Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
My love came into the garden
when I was not looking.
All that was fallen
and forsaken, tattered,
used up, shriven—
pushed against the hard
beds no hands
all season had made
or tended, furrowed,
seeded, fruited.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
With Sir W. Batten by water to Whitehall, and he to Westminster. I went to see Sarah and my Lord’s lodgings, which are now all in dirt, to be repaired against my Lord’s coming from sea with the Queen. Thence to Westminster Hall; and there walked up and down and heard the great difference that hath been between my Lord Chancellor and my Lord of Bristol, about a proviso that my Lord Chancellor would have brought into the Bill for Conformity, that it shall be in the power of the King, when he sees fit, to dispense with the Act of Conformity; and though it be carried in the House of Lords, yet it is believed it will hardly pass in the Commons. Here I met with Chetwind, Parry, and several others, and went to a little house behind the Lords’ house to drink some wormwood ale, which doubtless was a bawdy house, the mistress of the house having the look and dress. Here we staid till noon and then parted, I by water to the Wardrobe to meet my wife, but my Lady and they had dined, and so I dined with the servants, and then up to my Lady, and there staid and talked a good while, and then parted and walked into Cheapside, and there saw my little picture, for which I am to sit again the next week. So home, and staid late writing at my office, and so home and to bed, troubled that now my boy is also fallen sick of an ague we fear.
all in dirt
the worm in the little picture
at my office
Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 21 March 1661/62.
At my office all the morning, at noon to the Exchange, and so home to dinner, and then all the afternoon at the office till late at night, and so home and to bed, my mind in good ease when I mind business, which methinks should be a good argument to me never to do otherwise.
At my office I change the office.
A good mind thinks
a good argument
to do other-
wise.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 20 March 1661/62.
All the morning and afternoon at my office putting things in order, and in the evening I do begin to digest my uncle the Captain’s papers into one book, which I call my Brampton book, for the clearer understanding things how they are with us.
So home and supper and to bed.
This noon came a letter from T. Pepys, the turner, in answer to one of mine the other day to him, wherein I did cheque him for not coming to me, as he had promised, with his and his father’s resolucion about the difference between us. But he writes to me in the very same slighting terms that I did to him, without the least respect at all, but word for word as I did him, which argues a high and noble spirit in him, though it troubles me a little that he should make no more of my anger, yet I cannot blame him for doing so, he being the elder brother’s son, and not depending upon me at all.
I begin to digest my book
for clearer understanding—
a letter for light
a word for spirit
for being other and not
me at all.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 19 March 1661/62.
“To see and be seen
is to be taken prisoner.” ~ D. Bonta
The mother hands her child a sandwich and some change before putting him on the bus. Don’t talk to strangers. But if you must, be unfailingly polite. Look them in the eye but not for very long.
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Marble and gold, pillar or stone. In the circular building, cells arranged around an outer wall, around the single tower. Network of tubes for extending the work of inspection.
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We will raise our placards, light candles, and walk in a solemn circle around the square. We have our permit to peacefully organize and protest. Of course we know we will be watched.
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Along one side of the street, lamp-posts festooned with the faces of missing children and animals. Every help number begins with 1-800. Infinity and many zeros.
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One summer, I ached to see the row of grandfathers who’d tethered themselves to the White House fence. Veteran does not only mean one who has served in the war, but also a person with long experience: old hand, past master, doyen.
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In fall after Rodney King was beaten, mother sewed a winter coat for me. She sighed and wished I did not have to go to America, this land of violence and burning storefronts.
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Third person point of view: I do not understand how people you don’t even know can talk about you as if you weren’t right there, as if they think you must be deaf or do not understand English.
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From the bridge we can see the spill of neighborhoods. We don’t talk about the blueness of the water and the stillness of wading birds. You tell me how everywhere you walk now, your nape prickles: the aura of the constantly surveilled.
In response to Via Negativa: Proverbial (10).
All the morning at the office with Sir W. Pen. Dined at home, and Luellin and Blurton with me. After dinner to the office again, where Sir G. Carteret and we staid awhile, and then Sir W. Pen and I on board some of the ships now fitting for East Indys and Portugall, to see in what forwardness they are, and so back home again, and I write to my father by the post about Brampton Court, which is now coming on. But that which troubles me is that my Father has now got an ague that I fear may endanger his life. So to bed.
I dine on gall
to see in what war
they are, and fat
am I now in my fear.
Anger is life.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 18 March 1661/62.
All the morning at the office by myself about setting things in order there, and so at noon to the Exchange to see and be seen, and so home to dinner and then to the office again till night, and then home and after supper and reading a while to bed.
Last night the Blackmore pink brought the three prisoners, Barkestead, Okey, and Corbet, to the Tower, being taken at Delfe in Holland; where, the Captain tells me, the Dutch were a good while before they could be persuaded to let them go, they being taken prisoners in their land. But Sir G. Downing would not be answered so: though all the world takes notice of him for a most ungrateful villain for his pains.
All self-things change.
To see and be seen
is to be taken prisoner.
The land would not answer the world.
Take no ice for ungrateful pains.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 17 March 1661/62.
you can hear the struggle to breathe, you can intuit the instance of the body’s anticipation of the viral load, of the impact of what is ultimately coming. If you stop for just a moment to admit I don’t want to die before my time then life and what follows after becomes a ritual of self-care. In unbounded space we were bound and tripped up in entanglements; for this is what passes as history. How long have we held our breath? If you listen you can hear the struggle to breathe, to say the unsayable in bounded space. The woman who was speaking said, find the pocket of flesh between the shoulder and the jaw. Cradle the elbow of the arm as it burrows into that hidden space, looking for the pain of tenderness. I say yes when I want the taste of the bud more than the clay. Even the dead trees of winter want to return to life. They have not yet hoisted their banners but the assault is on its way.