it goes on
as if forever. And in its depths, whole cities have perished,
whole towns have drowned in the wake of tsunamis.
In response to Via Negativa: Outskirts.
Poem Written After Reading a “Poem Written in the Manner of Billy Collins”
“…until finally there is only a clean white page”
~ Tony Hoagland, “Poem Written in the Manner of Billy Collins”
Except that the problem with these kinds
of erasures and corrections is that one
never winds up with that clean white page
or that tousle-haired child (let me guess,
blue-eyed) feeding one perfect, pesticide-
free leaf to his well-groomed guinea pig—
which by the way is known more widely
in the Andean highlands as cuy or cuye,
where an estimated 65 million of these
“little sea pigs” are consumed every year
(fried, broiled, grilled, or roasted).
Why a Peruvian child might smack
his lips with gusto at this rodent dish
and why here, only an Andrew Zimmern or
Anthony Bourdain would dare chow down
on a crisp foreleg or thigh, illustrates
not only that one man’s meat is another
one’s cultural taboo, but the whole problem
of late 21st century multinational capitalism.
Because practically everything has become
universally commodified, it becomes easier
to substitute the animal, the child, the gun,
the land mine, the beheading, the execution—
And language, yes even the language of poets
and pundits, can be diluted like those coffee beans
steeping in the paper cone filter, or the nibs
of cocoa gathered by farmers on the Ivory Coast
who have never had a square of chocolate
nor shuddered from the pleasure of its melting
on their tongues. Switch from Chopin to the music
of gamelans, write about both those dying from Ebola
in west Africa, and the panic that closed down schools
in Texas and Ohio. Write about journalists killed
and dumped into mass graves. Write about transgendered
Jenny, whose birth name was Jeffrey, and the US Marine
suspected of her murder in Olongapo City.
Piscine
In bed till 12 o’clock. This morning came several maids to my wife to be hired, and at last she pitched upon one Nell, whose mother, an old woman, came along with her, but would not be hired under half a year, which I am pleased at their drollness. This day dined by appointment with me, Dr. Thos. Pepys and my Coz: Snow, and my brother Tom, upon a fin of ling and some sounds, neither of which did I ever know before, but most excellent meat they are both, that in all my life I never eat the like fish. So after dinner came in W. Joyce and eat and drank and were merry. So up to my chamber, and put all my papers, at rights, and in the evening our maid Mary (who was with us upon trial for a month) did take leave of us, going as we suppose to be married, for the maid liked us and we her, but all she said was that she had a mind to live in a tradesman’s house where there was but one maid. So to supper and to bed.
In the old snow, a fin,
a life-like fish.
I am my papers, like a house
where there was but
one supper.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 16 October 1661.
Outskirts
At the office all the morning, and in the afternoon to Paul’s Churchyard to a blind place, where Mrs. Goldsborough was to meet me (who dare not be known where she lives) to treat about the difference which remains between my uncle and her. But, Lord! to hear how she talks and how she rails against my uncle would make one mad. But I seemed not to be troubled at it, but would indeed gladly have an agreement with her. So I appoint Mr. Moore and she another against Friday next to look into our papers and to see what can be done to conclude the matter. So home in much pain by walking too much yesterday I have made my testicle to swell again, which much troubles me.
A blind place
where the rails have an agreement
not to conclude—
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 15 October 1661.
Self-Portrait, With Five Hours of Sleep
The miser hoards his best coins
in a drawstring bag. He hides them
under his mattress, he takes them out
to spit on them and shine them, count
them into piles. But I, I break a few
more hours from the mostly depleted day
to feed to one more bristling task. Where
does it come from, unbending hunger
wanting to be fed, this maw that’s never
satisfied until it sees me nearly spent?