Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Do you want an earring? Do you want
a sweet? Do you want a garland of flowers
thick as husks, like pearls of teeth?
Do you want to stroll on the pier,
sit on the bridge in the rain, dangle
your feet in water slick as oil?
The slugs in the garden have been
so patient at their work, embroidering
holes in the leaves while we slept.
Drink up: let’s wash our faces while
we can in this waterfall, where words
for loss and finding are braided ropes.
In response to Via Negativa: Idler.
Up early, and, with Sir R. Slingsby (and Major Waters the deaf gentleman, his friend, for company’s sake) to the Victualling-office (the first time that I ever knew where it was), and there staid while he read a commission for enquiry into some of the King’s lands and houses thereabouts, that are given his brother. And then we took boat to Woolwich, where we staid and gave order for the fitting out of some more ships presently. And then to Deptford, where we staid and did the same; and so took barge again, and were overtaken by the King in his barge, he having been down the river with his yacht this day for pleasure to try it; and, as I hear, Commissioner Pett’s do prove better than the Dutch one, and that that his brother built.
While we were upon the water, one of the greatest showers of rain fell that ever I saw.
The Comptroller and I landed with our barge at the Temple, and from thence I went to my father’s, and there did give order about some clothes to be made, and did buy a new hat, cost between 20 and 30 shillings, at Mr. Holden’s. So home.
Waters deaf as the land
are given to wool—
overtaken by the Dutch
and built upon.
The greatest shower of rain
made a new hat.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 21 May 1661.
An island of ferns has sprouted
beneath the bay window, fronds
curled like fingers.
At home all the morning; paid 50l. to one Mr. Grant for Mr. Barlow, for the last half year, and was visited by Mr. Anderson, my former chamber fellow at Cambridge, with whom I parted at the Hague, but I did not go forth with him, only gave him a morning draft at home.
At noon Mr. Creed came to me, and he and I to the Exchange, and so to an ordinary to dinner, and after dinner to the Mitre, and there sat drinking while it rained very much. Then to the office, where I found Sir Williams both, choosing of masters for the new fleet of ships that is ordered to be set forth, and Pen seeming to be in an ugly humour, not willing to gratify one that I mentioned to be put in, did vex me.
We sat late, and so home. Mr. Moore came to me when I was going to bed, and sat with me a good while talking about my Lord’s business and our own and so good night.
I sit on a bridge
drinking rain,
choosing a new ship
to set forth and talk about.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 20 May 1661.
It’s sandal season—
you bring back a blister
from the canal.
*
Light from the water
plays on the steel girders.
A train’s screeching wheels.
*
Leading a crew
of gnomes and potted plants,
the jolly roger.
*
After the canal boat passes,
the huge floating leaf
reverses course.
*
Lowering their heads in threat
again and again: geese
with a single gosling.
*
Where the high-speed
train will run,
the drillers’ four-storey screw.
*
Behind the supermarket,
the pigeons line up
for crumbs of bread.
*
You can find her by the ding
of bicyclists’ bells:
the deaf dog.
*
Leaning out over
the green water,
he paints the boat green.
*
“End-of-life
destination for cars”—
and next door, stacks of tires.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/14232632634/
Dear ___, There are so many things
we’ve taken for granted. What I’d give
to know the origins of stories merely
cobbled from desperation out of the past.
For instance, do you know what year it was
when my father graduated from college,
when and where he landed his first job?
What size shoe did he wear, what hatband?
I woke with a start this morning, everything
still pitched in darkness, no molten outline
yet around the shutters. All I could think of
was that day in summer— was it 19__? when we
came upon him sobbing in a garden chair,
clutching a letter to his chest. He was
no longer young when he married, when he
went against all expectations of family
and class. But he was a man, that was
the difference. Had he been like us,
had he been female, none of what he did
would have passed muster. A favorite son
eventually is forgiven; a boy will have
his way. Do you wonder how he felt,
sensing the end pressing more palpably
at the edges? What is success? What
does it mean to have made a life? He had
few assets, no investments. Old before he
reached his prime, past noon he sat and dozed
or dreamed under the bougainvillea vines.
In a window bay, unmoving; clutching a string
of prayer beads— Sometimes this is how we
came upon him: milky eyes closed, light
filtered through a crown of soft grey hair.
In response to Via Negativa: Eucharist.
(Lord’s day) I walked in the morning towards Westminster, and seeing many people at York House, I went down and found them at mass, it being the Spanish ambassodors; and so I go into one of the gallerys, and there heard two masses done, I think, not in so much state as I have seen them heretofore. After that into the garden, and walked a turn or two, but found it not so fine a place as I always took it for by the outside. Thence to my Lord’s and there spake with him about business, and then he went to Whitehall to dinner, and Capt. Ferrers and Mr. Howe and myself to Mr. Wilkinson’s at the Crown, and though he had no meat of his own, yet we happened to find our cook Mr. Robinson there, who had a dinner for himself and some friends, and so he did give us a very fine dinner.
Then to my Lord’s, where we went and sat talking and laughing in the drawing-room a great while. All our talk about their going to sea this voyage, which Capt. Ferrers is in some doubt whether he shall go or no, but swears that he would go, if he were sure never to come back again; and I, giving him some hopes, he grew so mad with joy that he fell a-dancing and leaping like a madman.
Now it fell out so that the balcone windows were open, and he went to the rayle and made an offer to leap over, and asked what if he should leap over there. I told him I would give him 40l. if he did not go to sea. With that thought I shut the doors, and W. Howe hindered him all we could; yet he opened them again, and, with a vault, leaps down into the garden:— the greatest and most desperate frolic that ever I saw in my life. I run to see what was become of him, and we found him crawled upon his knees, but could not rise; so we went down into the garden and dragged him to the bench, where he looked like a dead man, but could not stir; and, though he had broke nothing, yet his pain in his back was such as he could not endure. With this, my Lord (who was in the little new room) come to us in amaze, and bid us carry him up, which, by our strength, we did, and so laid him in East’s bed, by the door; where he lay in great pain. We sent for a doctor and surgeon, but none to be found, till by-and-by by chance comes in Dr. Clerke, who is afeard of him. So we sent to get a lodging for him, and I went up to my Lord, where Captain Cooke, Mr. Gibbons, and others of the King’s musicians were come to present my Lord with some songs and symphonys, which were performed very finely. Which being done I took leave and supped at my father’s, where was my cozen Beck come lately out of the country.
I am troubled to see my father so much decay of a suddain, as he do both in his seeing and hearing, and as much to hear of him how my brother Tom do grow disrespectful to him and my mother.
I took leave and went home, where to prayers (which I have not had in my house a good while), and so to bed.
We turn
the Lord into dinner—
no cook but hope, leaping
like a madman.
One ray and we open
to the most desperate life,
like a dead man broke
by the surgeon.
So much decay
is a mother to prayer.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 19 May 1661.
Towards Westminster, from the Towre, by water, and was fain to stand upon one of the piers about the bridge, before the men could drag their boat through the lock, and which they could not do till another was called to help them.
Being through bridge I found the Thames full of boats and gallys, and upon inquiry found that there was a wager to be run this morning. So spying of Payne in a gully, I went into him, and there staid, thinking to have gone to Chelsea with them. But upon, the start, the wager boats fell foul one of another, till at last one of them gives over, pretending foul play, and so the other row away alone, and all our sport lost. So, I went ashore, at Westminster; and to the Hall I went, where it was very pleasant to see the Hall in the condition it is now with the judges on the benches at the further end of it, which I had not seen all this term till now.
Thence with Mr. Spicer, Creed and some others to drink. And so away homewards by water with Mr. Creed, whom I left in London going about business and I home, where I staid all the afternoon in the garden reading “Faber Fortunae” with great pleasure. So home to bed.
The men drag
their galley in a gully,
thinking to go to sea,
but give over and row on shore.
It was pleasant to see
with judges on the benches
going all afternoon
in the garden.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 18 May 1661.
In second grade, for a science demonstration, the teacher took a needle out of a sewing case, stroked it with a magnet, stuck it through a disc of cork and laid it on the surface of a glass of water where it floated and spun— the bulge that held the weight of the needle, the water that pushed as molecules clung to each other at the same time that they searched for what pulled them north.
*
What pulled them north was the promise of cooler air, a homestead to call their own, a city where they could begin their lives. Everyone wants a kingdom to call their own. And so they packed their bags, loaded a truck, broke away from what the heated mercury of family defined.
*
Not always hot to the touch, but always mercurial: atmospheres like hot springs, otherwise glacial. No easy way to withstand what clings stronger than molecules, generates the most surface tension.
*
There are bridges suspended on cables so thin it seems almost impossible that they can bear any weight at all. Even the fog tiptoes through them.
In response to Via Negativa: Hydrologic.
Its head is too large, out of proportion to the other members; its face and hands have also grown monstrous, irregular and ‘out of all Shape’. … A body racked with fever, and choked by ashes, it proceeds from plague to fire. —Peter Ackroyd, London: The Biography
Ten thousand red-brown
mouths of chimney pots
gape at us as we descend,
jet engines howling, into the haze—
a mutual amazement.
Here is the yellow air
of our to-and-froing.
Here are the housing estates
and the scrapyards,
groomed swards of a park
and chaotic allotments,
the circling traffic.
There’s the river and
its slick sheen of a carcass.
Plane trees all in a line
make faint, green gestures
with the stumps of their limbs.