Where we sat

Up to the office, where we sat till noon and then I home to dinner, and after dinner with my wife to her study and there read some more arithmetique, which she takes with great ease and pleasure. This morning, hearing that the Queen grows worse again, I sent to stop the making of my velvet cloake, till I see whether she lives or dies.
So a little abroad about several businesses, and then home and to my office till night, and then home to supper, teach my wife, and so to bed.

where we sat
with great ease
the oak lives or dies


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 22 October 1663.

Illusion

“a dream, a cloud, a flash of lightning…”

~ The Diamond Sutra

By candlelight,
the dented cup
is burnished.

As darkness falls,
garden stones gleam
like polished granite.

The river’s surface: rows
of whipped foam, faces
open to the wind.

Sluggish

Up, and by and by comes my brother Tom to me, though late (which do vex me to the blood that I could never get him to come time enough to me, though I have spoke a hundred times; but he is very sluggish, and too negligent ever to do well at his trade I doubt), and having lately considered with my wife very much of the inconvenience of my going in no better plight, we did resolve of putting me into a better garb, and, among other things, to have a good velvet cloake; that is, of cloth lined with velvet and other things modish, and a perruque, and so I sent him and her out to buy me velvet, and I to the Exchange, and so to Trinity House, and there dined with Sir W. Batten, having some business to speak with him, and Sir W. Rider. Thence, having my belly full, away on foot to my brother’s, all along Thames Streete, and my belly being full of small beer, I did all alone, for health’s sake, drink half a pint of Rhenish wine at the Still-yard, mixed with beer.
From my brother’s with my wife to the Exchange, to buy things for her and myself, I being in a humour of laying out money, but not prodigally, but only in clothes, which I every day see that I suffer for want of, I so home, and after a little at my office, home to supper and to bed.
Memorandum: This morning one Mr. Commander, a scrivener, came to me from Mr. Moore with a deed of which. Mr. Moore had told me, that my Lord had made use of my name, and that I was desired by my Lord to sign it. Remembering this very well, though understanding little of the particulars, I read it over, and found it concern Sir Robt. Bernard and Duckinford, their interest in the manor of Brampton. So I did sign it, declaring to Mr. Commander that I am only concerned in having my name at my Lord Sandwich’s desire used therein, and so I sealed it up after I had signed and sealed the deed, and desired him to give it so sealed to Mr. Moore. I did also call at the Wardrobe this afternoon to have told Mr. Moore of it, but he was not within, but knowing Mr. Commander to have the esteem of a good and honest man with my Lord Crew, I did not doubt to intrust him with the deed after I had signed it.
This evening after I came home I begun to enter my wife in arithmetique, in order to her studying of the globes, and she takes it very well, and, I hope, with great pleasure, I shall bring her to understand many fine things.

a slug is light lined with velvet
a modish rider on foot

full of beer he is a prodigal memorandum
signed and sealed
on the arithmetic of pleasure


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 21 October 1663.

Futures trading

Up and to the office, where we sat; and at noon Sir G. Carteret, Sir J. Minnes, and I to dinner to my Lord Mayor’s, being invited, where was the Farmers of the Customes, my Lord Chancellor’s three sons, and other great and much company, and a very great noble dinner, as this Mayor is good for nothing else. No extraordinary discourse of any thing, every man being intent upon his dinner, and myself willing to have drunk some wine to have warmed my belly, but I did for my oath’s sake willingly refrain it, but am so well pleased and satisfied afterwards thereby, for it do keep me always in so good a frame of mind that I hope I shall not ever leave this practice. Thence home, and took my wife by coach to White Hall, and she set down at my Lord’s lodgings, I to a Committee of Tangier, and thence with her homeward, calling at several places by the way. Among others at Paul’s Churchyard, and while I was in Kirton’s shop, a fellow came to offer kindness or force to my wife in the coach, but she refusing, he went away, after the coachman had struck him, and he the coachman. So I being called, went thither, and the fellow coming out again of a shop, I did give him a good cuff or two on the chops, and seeing him not oppose me, I did give him another; at last found him drunk, of which I was glad, and so left him, and home, and so to my office awhile, and so home to supper and to bed.
This evening, at my Lord’s lodgings, Mrs. Sarah talking with my wife and I how the Queen do, and how the King tends her being so ill. She tells us that the Queen’s sickness is the spotted fever; that she was as full of the spots as a leopard which is very strange that it should be no more known; but perhaps it is not so. And that the King do seem to take it much to heart, for that he hath wept before her; but, for all that; that he hath not missed one night since she was sick, of supping with my Lady Castlemaine; which I believe is true, for she says that her husband hath dressed the suppers every night; and I confess I saw him myself coming through the street dressing of a great supper to-night, which Sarah says is also for the King and her; which is a very strange thing.

the farmers of chance eat for nothing
every man intent upon his belly

satisfied by the offer of
a good cuff on the chops

as full as a leopard
known to take heart at a great supper


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 20 October 1663.

Disappearing green

Do you remember how we stacked old newspapers under the rafters, how we tied them up with twine and waited for the women who came to buy them, measuring by the handspan? Months would go by then suddenly they were at the gate, smiling, stepping over the threshold, lowering too the makeshift buckets they’d lashed to poles for collecting slop or compost. We never asked where they took what we gave freely and with relief. This was in the days before talk of recycling, before we ever sorted glass from cardboard or tin; when we gathered dry leaves in piles beneath the trees and struck a match to them each afternoon. A season turns, and I think sometimes I can still smell these things in the air— Dark smudge of ink on newsprint. Dry crackle as things surrender their souls; as, forcibly, they change from one state of matter to another.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Gallery: Wind and Loss

In those islands
once under foreign rule,
half the year hurricane winds
blow through streets named
after dead soldiers and presidents.

Only on golf courses
does the grass not look deranged.
But the perfume of ginger flowers
and hibiscus flutes wildest
along the ravines.

My eyelid twitches
at the scent of jasmine or gardenia.
I am not ashamed to say I
was neither eager to leave
nor eager to stay.

But the room described
by the ring of hills felt
more airless each day. I wrote
in a journal Forgive me
though I knew no one could.

Out of cardboard stock and black
marker, I draw and cut out shapes of deer.
I string them like a mobile— One presses
its head to the ground, another cranes its neck.
One curls into itself, skittish but proud.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Amputee.

Amputee

Waked with a very high wind, and said to my wife, “I pray God I hear not of the death of any great person, this wind is so high!” fearing that the Queen might be dead.
So up; and going by coach with Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes to St. James’s, they tell me that Sir W. Compton, who it is true had been a little sickly for a week or fortnight, but was very well upon Friday at night last at the Tangier Committee with us, was dead — died yesterday: at which I was most exceedingly surprised, he being, and so all the world saying that he was, one of the worthyest men and best officers of State now in England; and so in my conscience he was: of the best temper, valour, abilities of mind, integrity, birth, fine person, and diligence of any one man he hath left behind him in the three kingdoms; and yet not forty years old, or if so, that is all. I find the sober men of the Court troubled for him; and yet not so as to hinder or lessen their mirth, talking, laughing, and eating, drinking, and doing every thing else, just as if there was no such thing, which is as good an instance for me hereafter to judge of death, both as to the unavoidableness, suddenness, and little effect of it upon the spirits of others, let a man be never so high, or rich, or good; but that all die alike, no more matter being made of the death of one than another, and that even to die well, the praise of it is not considerable in the world, compared to the many in the world that know not nor make anything of it, nor perhaps to them (unless to one that like this poor gentleman, who is one of a thousand, there nobody speaking ill of him) that will speak ill of a man.
Coming to St. James’s, I hear that the Queen did sleep five hours pretty well to-night, and that she waked and gargled her mouth, and to sleep again; but that her pulse beats fast, beating twenty to the King’s or my Lady Suffolk’s eleven; but not so strong as it was. It seems she was so ill as to be shaved and pidgeons put to her feet, and to have the extreme unction given her by the priests, who were so long about it that the doctors were angry. The King, they all say; is most fondly disconsolate for her, and weeps by her, which makes her weep; which one this day told me he reckons a good sign, for that it carries away some rheume from the head.
This morning Captain Allen tells me how the famous Ned Mullins, by a slight fall, broke his leg at the ancle, which festered; and he had his leg cut off on Saturday, but so ill done, notwithstanding all the great chyrurgeons about the town at the doing of it, that they fear he will not live with it, which is very strange, besides the torment he was put to with it.
After being a little with the Duke, and being invited to dinner to my Lord Barkeley’s, and so, not knowing how to spend our time till noon, Sir W. Batten and I took coach, and to the Coffee-house in Cornhill; where much talk about the Turk’s proceedings, and that the plague is got to Amsterdam, brought by a ship from Argier; and it is also carried to Hambrough. The Duke says the King purposes to forbid any of their ships coming into the river. The Duke also told us of several Christian commanders (French) gone over to the Turks to serve them; and upon inquiry I find that the King of France do by this aspire to the Empire, and so to get the Crown of Spayne also upon the death of the King, which is very probable, it seems. Back to St. James’s, and there dined with my Lord Barkeley and his lady, where Sir G. Carteret, Sir W. Batten, and myself, with two gentlemen more; my Lady, and one of the ladies of honour to the Duchesse (no handsome woman, but a most excellent hand). A fine French dinner, and so we after dinner broke up and to Creed’s new lodgings in Axe-yard, which I like very well and so with him to White Hall and walked up and down in the galleries with good discourse, and anon Mr. Coventry and Povy, sad for the loss of one of our number we sat down as a Committee for Tangier and did some business and so broke up, and I down with Mr. Coventry and in his chamber discoursing of business of the office and Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten’s carriage, when he most ingeniously tells me how they have carried themselves to him in forbearing to speak the other day to the Duke what they know they have so largely at other times said to him, and I told him what I am put to about the bargain for masts. I perceive he thinks of it all and will remember it. Thence took up my wife at Mrs. Harper’s where she and Jane were, and so called at the New Exchange for some things for her, and then at Tom’s went up and saw his house now it is finished, and indeed it is very handsome, but he not within and so home and to my office; and then to supper and to bed.

high wind
the sick man waked and gargled
his leg cut off

he will not know how to talk
ships coming into the river
like galleries for loss

how they have carried at
so large a bargain
all things


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 19 October 1663.

Inside out haibun

The dressmaker turns sleeve after sleeve inside out to inspect the seams. She lays the panels face to face and binds them so they won’t tug apart at the slightest pull. For seeing in, there is the keyhole shaped like a tear, through which she dreamt he fed her grapes with his long fingers; when she opened her mouth she nicked each one a little with her teeth. And she imagines a catch on the way in, the way she has to tug to release the bite of metal clamped around a fold.

Everything hurts like that inside, in the factory
where the little heart labors night
and day through the years.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Apostate

(Lord’s day). Up, and troubled at a distaste my wife took at a small thing that Jane did, and to see that she should be so vexed that I took part with Jane, wherein I had reason; but by and by well again, and so my wife in her best gown and new poynt that I bought her the other day, to church with me, where she has not been these many weeks, and her mayde Jane with her. I was troubled to see Pembleton there, but I thought it prudence to take notice myself first of it and show my wife him, and so by little and little considering that it mattered not much his being there I grew less concerned and so mattered it not much, and the less when, anon, my wife showed me his wife, a pretty little woman, and well dressed, with a good jewel at her breast. The parson, Mr. Mills, I perceive, did not know whether to pray for the Queen or no, and so said nothing about her; which makes me fear she is dead. But enquiring of Sir J. Minnes, he told me that he heard she was better last night.
So home to dinner, and Tom came and dined with me, and so, anon, to church again, and there a simple coxcomb preached worse than the Scot, and no Pembleton nor his wife there, which pleased me not a little, and then home and spent most of the evening at Sir W. Pen’s in complaisance, seeing him though he deserves no respect from me.
This evening came my uncle Wight to speak with me about my uncle Thomas’s business, and Mr. Moore came, 4 or 5 days out of the country and not come to see me before, though I desired by two or three messengers that he would come to me as soon as he came to town. Which do trouble me to think he should so soon forget my kindness to him, which I am afraid he do. After walking a good while in the garden with these, I went up again to Sir W. Pen, and took my wife home, and after supper to prayers, and read very seriously my vowes, which I am fearful of forgetting by my late great expenses, but I hope in God I do not, and so to bed.

a taste for fear
that simple peak

without which I soon forget
my late great God


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 18 October 1663.

Murmuration

How will the bones of the future
look, fanned out against the sky?

Sometimes a school of wings
rises in my chest, the air there

filled suddenly with movement
and volume, a sharp iridescence

of flight instigated by feelings
of ardor or longing, or that

particular sadness which comes
of not knowing— I can only move

like one leaf in a body of leaves,
like one thing borne on a current.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.