Convention

(Lord’s-day). Up and to the Wells, where great store of citizens, which was the greatest part of the company, though there were some others of better quality. I met many that I knew, and we drank each of us two pots and so walked away, it being very pleasant to see how everybody turns up his tail, here one and there another, in a bush, and the women in their quarters the like. Thence I walked with Creed to Mr. Minnes’s house, which has now a very good way made to it, and thence to Durdans and walked round it and within the Court Yard and to the Bowling-green, where I have seen so much mirth in my time; but now no family in it (my Lord Barkeley, whose it is, being with his family at London), and so up and down by Minnes’s wood, with great pleasure viewing my old walks, and where Mrs. Hely and I did use to walk and talk, with whom I had the first sentiments of love and pleasure in woman’s company, discourse, and taking her by the hand, she being a pretty woman.
So I led him to Ashted Church (by the place where Peter, my cozen’s man, went blindfold and found a certain place we chose for him upon a wager), where we had a dull Doctor, one Downe, worse than I think even parson King was, of whom we made so much scorn, and after sermon home, and staid while our dinner, a couple of large chickens, were dressed, and a good mess of cream, which anon we had with good content, and after dinner (we taking no notice of other lodgers in the house, though there was one that I knew, and knew and spoke to me, one Mr. Rider, a merchant), he and I to walk, and I led him to the pretty little wood behind my cozens house, into which we got at last by clambering, and our little dog with us, but when we were among the hazel trees and bushes, Lord! what a course did we run for an hour together, losing ourselves, and indeed I despaired I should ever come to any path, but still from thicket to thicket, a thing I could hardly have believed a man could have been lost so long in so small a room. At last I found out a delicate walk in the middle that goes quite through the wood, and then went out of the wood, and holloed Mr. Creed, and made him hunt me from place to place, and at last went in and called him into my fine walk, the little dog still hunting with us through the wood. In this walk being all bewildered and weary and sweating, Creed he lay down upon the ground, which I did a little, but I durst not long, but walked from him in the fine green walk, which is half a mile long, there reading my vows as I used to on Sundays.
And after that was done, and going and lying by Creed an hour, he and I rose and went to our lodging and paid our reckoning, and so mounted, whether to go toward London home or to find a new lodging, and so rode through Epsum, the whole town over, seeing the various companys that were there walking; which was very pleasant to see how they are there without knowing almost what to do, but only in the morning to drink waters. But, Lord! to see how many I met there of citizens, that I could not have thought to have seen there, or that they had ever had it in their heads or purses to go down thither.
We rode out of the town through Yowell beyond Nonesuch House a mile, and there our little dogg, as he used to do, fell a-running after a flock of sheep feeding on the common, till he was out of sight, and then endeavoured to come back again, and went to the last gate that he parted with us at, and there the poor thing mistakes our scent, instead of coming forward he hunts us backward, and runs as hard as he could drive back towards Nonesuch, Creed and I after him, and being by many told of his going that way and the haste he made, we rode still and passed him through Yowell, and there we lost any further information of him.
However, we went as far as Epsum almost, hearing nothing of him, we went back to Yowell, and there was told that he did pass through the town. We rode back to Nonesuch to see whether he might be gone back again, but hearing nothing we with great trouble and discontent for the loss of our dogg came back once more to Yowell, and there set up our horses and selves for all night, employing people to look for the dogg in the town, but can hear nothing of him. However, we gave order for supper, and while that was dressing walked out through Nonesuch Park to the house, and there viewed as much as we could of the outside, and looked through the great gates, and found a noble court; and altogether believe it to have been a very noble house, and a delicate park about it, where just now there was a doe killed, for the King to carry up to Court.
So walked back again, and by and by our supper being ready, a good leg of mutton boiled, we supped and to bed, upon two beds in the same room, wherein we slept most excellently all night.

to see how everybody
turns like the green
blind corn

while we clamber
among the trees

losing ourselves
in a small room
all bewildered

seeing how
they are there
without knowing almost

what to do but have
the outside killed

and ready up beds
in the same room


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 26 July 1663.

synalepha

A synalepha or synaloepha /ˌsɪnəˈliːfə/ is the merging of two syllables into one, especially when it causes two words to be pronounced as one.

the body folds
and the body opens

like a ledger ready
for each accounting

and as the body opens
so does the soul

here my one face turns
toward rain or sun

and in another world
my other face softens

like a roll of wax
or hardens like stone

Father to the man

Up and to my office setting papers in order for these two or three days, in which I have been hindered a little, and then having intended this day to go to Banstead Downs to see a famous race, I sent Will to get himself ready to go with me, and I also by and by home and put on my riding suit, and being ready came to the office to Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten, and did a little of course at the office this morning, and so by boat to White Hall, where I hear that the race is put off, because the Lords do sit in Parliament to-day. However, having appointed Mr. Creed to come to me to Fox Hall, I went over thither, and after some debate, Creed and I resolved to go to Clapham, to Mr. Gauden’s, who had sent his coach to their place for me because I was to have my horse of him to go to the race. So I went thither by coach and my Will by horse with me; Mr. Creed he went over back again to Westminster to fetch his horse. When I came to Mr. Gauden’s one first thing was to show me his house, which is almost built, wherein he and his family live. I find it very regular and finely contrived, and the gardens and offices about it as convenient and as full of good variety as ever I saw in my life. It is true he hath been censured for laying out so much money; but he tells me that he built it for his brother, who is since dead (the Bishop), who when he should come to be Bishop of Winchester, which he was promised (to which bishoprick at present there is no house), he did intend to dwell here. Besides, with the good husbandry in making his bricks and other things I do not think it costs him so much money as people think and discourse.
By and by to dinner, and in comes Mr. Creed. I saluted Mr. Gauden’s lady, and the young ladies, he having many pretty children, and his sister, the Bishop’s widow; who was, it seems, Sir W. Russel’s daughter, the Treasurer of the Navy; who by her discourse at dinner I find to be very well-bred, and a woman of excellent discourse, even so much as to have my attention all dinner with much more pleasure than I did give to Mr. Creed, whose discourse was mighty merry in inveighing at Mr. Gauden’s victuals that they had at sea the last voyage that he prosecuted, till methought the woman began to take it seriously.
After dinner by Mr. Gauden’s motion we got Mrs. Gauden and her sister to sing to a viall, on which Mr. Gauden’s eldest son (a pretty man, but a simple one methinks) played but very poorly, and the musique bad, but yet I commended it. Only I do find that the ladies have been taught to sing and do sing well now, but that the viall puts them out. I took the viall and played some things from one of their books, Lyra lessons, which they seemed to like well.
Thus we pass an hour or two after dinner and towards the evening we bade them Adieu! and took horse; being resolved that, instead of the race which fails us, we would go to Epsum. So we set out, and being gone a little way I sent home Will to look to the house, and Creed and I rode forward; the road being full of citizens going and coming toward Epsum, where, when we came, we could hear of no lodging, the town so full; but which was better, I went towards Ashted, my old place of pleasure; and there by direction of one goodman Arthur, whom we met on the way, we went to Farmer Page’s, at which direction he and I made good sport, and there we got a lodging in a little hole we could not stand upright in, but rather than go further to look we staid there, and while supper was getting ready I took him to walk up and down behind my cozen Pepys’s house that was, which I find comes little short of what I took it to be when I was a little boy, as things use commonly to appear greater than then when one comes to be a man and knows more, and so up and down in the closes, which I know so well methinks, and account it good fortune that I lie here that I may have opportunity to renew my old walks. It seems there is one Mr. Rouse, they call him the Queen’s Tailor, that lives there now. So to our lodging to supper, and among other meats had a brave dish of cream, the best I ever eat in my life, and with which we pleased ourselves much, and by and by to bed, where, with much ado yet good sport, we made shift to lie, but with little ease, and a little spaniel by us, which has followed us all the way, a pretty dogg, and we believe that follows my horse, and do belong to Mrs. Gauden, which we, therefore, are very careful of.

paper ready to be a little boat
regular and finely contrived

money dead as the house
I intend to dwell in

making bricks
and other poor music

and the books like citizens
old and upright

to a boy things appear greater
than to a man

now I account it good fortune
to follow a dog


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 25 July 1663.

Hood

Up pretty early (though of late I have been faulty by an hour or two every morning of what I should do) and by water to the Temple, and there took leave of my cozen Roger Pepys, who goes out of town to-day. So to Westminster Hall, and there at Mrs. Michell’s shop sent for beer and sugar and drink, and made great cheer with it among her and Mrs. Howlett, her neighbour, and their daughters, especially Mrs. Howlett’s daughter, Betty, which is a pretty girl, and one I have long called wife, being, I formerly thought, like my own wife. After this good neighbourhood, which I do to give them occasion of speaking well and commending me in some company that now and then I know comes to their shop, I went to the Six clerks’ office, and there had a writ for Tom Trice, and paid 20s. for it to Wilkinson, and so up and down to many places, among others to the viall maker’s, and there saw the head, which now pleases me mightily, and so home, and being sent for presently to Mr. Bland’s, where Mr. Povy and Gauden and I were invited to dinner, which we had very finely and great plenty, but for drink, though many and good, I drank nothing but small beer and water, which I drank so much that I wish it may not do me hurt.
They had a kinswoman, they call daughter, in the house, a short, ugly, red-haired slut, that plays upon the virginalls, and sings, but after such a country manner I was weary of it, but yet could not but commend it. So by and by after dinner comes Monsr. Gotier, who is beginning to teach her, but, Lord! what a droll fellow it is to make her hold open her mouth, and telling this and that so drolly would make a man burst, but himself I perceive sings very well.
Anon we sat down again to a collacon of cheesecakes, tarts, custards, and such like, very handsome, and so up and away home, where I at the office a while, till disturbed by, Mr. Hill, of Cambridge, with whom I walked in the garden a while, and thence home and then in my dining room walked, talking of several matters of state till 11 at night, giving him a glass of wine.
I was not unwilling to hear him talk, though he is full of words, yet a man of large conversation, especially among the Presbyters and Independents; he tells me that certainly, let the Bishops alone, and they will ruin themselves, and he is confident that the King’s declaration about two years since will be the foundation of the settlement of the Church some time or other, for the King will find it hard to banish all those that will appear Nonconformists upon this Act that is coming out against them.
He being gone, I to bed.

beer and cheer and howl
form a neighborhood

the company of kin and others
a bland plenty

but so much hurt
in an ugly mouth

that sings like a glass ruin
of the church

so hard to banish
all nonconformists


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 24 July 1663.

Leak

Up and to my office, and thence by information from Mr. Ackworth I went down to Woolwich, and mustered the three East India ships that lie there, believing that there is greatjuggling between the Pursers and Clerks of the Cheque in cheating the King of the wages and victuals of men that do not give attendance, and I found very few on board.
So to the yard, and there mustered the yard, and found many faults, and discharged several fellows that were absent from their business.
I staid also at Mr. Ackworth’s desire at dinner with him and his wife, and there was a simple fellow, a gentleman I believe of the Court, their kinsman, that made me I could have little discourse or begin acquaintance with Ackworth’s wife: and so after dinner away, with all haste home, and there found Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten at the office, and by Sir W. Batten’s testimony and Sir G. Carteret’s concurrence was forced to consent to a business of Captain Cocke’s timber, as bad as anything we have lately disputed about, and all through Mr. Coventry’s not being with us.
So up and to supper with Sir W. Batten upon a soused mullett, very good meat, and so home and to bed.

information worth a lie
that great juggling of the ages
give it away
as testimony to sin
as bad meat


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 23 July 1663.

In the moment

Two weeks and the doctor’s
prescription does not seem
to have worked…

You walk all day in the sun
and try to do the things
you are used to doing,

and which you call work or routine,
except for the constant, low-level
buzzing under your skin.

You wake in the middle of the night
from a burning sensation— an itch
in the groin, dull throbbing

temples: what is it? What’s set
the little cells ablaze? Why
are they no longer happy

to be fed bread, coffee, soup,
strawberries dipped in cream?
Your joints creak like a boat

left too long in water; knees
swell like cantaloupes, dull
with too much sugar

or salt or ill humor. Is this
what it means to crest the middle?
If so then perhaps you’re

better off taking that long-
deferred vacation, pouring cereal
into your heaviest piece of china.

Use the gifts of wine and scent,
the embroidered scarves someone
sent you from overseas. How

is it better to choose austerity
over the extravagance of using
it all up now, while you can?

 

In response to Via Negativa: Revision.

Zoo postcard

In the aviary, brilliance of a blue
peacock pheasant next to the small

lorikeet. The heat’s constant hum
and white flash above low buildings.

Throughout the grounds, in their
solitary spaces, the meerkats

and sloth bears loll on their sides.
Who placed the empty Pampers boxes

next to the hollowed-out log?
In the shallow pool, Caribbean

flamingoes tip their heads into water,
turning their bills into cups.

There are tigers somewhere behind
the glassed-in enclosure. There is

a lion lying in the yellow dust
beside a stone pillar, sadder

than the white flowers on the vine,
that open their throats only once a year.

At a loss

Up, and by and by comes my uncle Thomas, to whom I paid 10l. for his last half year’s annuity, and did get his and his son’s hand and seal for the confirming to us Piggott’s mortgage, which was forgot to be expressed in our late agreement with him, though intended, and therefore they might have cavilled at it, if they would.
Thence abroad calling at several places upon some errands, among others to my brother Tom’s barber and had my hair cut, while his boy played on the viallin, a plain boy, but has a very good genius, and understands the book very well, but to see what a shift he made for a string of red silk was very pleasant. Thence to my Lord Crew’s. My Lord not being come home, I met and staid below with Captain Ferrers, who was come to wait upon my Lady Jemimah to St. James’s, she being one of the four ladies that hold up the mantle at the christening this afternoon of the Duke’s child (a boy).
In discourse of the ladies at Court, Captain Ferrers tells me that my Lady Castlemaine is now as great again as ever she was; and that her going away was only a fit of her own upon some slighting words of the King, so that she called for her coach at a quarter of an hour’s warning, and went to Richmond; and the King the next morning, under pretence of going a-hunting, went to see her and make friends, and never was a-hunting at all. After which she came back to Court, and commands the King as much as ever, and hath and doth what she will.
No longer ago than last night, there was a private entertainment made for the King and Queen at the Duke of Buckingham’s, and she was not invited: but being at my Lady Suffolk’s, her aunt’s (where my Lady Jemimah and Lord Sandwich dined) yesterday, she was heard to say, “Well; much good may it do them, and for all that I will be as merry as they:” and so she went home and caused a great supper to be prepared. And after the King had been with the Queen at Wallingford House, he came to my Lady Castlemaine’s, and was there all night, and my Lord Sandwich with him, which was the reason my Lord lay in town all night, which he has not done a great while before.
He tells me he believes that, as soon as the King can get a husband for Mrs. Stewart however, my Lady Castlemaine’s nose will be out of joynt; for that she comes to be in great esteem, and is more handsome than she.
I found by his words that my Lord Sandwich finds some pleasure in the country where he now is, whether he means one of the daughters of the house or no I know not, but hope the contrary, that he thinks he is very well pleased with staying there, but yet upon breaking up of the Parliament, which the King by a message to-day says shall be on Monday next, he resolves to go.
Ned Pickering, the coxcomb, notwithstanding all his hopes of my Lord’s assistance, wherein I am sorry to hear my Lord has much concerned himself, is defeated of the place he expected under the Queen.
He came hither by and by and brought some jewells for my Lady Jem. to put on, with which and her other clothes she looks passing well.
I staid and dined with my Lord Crew, who whether he was not so well pleased with me as he used to be, or that his head was full of business, as I believe it was, he hardly spoke one word to me all dinner time, we dining alone, only young Jack Crew, Sir Thomas’s son, with us.
After dinner I bade him farewell. Sir Thomas I hear has gone this morning ill to bed, so I had no mind to see him.
Thence homewards, and in the way first called at Wotton’s, the shoemaker’s, who tells me the reason of Harris’s going from Sir Wm. Davenant’s house, that he grew very proud and demanded 20l. for himself extraordinary, more than Betterton or any body else, upon every new play, and 10l. upon every revive; which with other things Sir W. Davenant would not give him, and so he swore he would never act there more, in expectation of being received in the other House; but the King will not suffer it, upon Sir W. Davenant’s desire that he would not, for then he might shut up house, and that is true. He tells me that his going is at present a great loss to the House, and that he fears he hath a stipend from the other House privately.
He tells the that the fellow grew very proud of late, the King and every body else crying him up so high, and that above Betterton, he being a more ayery man, as he is indeed. But yet Betterton, he says, they all say do act: some parts that none but himself can do.
Thence to my bookseller’s, and found my Waggoners done. The very binding cost me 14s., but they are well done, and so with a porter home with them, and so by water to Ratcliffe, and there went to speak with Cumberford the platt-maker, and there saw his manner of working, which is very fine and laborious. So down to Deptford, reading Ben Jonson’s “Devil is an asse,” and so to see Sir W. Pen, who I find walking out of doors a little, but could not stand long; but in doors and I with him, and staid a great while talking, I taking a liberty to tell him my thoughts in things of the office; that when he comes abroad again, he may know what to think of me, and to value me as he ought. Walked home as I used to do, and being weary, and after some discourse with Mr. Barrow, who came to see and take his leave of me, he being to-morrow to set out toward the Isle of Man, I went to bed.
This day I hear that the Moores have made some attaques upon the outworks of Tangier; but my Lord Tiviott; with the loss of about 200 men, did beat them off, and killed many of them.
To-morrow the King and Queen for certain go down to Tunbridge. But the King comes back again against Monday to raise the Parliament.

to whom might it call
her hair of red silk

no Christ is ever as light
as a private joy

that comes to be
more than pleasure

the country
where now is

not staying there
but breaking up

we put on other clothes
full of morning

who would not
who could not take
that loss


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 22 July 1663.

It will come for you even if you leave it

Grandfather burns away
feathers from flesh.
In the kitchen, the women

cut then soak pieces
of raw meat in water until
the murk runs clear.

There is ginger-root,
salt. Leaves from the alugbati
or the pepper plant, chunks

of green papaya. They tell me:
If you learn how to read, you
could live.
You could learn

from the things of this world
how to make what is necessary.
Whether or not you cry, certain

things will or will not get done.
This is not called misfortune.
This is only your life.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Forestry.

Revision

And so lay long in the morning, till I heard people knock at my door, and I took it to be about 8 o’clock (but afterwards found myself a little mistaken), and so I rose and ranted at Will and the maid, and swore I could find my heart to kick them down stairs, which the maid mumbled at mightily. It was my brother, who staid and talked with me, his chief business being about his going about to build his house new at the top, which will be a great charge for him, and above his judgment.
By and by comes Mr. Deane, of Woolwich, with his draught of a ship, and the bend and main lines in the body of a ship very finely, and which do please me mightily, and so am resolved to study hard, and learn of him to understand a body, and I find him a very pretty fellow in it, and rational, but a little conceited, but that’s no matter to me. At noon, by my Lady Batten’s desire, I went over the water to Mr. Castle’s, who brings his wife home to his own house to-day, where I found a great many good old women, and my Lady, Sir W. Batten, and Sir J. Minnes.
A good, handsome, plain dinner, and then walked in the garden; which is pleasant enough, more than I expected there, and so Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten, and I by water to the office, and there sat, and then I by water to the Temple about my law business, and back again home and wrote letters to my father and wife about my desire that they should observe the feast at Brampton, and have my Lady and the family, and so home to supper and bed, my head aching all the day from my last night’s bad rest, and yesterday’s distempering myself with over walking, and to-day knocking my head against a low door in Mr. Castle’s house.
This day the Parliament kept a fast for the present unseasonable weather.

in the morning a new draft
of the lines in the body

I study hard to understand it
but desire brings many hands

and more than I expected
the letters feast or fast


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 21 July 1663.