Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
asked the interviewer—
There are no longer names
for some things that exist
only in memory. This
is why it takes years
to practice forming
letters with ink
to make a single
word. In the dense
silence of forests,
who knows how long
it took the birds
to weave the canopy?
In response to Via Negativa: Night singer.
All the morning at home among my workmen. At noon Mr. Creed and I went to the ordinary behind the Exchange, where we lately were, but I do not like it so well as I did. So home with him and to the office, where we sat late, and he did deliver his accounts to us.
The office being done I went home and took pleasure to see my work draw to an end.
I am my work:
at noon, an ordinary hang.
We ate.
Like the liver I took
pleasure to see
draw to an end.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 13 May 1661.
Every time I go outside to look at the moon, I hear a ghostly twittering in the treetops. Birds, or flying squirrels? I shine a flashlight all around, but don’t catch a reflection from any mammalian eyes. I switch it off. My brother’s silver truck glows like the belly of a fish.
When I wake up in the wee hours, the catbird is singing voluably, lustily — as if it were broad daylight. Mockingbirds do this too, I know, but catbirds? Perhaps this one has a bit of actual cat in him. I shut the window and put my earplugs in.
In the morning, the new leaves on the trees seem twice as large as they did yesterday. But why shouldn’t they? Given how warm it was last night, they surely didn’t stop growing just because the sun went down.
Could it be that the catbird’s singing is somehow necessary to the growth of the leaves — that he sings them into being? I play with this idea just long enough for it to pass from absurdity into possibility.
But to listen to a catbird — or one of its cousins, the brown thrasher or the mockingbird — is to realize that spring itself is fundamentally improvisational. The trees, too, are making it up as they go along.
“Canta y no llores” ~ “Cielito lindo”
When she comes across these lines in a book
of poetry— “In proportion to what is taken,
what is given multiplies,” the Buddha wonders:
if this is so, is the reverse also true?
Is this what spooked the Greeks into espousing
the virtue of moderation, of keeping to
the middle way: of practicing, like Sophrosyne,
a life of self-control, restraint, temperance,
and discretion? Not much wine, not much song:
sobriety instead of singing along in the heat
at the top of your lungs with the mariachi band
strolling from table to table— Ay ay ay ay,
canta y no llores. What they mean is the arrow
has struck its target; Pandora’s box is open,
and every calamity is loose in the world.
There’s nothing you can do with such a wound
except sing. Yes, why not sing? the sky is brilliant,
is really more than lovely— Don’t cry.
In response to Via Negativa: Teaching the catbird to sing.
My wife had a very troublesome night this night and in great pain, but about the morning her swelling broke, and she was in great ease presently as she useth to be. So I put in a tent (which Dr. Williams sent me yesterday) into the hole to keep it open till all the matter be come out, and so I question not that she will soon be well again.
I staid at home all this morning, being the Lord’s day, making up my private accounts and setting papers in order. At noon went with my Lady Montagu at the Wardrobe, but I found it so late that I came back again, and so dined with my wife in her chamber.
After dinner I went awhile to my chamber to set my papers right.
Then I walked forth towards Westminster and at the Savoy heard Dr. Fuller preach upon David’s words, “I will wait with patience all the days of my appointed time until my change comes;” but methought it was a poor dry sermon. And I am afeard my former high esteem of his preaching was more out of opinion than judgment.
From thence homewards, but met with Mr. Creed, with whom I went and walked in Grayes-Inn-walks, and from thence to Islington, and there eat and drank at the house my father and we were wont of old to go to; and after that walked homeward, and parted in Smithfield: and so I home, much wondering to see how things are altered with Mr. Creed, who, twelve months ago, might have been got to hang himself almost as soon as go to a drinking-house on a Sunday.
Night welling up
at noon, I walk west
and hear a poor,
dry sermon
in a reed.
I walk home
to see who might
hang himself.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 12 May 1661.
A lovely little animated trailer for a new book, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, by Oliver Burkeman. I sort of feel as if I don’t need to read it, because I’ve been saying this sort of thing all my life — ever since my high school launched a Power of Positive Children (POP-C) propaganda campaign, complete with motivational messages on the intercom every morning, when I was in 11th Grade. I think drug and alcohol use and teen pregnancies actually increased as a result — it was such obvious bullshit that you could will your way to success. Especially in a school system as nakedly classist as ours was, where Stanford-Binet IQ test results were arbiters of fate and teachers did all they could to discourage poor kids from thinking they’d ever amount to anything. I realize now that that campaign wasn’t for us, really. It was for the teachers and administrators, so they could reassure themselves that anyone who stumbled or didn’t get ahead had only themselves to blame for having bad attitudes and being negative.
In other news, I’m looking forward to spending another summer in the U.K., surrounded by cynical, sarcastic alcoholics. My people.
Hat-tip: Brain Pickings.
This morning I went by water with Payne (Mr. Moore being with me) to my Lord Chamberlain at Whitehall, and there spoke with my Lord, and he did accept of Payne for his waterman, as I had lately endeavoured to get him to be. After that Mr. Cooling did give Payne an order to be entertained, and so I left him and Mr. Moore, and I went to Graye’s Inne, and there to a barber’s, where I was trimmed, and had my haire cut, in which I am lately become a little curious, finding that the length of it do become me very much.
So, calling at my father’s, I went home, and there staid and saw my workmen follow their work, which this night is brought to a very good condition.
This afternoon Mr. Shepley, Moore, and Creed came to me all about their several accounts with me, and we did something with them all, and so they went away. This evening Mr. Hater brought my last quarter’s salary, of which I was very glad, because I have lost my first bill for it, and so this morning was forced to get another signed by three of my fellow officers for it.
All this evening till late setting my accounts and papers in order, and so to bed.
I accept gray hair,
in which I am finding
my father and my work:
this is the last
lost ice, all
my accounts.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 11 May 1661.
on whether she should follow her bliss,
wrench herself away from all that has made her
so unhappy through the years; leave behind empty,
meaningless days revolving from one predictable
ritual of domestic life to another— elementary
school drop-off each morning, followed by a trip
to the coffee shop for a half-caf or cortado;
then the spa, lunch, and shopping with her gym
buddies at the mall, after which each of them
will go their separate ways, backing out
of the parking garage and waving perfectly
manicured hands from the windows of their Volvos
or Land Rovers because Ohmygod I didn’t realize
how late it is and the nanny will be furious!
Back home, she usually pours a glass of wine
before taking the kids and the dog for a walk around
the block, her way of watching the clock, counting
down, wondering if her husband will be home
for dinner or if he’ll text to say Sorry, another
late night at the office to finish XYZ account,
which she knows is bullshit shorthand for Don’t
stay up I’ll be fucking my mistress in some undisclosed
downtown location. The Buddha’s friend sobs;
she has had it, she is leaving her 20-year marriage
to explore what it means to have an affair herself,
to take up jazz and learn scat singing; to smoke weed,
volunteer with a rock band, be their groupie and travel
around the country in a bus with no fixed
destination. Her friend’s eyes are red-rimmed
from crying. The Buddha offers her a Kleenex
and a hug, knowing that perhaps this is one
of those times just listening may be the best
approach: to be there for her without judgment,
biting her tongue so she doesn’t blurt out questions
yet like What about the kids, the dog, the house?
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
The single-mindedness of a heron in flight: its dangerous bill, coiled neck, and arrow-straight path. No thank you! I’m the sort of guy who whistles a tune hoping the catbird will copy it.
Ay, ay, ay, ay,
Canta y no llores,
Porque cantando se alegran,
cielito lindo, los corazones.
The small blue butterfly keeps circling and landing, circling and landing among the small blue stones of the road, as if searching for a lost twin. When a car comes along straight as an arrow, the butterfly tries the same randomized flight pattern it uses to escape from everything else, tripping the light stochastic. It survives, but not because of that.
In the Popol Vuh, the hero twins use magic tricks and theater to defeat the single-minded lords of death. Their lust for violence is turned against them, and they participate willingly in their own destruction for the sheer thrill of it.
I’ve been listening to the catbird’s inventions for hours now. Twice I thought I heard phrases from Cielito Lindo.
At the office all the morning, and the afternoon among my workmen with great pleasure, because being near an end of their work. This afternoon came Mr. Blackburn and Creed to see me, and I took them to the Dolphin, and there drank a great deal of Rhenish wine with them and so home, having some talk with Mr. Blackburn about his kinsman my Will, and he did give me good satisfaction in that it is his desire that his kinsman should do me all service, and that he would give him the best counsel he could to make him good. Which I begin of late to fear that he will not because of the bad company that I find that he do begin to take. This afternoon Mr. Hater received for me the 225l. due upon Mr. Creed’s bill in which I am concerned so much, which do make me very glad.
At night to Sir W. Batten and sat a while. So to bed.
I work with pleasure.
Near an end of work,
I burn to give
satisfaction
to the company.
Take me.
Make me.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 10 May 1661.