Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
At the office all the morning, so dined at home, and then abroad with my wife by coach to the Theatre to shew her “King and no King,” it being very well done. And so by coach, though hard to get it, being rainy, home. So to my chamber to write letters and the journal for these six last days past.
Morning and the road
get me to write letters—
an urn for the last days.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 26 September 1661.
The earth has water older than
the sun, scientists say. I’ll never
see rain the same way again,
or hear it tap on the roof
at 4:00 a.m. and not wonder
what other skies it has fallen from,
what other oceans it once also
returned to as if going home.
Scientists say they’re more certain
than ever that planets
throughout the cosmos harbor this
resident alien. And remembering
how many times the eye
has evolved on Earth alone,
I listen to the drumming
on the roof and imagine
that someday, sure as rain,
we’ll meet the watery gaze of beings
born under distant stars.
Maybe we’ll see enough of ourselves
to realize then that loneliness
has no cure—that we are all heirs
to drifting, interstellar ice.
Maybe we’ll offer them a drink.
Maybe we’ll weep.
In response to Scientific American: “Earth Has Water Older than the Sun“
By coach with Sir W. Pen to Covent Garden. By the way, upon my desire, he told me that I need not fear any reflection upon my Lord for their ill success at Argier, for more could not be done than was done. I went to my cozen, Thos. Pepys, there, and talked with him a good while about our country business, who is troubled at my uncle Thomas his folly, and so we parted; and then meeting Sir R. Slingsby in St. Martin’s Lane, he and I in his coach through the Mewes, which is the way that now all coaches are forced to go, because of a stop at Charing Cross, by reason of a drain there to clear the streets. To Whitehall, and there to Mr. Coventry, and talked with him, and thence to my Lord Crew’s and dined with him, where I was used with all imaginable kindness both from him and her. And I see that he is afraid that my Lord’s reputacon will a little suffer in common talk by this late success; but there is no help for it now.
The Queen of England (as she is now owned and called) I hear doth keep open Court, and distinct at Lisbon.
Hence, much against my nature and will, yet such is the power of the Devil over me I could not refuse it, to the Theatre, and saw “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” ill done. And that ended, with Sir W. Pen and Sir G. More to the tavern, and so home with him by coach, and after supper to prayers and to bed. In full quiet of mind as to thought, though full of business, blessed be God.
I fear reflection
more than folly.
Meeting the aches
of a cross with kindness
is against my nature.
Yet such is the power
of the wind, I end
with a prayer full of mind.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 25 September 1661.
The serpent in the bowels of the underworld
shifts in the wind’s four directions:
Katungdan
Amihan
Sidlangan
Bagatnan
Let the trail of its breath
guide the tiller and the rudder,
the lathe and the loom.
Let our tin-can hearts make a din
of our sorrows, our meagre ransom
for the world’s seven moons.
In response to Via Negativa: Tintinnabulous.
When I was young,
I resembled nobody.
In the middle of the room,
the beautiful girls
practiced dance steps
like “The Grind,”
admiring each other’s hair
and clothes: I love
your elephant pants, that
disco shirt, that belt
with an apple on the buckle!
We gathered around a table
in someone’s smoke-
filled basement, listening
to guitar music, talking
about the future, always
the future, and how to get
away from here. Someone
passed around a bottle,
a rolled-up joint: Try it,
it’s just like smoking
paper. But I
was young and resembled
no one I knew.
At least not then,
not yet.
In response to Via Negativa: Hill country.
We rose, and set forth, but found a most sad alteration in the road by reason of last night’s rains, they being now all dirty and washy, though not deep. So we rode easily through, and only drinking at Holloway, at the sign of a woman with cakes in one hand and a pot of ale in the other, which did give good occasion of mirth, resembling her to the maid that served us, we got home very timely and well, and finding there all well, and letters from sea, that speak of my Lord’s being well, and his action, though not considerable of any side, at Argier. I went straight to my Lady, and there sat and talked with her, and so home again, and after supper we to bed somewhat weary, hearing of nothing ill since my absence but my brother Tom, who is pretty well though again.
A road of dirt and ash.
Deep in a hollow, a woman
resembling the sea,
considerable and weary.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 24 September 1661.
how it amplifies the details
of lost years: the murmur in study
halls, the light that glanced
off waxed wooden floors; the chalky
clouds that rose in frigid air
then sifted down the bannisters
from the felt percussion of
erasers. And the mingled smells
that slicked each humid head tired
from the day’s long schoolroom hours,
the dog-eared books whose spines
and sides we lightly sanded
at year’s end before passing them
on to others— The dictionaries
that held more than we would ever
know, the old Mercator maps we pulled
like shades to cover the dark
green surface of the board—
And we could point, reciting names
of continents and capitals and seas
that some of us now have crossed.
And some of us have stayed,
and some returned. But none of us
remember exactly when or how we turned,
and, turning, left it all behind.
In response to Via Negativa: Prescription.
Up, and sad to hear my father and mother wrangle as they used to do in London, of which I took notice to both, and told them that I should give over care for anything unless they would spend what they have with more love and quiet. So (John Bowles coming to see us before we go) we took horse and got early to Baldwick; where there was a fair, and we put in and eat a mouthfull of pork, which they made us pay 14d. for, which vexed us much. And so away to Stevenage, and staid till a showre was over, and so rode easily to Welling, where we supped well, and had two beds in the room and so lay single, and still remember it that of all the nights that ever I slept in my life I never did pass a night with more epicurism of sleep; there being now and then a noise of people stirring that waked me, and then it was a very rainy night, and then I was a little weary, that what between waking and then sleeping again, one after another, I never had so much content in all my life, and so my wife says it was with her.
For love and quiet
we took a mouthful of age,
a single night
and the noise of rain.
And between waking
and sleeping, never had
so much content.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 23 September 1661.
Let it be swift, let it be easy
as quick cover of new snow.
Let it bear tokens of what
we loved the most in summer—
Let it be dappled as the light
that slicks the undersides of leaves.
Let it have hands that feel
no heavier than breath.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
(Lord’s day). Before church time walking with my father in the garden contriving. So to church, where we had common prayer, and a dull sermon by one Mr. Case, who yet I heard sing very well. So to dinner, and busy with my father about his accounts all the afternoon, and people came to speak with us about business.
Mr. Barnwell at night came and supped with us. So after setting matters even with my father and I, to bed.
In the garden,
a common
sermon:
a din
is a sin
with tin.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 22 September 1661.