Making certain

Up and called out by my Lord Peterborough’s gentleman to Mr. Povy’s to discourse about getting of his money, wherein I am concerned in hopes of the 50l. my Lord hath promised me, but I dare not reckon myself sure of it till I have it in my mind, for these Lords are hard to be trusted. Though I well deserve it. I staid at Povy’s for his coming in, and there looked over his stables and every thing, but notwithstanding all the times I have been there I do yet find many fine things to look on.
Thence to White Hall a little, to hear how the King do, he not having been well these three days. I find that he is pretty well again. So to Paul’s Churchyarde about my books, and to the binder’s and directed the doing of my Chaucer, though they were not full neate enough for me, but pretty well it is; and thence to the clasp-maker’s to have it clasped and bossed. So to the ‘Change and home to dinner, and so to my office till 5 o’clock, and then came Mr. Hill and Andrews, and we sung an houre or two. Then broke up and Mr. Alsop and his company came and consulted about our Tangier victualling and brought it to a good head. So they parted, and I to supper and to bed.

I dare not reckon myself sure
till I have it in my mind

the rusted table not pretty
my books not neat

the clasp of an hour or two
is brought to a head


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 8 July 1664.

Kotobuki

The owner of the Japanese restaurant
we’ve gone to for the last two decades asks:
When your father-in-law died, did someone

give birth around the same time? I tell her,
as a matter of fact, my sister-in-law had
her fourth child a few weeks after that.

Machiko claps her hands and exclaims:
You see, that is what happens. That is what
we believe!
Just after her grandmother

died years ago in Okinawa, she
gave birth to her daughter; now
she helps her manage this restaurant,

whose name means “Long life.”
When we leave it is late, and the moon
is a pale winnowing basket in the sky.

In the parking lot I kick over
the brassy shells cast off by cicadas
beneath the trees. I wonder, whose place

did I take when I entered this world?
And where will I go one day when it’s time
to take off my coat and re-enter the chain?

Gunman

Up, and this day begun, the first day this year, to put off my linnen waistcoat, but it happening to be a cool day I was afraid of taking cold, which troubles me, and is the greatest pain I have in the world to think of my bad temper of my health.
At the office all the morning. Dined at home, to my office to prepare some things against a Committee of Tangier this afternoon. So to White Hall, and there found the Duke and twenty more reading their commission (of which I am, and was also sent to, to come) for the Royall Fishery, which is very large, and a very serious charter it is; but the company generally so ill fitted for so serious a worke that I do much fear it will come to little.
That being done, and not being able to do any thing for lacke of an oathe for the Governor and Assistants to take, we rose.
Then our Committee for the Tangier victualling met and did a little, and so up, and I and Mr. Coventry walked in the garden half an hour, talking of the business of our masts, and thence away and with Creed walked half an hour or more in the Park, and thence to the New Exchange to drink some creame, but missed it and so parted, and I home, calling by the way for my new bookes, viz., Sir H. Spillman’s “Whole Glossary,” “Scapula’s Lexicon,” and Shakespeare’s plays, which I have got money out of my stationer’s bills to pay for. So home and to my office a while, and then home and to bed, finding myself pretty well for all my waistecoate being put off to-day.
The king is pretty well to-day, though let blood the night before yesterday.

this gun is afraid
of trouble and pain
my bad temper
reading and art
the company of a rose

I talk with it in a whole lexicon of blood


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 7 July 1664.

Reveille

That myth, that mouthful, those deep
red kernels lifted out of their white

hulls and dripping as if dyed in blood.
Oh my mother, did my teeth stamp a ring

around your aureoles; what else
besides pleasure did I draw

from your underground stream?
I am sorry for the termite hungers

that live in me, that seek the salt
and the sugar in every ashen clod.

Sometimes I am a hen house filled with dank
straw and mud, every throat cackling. Bear

down, bear down, they sing in that darkness
before the yolk drops out of the rim.

Red at night

Up very betimes, and my wife also, and got us ready; and about eight o’clock, having got some bottles of wine and beer and neat’s tongues, we went to our barge at the Towre, where Mr. Pierce and his wife, and a kinswoman and his sister, and Mrs. Clerke and her sister and cozen were to expect us; and so set out for the Hope, all the way down playing at cards and other sports, spending our time pretty merry. Come to the Hope about one and there showed them all the ships, and had a collacion of anchovies, gammon, &c., and after an houre’s stay or more, embarked again for home; and so to cards and other sports till we came to Greenwich, and there Mrs. Clerke and my wife and I on shore to an alehouse, for them to do their business, and so to the barge again, having shown them the King’s pleasure boat; and so home to the Bridge, bringing night home with us; and it rained hard, but we got them on foot to the Beare, and there put them into a boat, and I back to my wife in the barge, and so to the Tower Wharf and home, being very well pleased today with the company, especially Mrs. Pierce, who continues her complexion as well as ever, and hath, at this day, I think, the best complexion that ever I saw on any woman, young or old, or child either, all days of my life. Also Mrs. Clerke’s kinswoman sings very prettily, but is very confident in it; Mrs. Clerke herself witty, but spoils all in being so conceited and making so great a flutter with a few fine clothes and some bad tawdry things worne with them.
But the charge of the barge lies heavy upon me, which troubles me, but it is but once, and I may make Pierce do me some courtesy as great.
Being come home, I weary to bed with sitting. The reason of Dr. Clerke’s not being here was the King’s being sicke last night and let blood, and so he durst not come away to-day.

wine tongues
bringing night home
in our blood


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 6 July 1664.

Black market

I tell you this: I was slightly afraid
of the fruit they brought to my sick

bedside— waxy, too-red apples, perfect
unblemished oranges. They smelled

of the black market, which is to say
an idea of America bundled with dried

fish smells, rubber slippers, ground
coffee sieved into oily paper sacks.

I remember how, for his first grandchild,
my father traded his one good bottle

of Courvoisier (a gift from a rich cousin)
for a Fisher-Price music box record player.

This was years after he’d sworn off
alcohol, but kept the bottles for status.

The toy played ten tunes on plastic discs
with grooves, just like real records.

Paleolithic diet

Up and to the office, where all the morning. At noon to the ‘Change a little, then with W. Howe home and dined. So after dinner to my office, and there busy till late at night, having had among other things much discourse with young Gregory about the Chest business, wherein Sir W. Batten is so great a knave, and also with Alsop and Lanyon about the Tangier victualling, wherein I hope to get something for myself.
Late home to supper and to bed, being full of thoughts of a sudden resolution this day taken upon the ‘Change of going down to-morrow to the Hope.

after dinner
having had a gory victual

I hope to get thin
being full of solution


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 5 July 1664.

Your skirt! Your lip color! Your hair!

Did you think the mind
is the only thing worth

unbuttoning? Come this way:
let me hook you up with one

of our star agents. We’ve
harvested nectar with the help

of the most prolific
hummingbirds. You’re in,

now that you’ve brought
evidence of some indigenous

trauma from the past, a folder
of old newspaper clippings you

can mine and mine for story.
It’s all structure, baby.

And fashion. And lip color.
And pouting. And hair.

Hobo

Up, and many people with me about business, and then out to several places, and so at noon to my Lord Crew’s, and there dined and very much made of there by him. He offered me the selling of some land of his in Cambridgeshire, a purchase of about 1000l., and if I can compass it I will. After dinner I walked homeward, still doing business by the way, and at home find my wife this day of her owne accord to have lain out 25s. upon a pair of pendantes for her eares, which did vex me and brought both me and her to very high and very foule words from her to me, such as trouble me to think she should have in her mouth, and reflecting upon our old differences, which I hate to have remembered. I vowed to breake them, or that she should go and get what she could for them again. I went with that resolution out of doors; the poor wretch afterwards in a little while did send out to change them for her money again. I followed Besse her messenger at the ‘Change, and there did consult and sent her back; I would not have them changed, being satisfied that she yielded. So went home, and friends again as to that business; but the words I could not get out of my mind, and so went to bed at night discontented, and she came to bed to me, but all would not make me friends, but sleep and rise in the morning angry.
This day the King and the Queene went to visit my Lord Sandwich and the fleete, going forth in the Hope.

places made of bridges and old differences
I remember them afterwards

I have no friends but sleep
and the morning sand


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 4 July 1664.

A hole is to dig?

Or to fill before
the echoes fall farther
than to follow.

A party is to say
how do you do and disappear
into the hors d’oeuvres.

A watch is to hear
the quiver of a dress
and the step on the stair.

A wave is the biggest
whorl on a shell
that can splinter.

~ after Ruth Krauss