Earth

At the office all the morning, and at noon Sir G. Carteret, Mr. Coventry, and I by invitation to dinner to Sheriff Maynell’s, the great money-man; he, Alderman Backwell, and much noble and brave company, with the privilege of their rare discourse, which is great content to me above all other things in the world. And after a great dinner and much discourse, we arose and took leave, and home to the business of my office, where I thank God I take delight, and in the evening to my lodging and to bed.
Among other discourse, speaking concerning the great charity used in Catholic countrys, Mr. Ashburnham did tell us, that this last year, there being great want of corn in Paris, and so a collection made for the poor, there was two pearls brought in, nobody knew from whom (till the Queen, seeing them, knew whose they were, but did not discover it), which were sold for 200,000 crownes.

a rare world—
light in the evening
among the corn


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 18 September 1662.

Sketches for a Genealogy

This entry is part 18 of 19 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2015

 

2

A loop of metal
& a clasp at the end
of a chain

Two french wires
& the bones
of miniature chandeliers

Four prongs that seat
a gem of doubtful
pedigree

This window light
is mute to tell
what they cost

but they’re given
now to me— The only
instruction, that I

remember who I am
& that a stone has facets
time whittles constantly

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Outside Art

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Art and about

 

photo of birches by Jean Morris

Outside the gallery
drawn up in close formation
a battalion of birches

straight from a forest
in a melancholy Russian novel
or one of those eerily pretty
paintings by Gustav Klimt

bright as morning air
their shadows charcoal strokes
on dusty ground

sculpted and framed by the eyes
of arriving aficionados
these modestly exuberant white wands
are also art.

Inventor

At my office all the morning, and at noon to the Exchange, where meeting Mr. Moore and Mr. Stucky, of the Wardrobe, we to an ordinary to dinner, and after dinner Mr. Moore and I about 3 o’clock to Paul’s school, to wait upon Mr. Crumlum (Mr. Moore having a hopeful lad, a kinsman of his, there at school), who we take very luckily, and went up to his chamber with him, where there was also an old fellow student of Mr. Crumlum’s, one Mr. Newell, come to see him, of whom he made so much, and of me, that the truth is he with kindness did drink more than I believe he used to do, and did begin to be a little impertinent, the more when after all he would in the evening go forth with us and give us a bottle of wine abroad, and at the tavern met with an acquaintance of his that did occasion impertinent discourse, that though I honour the man, and he do declare abundance of learning and worth, yet I confess my opinion is much lessened of him, and therefore let it be a caution to myself not to love drink, since it has such an effect upon others of greater worth in my own esteem. I could not avoid drinking of 5 glasses this afternoon with him, and after I had parted with him Mr. Moore and I to my house, and after we had eaten something to my lodgings, where the master of the house, a very ordinary fellow, was ready to entertain me and took me into his dining-room where his wife was, a pretty and notable lady, too fine surely for him, and too much wit too. Here I was forced to stay with them a good while and did drink again, there being friends of theirs with them. At last being weary of his idle company, I bid good-night and so to my chamber and Mr. [Moore] and I to bed, neither of us well pleased with our afternoon’s work, merely from our being witnesses of Mr. Crumlum’s weakness.
This day my boy is come from Brampton, and my wife I think the next week.

An ordinary clock at school
made so much of
that the truth and I begin
to be impertinent!
Though I honor learning,
let it be a caution to myself—
since it has such an effect on others—
not to master too much.
To stay with them
in their good night
as a witness.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 17 September 1662.

Sketches for a Genealogy

1

To everyone, she was Little
Mother, mother’s younger sister;

sometime shelter, confidant, friend—
The maids in neighbors’ houses, especially,

shyly came to ask for her advice:
deboning fish, preserving fruit,

extracting savor from crushed heads
of shrimp. To all, she gave unstinting

service in her prime: from dawn to dusk,
the only acolyte at kitchen sink and stove;

red-knuckled hand that scrubbed soiled linens,
that cut our morning bread. I never knew

her secrets or her true desires.
Though clearly, having had me young

then given me up years before she had
three others, her heart could not

have been immune. One afternoon, while
in her care after school in kindergarten,

she put away the laundry and took my hand,
saying we would walk to the plaza and have

lunch at a Chinese restaurant. She put
her finger on my lips, and her lips said

Don’t tell. The rest is a blur
of noise and oily smells. And then I was too

involved with strands of slippery
noodles in my bowl to notice anything else

about the man who sat next to her at our table,
only that she could not keep her eyes from his.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Hermetic.

Last Work

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Art and about

 

Agnes Martin's last work

The retrospective is room after room of encompassing light and depth that draw you into Agnes Martin’s long journey. Here. Now. Over and over. These big, pale, calm abstractions, and moving among them the pale hologram of a lone, determined woman. Colour. Lines. Straight lines. And one small drawing that is different: a single, sure, if quivering, line that curves back and forth as it describes the contours of a potted plant.

her last work
at ninety-two
still life

Fantasmagoria

This entry is part 17 of 19 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2015

 

In the aftermath, the center of the city
turns into a forbidden sphere.

From the air, thin vapors describe
what once subsisted there.

No one can remember signposts, bouquets,
or where the crosshairs focused.

The sky is a tray of hidden circuits,
tilting as it approaches full capacity.

Somewhere a lever flips and the chrome-
colored marbles begin their trajectory,

passing field after field
of stenciled poppies

then disappearing into funnels
or invisible throats.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Cerebral

Up and to my workmen, and then to the office, and there we sat till noon; then to the Exchange, and in my way met with the housekeeper of this office, and he did give me so good an account of my chamber in my house about which I am so much troubled that I am well at ease in my mind. At my office all the afternoon alone. In the evening Sir J. M. and I walked together a good while in the garden, very pleasant, and takes no notice that he do design any further trouble to me about my house. At night eat a bit of bread and cheese, and so to my lodgings and to bed, my mind ill at ease for these particulars: my house in dirt, and like to lose my best chamber. My wife writes me from the country that she is not pleased there with my father nor mother, nor any of her servants, and that my boy is turned a very rogue. I have 30l. to pay to the cavaliers: then a doubt about my being forced to leave all my business here, when I am called to the court at Brampton; and lastly, my law businesses, which vex me to my heart what I shall be able to do next term, which is near at hand.

my work is in
my mind alone

I walk a while in the garden
and take no notice

eat a bit of bread and dirt
like a country with no mother

and then doubt
I am called to art…


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 16 September 1662.

Hermetic

Up betimes to meet with the plasterer and bricklayer that did first divide our lodgings, and they do both tell me that my chamber now in dispute did ever belong to my lodgings, which do put me into good quiet of mind.
So by water with Sir Wm. Pen to White Hall; and, with much ado, was fain to walk over the piles through the bridge, while Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes were aground against the bridge, and could not in a great while get through. At White Hall we hear that the Duke of York is gone a-hunting to-day; and so we returned: they going to the Duke of Albemarle’s, where I left them (after I had observed a very good picture or two there), and so home, and there did resolve to give up my endeavours for access to the leads, and to shut up my doors lest the being open might give them occasion of longing for my chamber, which I am in most fear about.
So to Deptford, and took my Lady Batten and her daughter and Mrs. Turner along with me, they being going through the garden thither, they to Mr. Unthwayte’s and I to the Pay, and then about 3 o’clock went to dinner (Sir W. Pen and I), and after dinner to the Pay again, and at night by barge home all together, and so to my lodgings and to bed, my mind full of trouble about my house.

time to meet with the plaster and brick
that belong to my lodgings

quiet as the ground
I go shut my doors

being open might give longing a home


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 15 September 1662.

If I write of the bamboo luggage handle

rigged with twine that broke when the boat

capsized and the stone of my arrival sank
into the murk beneath the waves, I become

more of what you are most convinced
I am— There, swallowed by a giant fish

which spits me up after months of servitude
and tedium spent scouring its insides

until they glow like powder rooms
in expensive hotels, wallpaper

the shade of pink Himalayan salt.
My ears, by your reckoning,

have curled sufficiently inward
to indicate that I have learned

the lessons of constant chastening.
Now I can be given papers, a name

that can fit into a mouth, picked out
of a great book sitting on the podium

of the landing station. The answer
to the complex problem that I present

is better arrived at, in your opinion,
if I write of rice fields bordered

by ruins, or of women smoking dark
rings at dusk in beer gardens,

while soldiers patrol the periphery. You like
the postcard of the explorer in dungarees,

grinning broadly for the camera as he fondles
the breasts of native women flanking him

on each side. You think the answer to the problem
is a story thick with the porridge of suffering,

the better somehow, for us who’ve eaten of it
daily to aspire to nobility— The answer

to the problem is not the sorrow of children
diving naked into the sea for the prize

of a single black pearl, but those depths
which will embrace us all, indiscriminately.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Troubled.