Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
You came.
You saw.
You conquered.
Close to five
centuries after our
supposed discovery—
Close to seventy
some years
after that program
of liberation—
Well?
Those cities
bombed to ash
teem with call
centers and
terrible traffic.
In forest towns
the women begin
all weaving
by planting the eye
of a hurricane
in the middle
of their mats.
Patience
is an analog
virtue. All
who’ve lived
on the margins
practice daily.
Up and to my office, where abundance of business all the morning. Dined by my wife’s bedside, she not being yet well. We fell out almost upon my discourse of delaying the having of Ashwell, where my wife believing that I have a mind to have Pall, which I have not, though I could wish she did deserve to be had. So to my office, where by and by we sat, this afternoon being the first we have met upon a great while, our times being changed because of the parliament sitting. Being rose, I to my office till twelve at night, drawing out copies of the overcharge of the Navy, one to send to Mr. Coventry early to-morrow. So home and to bed, being weary, sleepy, and my eyes begin to fail me, looking so long by candlelight upon white paper.
This day I read the King’s speech to the Parliament yesterday; which is very short, and not very obliging; but only telling them his desire to have a power of indulging tender consciences, not that he will yield to have any mixture in the uniformity of the Church’s discipline; and says the same for the Papists, but declares against their ever being admitted to have any offices or places of trust in the kingdom; but, God knows, too many have.
morning fell almost as a pall
over the bed
my eyes fail me looking so long
upon white uniformity
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 19 February 1662/63.
I have had many dreams
in which I am desperate
to find a bathroom—
In one, I walked in circles
through a house full of people:
the lights were blazing;
the women were like tufted flowers
in their ball gowns. I tried
door after door only to find
myself in a parlor where the rugs
were deep crimson, and skeleton keys
dangled in lieu of crystals
from the chandelier. There was only
a grand piano, and a piano seat
with its hinged lid
suggestively open—
In another, I walked
out of a desert and into a house
where the unseen owner demanded
my capture. There I sat
on an actual toilet only to know
I would be apprehended and detained
the minute I stepped out
of the bathroom. A hand slid
my ransom note under the door
then retreated. I calculated the sums
and asked myself what it all meant.
Through a skylight I glimpsed
the moon’s trapdoor receding
in the sky. Doves cooed
on the patio, their voices
muted by linen curtains.
In response to Via Negativa: Sacred time.
Up, leaving my wife sick as last night in bed. I to my office all the morning, casting up with Captain Cocke their accounts of 500 tons of hemp brought from Riga, and bought by him and partners upon account, wherein are many things worth my knowledge. So at noon to dinner, taking Mr. Hater with me because of losing them, and in the afternoon he and I alone at the office, finishing our account of the extra charge of the Navy, not properly belonging to the Navy, since the King’s coming in to Christmas last; and all extra things being abated, I find that the true charge of the Navy to that time hath been after the rate of 374,743l. a-year. I made an end by eleven o’clock at night, and so home to bed almost weary.
This day the Parliament met again, after their long prorogation; but I know not any thing what they have done, being within doors all day.
I bought many things worth my hate
alone at the office
coming into Christmas time
the year is again a door
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 18 February 1662/63.
We dine on gruel and despair,
our Lenten deprivation.
We hear the creatures scurry
in the attic. We hope
they will dine on the cheese
we’ve left in the traps.
The dog hides in the bathtub.
Once he only hid during storms.
Now he seems to crave the cool
enamel, the clean curves
holding him.
The teenagers keep their evening
plans, despite the threat
of precipitation. You light
the fire, in the hope
that the hearth will lead
them back to safety.
I finger the well-worn beads
brought to this country
in a different century, prayers
lifted in a different language.
Inspired by Dave Bonta’s “In/mates” and Luisa A. Igloria’s “Niyebe” and ““Depth of Field.”
By stealth we took from the wood
when the wood was asleep
the arms of pine, the rings
they made of the years—
We hid them on straw
in the bed of a truck,
under rocks that once
helped the river reflect
the moon’s shattered face.
This is not a dream
I’m telling you—
We threaded our way
through switchback trails
and lied to the border
police about what cargo
breathed in the resinous dark.
In a valley we let the blind
rocks go, then stripped
the honey from each plank
of pine. We made of them
an enclosure for air,
a lattice of space begat
from a chamber of green.
That house is no more—
One day the earth sent tremors
through rafters and walls;
the years withdrew
what we took without gift
of coin, without blood
struck from a copper gong.
In response to Via Negativa: Submariner.
Up and to my office, and there we sat all the morning, and at noon my wife being gone to Chelsey with her brother and sister and Mrs. Lodum, to see the wassell at the school, where Mary Ashwell is, I took home Mr. Pett and he dined with me all alone, and much discourse we had upon the business of the office, and so after dinner broke up and with much ado, it raining hard, which it has not done a great while now, but only frost a great while, I got a coach and so to the Temple, where discoursed with Mr. W. Montagu about borrowing some money for my Lord, and so by water (where I have not been a good while through cold) to Westminster to Sir W. Wheeler’s, whom I found busy at his own house with the Commissioners of Sewers, but I spoke to him about my Lord’s business of borrowing money, and so to my Lord of Sandwich, to give him an account of all, whom I found at cards with Pickering; but he made an end soon: and so all alone, he and I, after I had given him an account, he told me he had a great secret to tell me, such as no flesh knew but himself, nor ought; which was this: that yesterday morning Eschar, Mr. Edward Montagu’s man, did come to him from his master with some of the Clerks of the Exchequer, for my Lord to sign to their books for the Embassy money; which my Lord very civilly desired not to do till he had spoke with his master himself. In the afternoon, my Lord and my Lady Wright being at cards in his chamber, in comes Mr. Montagu; and desiring to speak with my Lord at the window in his chamber, he begun to charge my Lord with the greatest ingratitude in the world: that he that had received his earldom, garter, 4000l. per annum, and whatever he is in the world, from him, should now study him all the dishonour that he could; and so fell to tell my Lord, that if he should speak all that he knew of him, he could do so and so. In a word, he did rip up all that could be said that was unworthy, and in the basest terms they could be spoken in. To which my Lord answered with great temper, justifying himself, but endeavouring to lessen his heat, which was a strange temper in him, knowing that he did owe all he hath in the world to my Lord, and that he is now all that he is by his means and favour. But my Lord did forbear to increase the quarrel, knowing that it would be to no good purpose for the world to see a difference in the family; but did allay him so as that he fell to weeping. And after much talk (among other things Mr. Montagu telling him that there was a fellow in the town, naming me, that had done ill offices, and that if he knew it to be so, he would have him cudgelled) my Lord did promise him that, if upon account he saw that there was not many tradesmen unpaid, he would sign the books; but if there was, he could not bear with taking too great a debt upon him. So this day he sent him an account, and a letter assuring him there was not above 200l. unpaid; and so my Lord did sign to the Exchequer books. Upon the whole, I understand fully what a rogue he is, and how my Lord do think and will think of him for the future; telling me that thus he has served his father my Lord Manchester, and his whole family, and now himself: and which is worst, that he hath abused, and in speeches every day do abuse, my Lord Chancellor, whose favour he hath lost; and hath no friend but Sir H. Bennet, and that (I knowing the rise of the friendship) only from the likeness of their pleasures, and acquaintance, and concernments, they have in the same matters of lust and baseness; for which, God forgive them! But he do flatter himself, from promises of Sir H. Bennet, that he shall have a pension of 2000l. per annum, and be made an Earl. My Lord told me he expected a challenge from him, but told me there was no great fear of him, for there was no man lies under such an imputation as he do in the business of Mr. Cholmely, who, though a simple sorry fellow, do brave him and struts before him with the Queen, to the sport and observation of the whole Court.
He did keep my Lord at the window, thus reviling and braving him above an hour, my Lady Wright being by; but my Lord tells me she could not hear every word, but did well know what their discourse was; she could hear enough to know that. So that he commands me to keep it as the greatest secret in the world, and bids me beware of speaking words against Mr. Montagu, for fear I should suffer by his passion thereby.
After he had told me this I took coach and home, where I found my wife come home and in bed with her sister in law in the chamber with her, she not being able to stay to see the wassel, being so ill of her termes, which I was sorry for. Hither we sent for her sister’s viall, upon which she plays pretty well for a girl, but my expectation is much deceived in her, not only for that, but in her spirit, she being I perceive a very subtle witty jade, and one that will give her husband trouble enough as little as she is, whereas I took her heretofore for a very child and a simple fool. I played also, which I have not done this long time before upon any instrument, and at last broke up and I to my office a little while, being fearful of being too much taken with musique, for fear of returning to my old dotage thereon, and so neglect my business as I used to do.
Then home and to bed.
Coming home I brought Mr. Pickering as far as the Temple, who tells me the story is very true of a child being dropped at the ball at Court; and that the King had it in his closett a week after, and did dissect it; and making great sport of it, said that in his opinion it must have been a month and three hours old; and that, whatever others think, he hath the greatest loss (it being a boy, as he says), that hath lost a subject by the business.
He tells me, too, that the other story, of my Lady Castlemaine’s and Stuart’s marriage, is certain, and that it was in order to the King’s coming to Stuart, as is believed generally. He tells me that Sir H. Bennet is a Catholique, and how all the Court almost is changed to the worse since his coming in, they being afeard of him. And that the Queen-Mother’s Court is now the greatest of all; and that our own Queen hath little or no company come to her, which I know also to be very true, and am sorry to see it.
only the flesh
that embassy
from a world with no future
only such a simple window
could keep secret the very story
we dissect
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 17 February 1662/63.
Up and by coach with Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes to White Hall, and, after we had done our usual business with the Duke, to my Lord Sandwich and by his desire to Sir W. Wheeler, who was brought down in a sedan chair from his chamber, being lame of the gout, to borrow 1000l. of him for my Lord’s occasions, but he gave me a very kind denial that he could not, but if any body else would, he would be bond with my Lord for it. So to Westminster Hall, and there find great expectation what the Parliament will do, when they come two days hence to sit again, in matters of religion. The great question is, whether the Presbyters will be contented to have the Papists have the same liberty of conscience with them, or no, or rather be denied it themselves: and the Papists, I hear, are very busy designing how to make the Presbyters consent to take their liberty, and to let them have the same with them, which some are apt to think they will.
It seems a priest was taken in his vests officiating somewhere in Holborn the other day, and was committed by Secretary Morris, according to law; and they say the Bishop of London did give him thanks for it.
Thence to my Lord Crew’s and dined there, there being much company, and the above-said matter is now the present publique discourse.
Thence about several businesses to Mr. Phillips my attorney, to stop all proceedings at law, and so to the Temple, where at the Solicitor General’s I found Mr. Cholmely and Creed reading to him the agreement for him to put into form about the contract for the Mole at Tangier, which is done at 13s. the Cubical yard, though upon my conscience not one of the Committee, besides the parties concerned, do understand what they do therein, whether they give too much or too little.
Thence with Mr. Creed to see Mr. Moore, who continues sick still, within doors, and here I staid a good while after him talking of all the things either business or no that came into my mind, and so home and to see Sir W. Pen, and sat and played at cards with him, his daughter, and Mrs. Rooth, and so to my office a while, and then home and to bed.
on the wheel of occasions
I am denied liberty
a priest officiating in a cubical
not one little door
and no mind to play cards
with a root
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 16 February 1662/63.
for Dave and Mark Bonta
This cold ache, this longing
to belong — orangutans have
already begun to step into
our filthy shoes, have bred
until their habitat is stressed;
recently, two of them turned
against another, ganged up
and beat and killed her, our
first occasion of witnessing
their females commit murder,
so now we aren’t unique in
this respect, the earth does
not need us to manifest this
option, does not need us as
a repository for the bloody-
minded string of X-genes. Our
services may no longer be
required. This cold ache, this
longing to belong — and now,
your brother and another well-
versed in Australian aboriginal
territory and ceremony have
unraveled the old Prometheus
myth — we’d thought that fire
was ours uniquely, a secret
cleverly hidden in a stalk of
fennel, stolen from the gods.
But fifteen observations of
brown falcons and black kites
lifting and relocating burning
twigs of brush to other places
to smoke out their prey —
and this behavior may well
predate our own successes
with such flames, our own
discovery of the handiness
of lightning strikes, the trial
and errors with which we
learned to wrap the embers
from a smoldering tree up in
shag-bark and green leaves,
carry them to where they’d
be useful in preparing food.
So we are not unique in this
thing either, and may not have
even been the first; the gods
from which we stole that fire
may well have been birds;
clearly, the earth does not
need us to manifest this option,
does not need our bodies to
preserve the DNA of pyro-
mania. Our services may no
longer be required. This cold
ache, this longing to belong —
and now —
Inspired by/in response to “February idyll” by Dave Bonta, and two articles: “The Dark Side of the Red Ape” and “Crafty Australian birds may be resorting to arson to smoke out their prey.”