Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Goatweed goatweed how you brighten
my waste places with your yellow stars
blossoming in the deep space between
my shoulder blades, where the sun’s
too weak to rise. Like any lover
you make me dizzy and anxious, I can’t
get it up any more and you play
badly with other medicines, such as
dust and pillbugs. Call me a shaman
fundamentalist, but my dry bones
have never felt more possessed of life.
In the otherworld I’m growing a green husk.
Lay long, it being still very cold, and then to the office, where till dinner, and then home, and by and by to the office, where we sat and were very late, and I writing letters till twelve at night, and then after supper to bed.
lay long
till very old
till we were late
till twelve
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 10 January 1665.
I took the lift even though I wasn’t
really hitching, and the walk was four miles
only, and the bags I carried were not heavy…
but I accepted when he pulled over
to the corner where I was waiting
for a light to change because I sort of knew
him, had exchanged nods and light conversation
at the bar where I would go some evenings
to sip a cup of coffee slowly, letting
echoes of a day of au pair service, echoes
of children’s squeals and tribulations
seep out of my mind, surround myself
with other adults quietly unwinding themselves
in the dimmer light, transitioning from day-
work to head-home-at-night identities.
I knew where he was going, and when he’d
seen my baggage, he’d assumed (correctly)
I was headed for St. Vincent’s goodwill thrift
to drop off a sack of clothing being donated
by the parents of my charges. And he, whose name
I never really knew exactly, was going there
to do his version of the laundry: every
weekend, he’d go to the rack of heavy cotton
shirts from uniforms, brown and gray and olive
green, small medium large XL 2X, dark blue
and khaki, short-sleeved shirts with buttons,
each emblazoned with someone’s first name.
Each week he’d drop off seven shirts in
the donation bin, carefully select a crisply
ironed long-sleeved white (from which I surmised
he either went on a date on Saturday night,
or church on Sunday morning); one plain solid
color t-shirt for daytime-wear on Saturday;
and five work-shirts, each with a different
identity stitched on directly over the heart.
Written in response to Dave Bonta’s “Une Semaine de Bonté” and Luisa A. Igloria’s “Refurbished.”
Just because something has stopped
working doesn’t mean you have to go
and get a brand new replacement.
There are places that can still do
repairs; or take in a hem, fit a new
filter into the grid. Would you throw out
the floor for getting dusty, or a chamber
pot for serving its use? And how would we
banish air filled with dank exhalations,
water mixed with mud and silt? No matter
how many times the machine is dinged
and dented, still there are a hundred
parts that couple and fall again to use.
Here’s an envelope full of rusted screws,
another of coins, spare buttons, and keys—
Once they figured out blouses, luggage,
large armoires. Once they fit securely, eye
to hook. An instrument missing a string
opened its mouth wider, surprising
itself with the new sound it made.
The seven deadly elements fight
like nestlings for our worms.
Death is without end
and therefore never as shapely
as my morning eggs.
Don’t misconstrue the ouroboros:
it’s not consuming but giving birth,
having just crawled out of
its own mouth.
I wake every day of the week thinking
it’s enough to follow
the warm curves of the earth
wherever they lead, though I know
it’s nowhere good.
And each day I dress
as if to the funeral of a blackbird
seizing every kindness by the hair.
Up and walked to White Hall, it being still a brave frost, and I in perfect good health, blessed be God! In my way saw a woman that broke her thigh, in her heels slipping up upon the frosty streete. To the Duke, and there did our usual worke. Here I saw the Royal Society bring their new book, wherein is nobly writ their charter and laws, and comes to be signed by the Duke as a Fellow; and all the Fellows’ hands are to be entered there, and lie as a monument; and the King hath put his with the word Founder.
Thence I to Westminster, to my barber’s, and found occasion to see Jane, but in presence of her mistress, and so could not speak to her of her failing me yesterday, and then to the Swan to Herbert’s girl, and lost time a little with her, and so took coach, and to my Lord Crew’s and dined with him, who receives me with the greatest respect that could be, telling me that he do much doubt of the successe of this warr with Holland, we going about it, he doubts, by the instigation of persons that do not enough apprehend the consequences of the danger of it, and therein I do think with him.
Holmes was this day sent to the Tower, but I perceive it is made matter of jest only; but if the Dutch should be our masters, it may come to be of earnest to him, to be given over to them for a sacrifice, as Sir W. Rawly was.
Thence to White Hall to a Tangier Committee, where I was accosted and most highly complimented by my Lord Bellasses, our new governor, beyond my expectation, or measure I could imagine he would have given any man, as if I were the only person of business that he intended to rely on, and desires my correspondence with him. This I was not only surprized at, but am well pleased with, and may make good use of it. Our patent is renewed, and he and my Lord Barkeley, and Sir Thomas Ingram put in as commissioners. Here some business happened which may bring me some profit.
Thence took coach and calling my wife at her tailor’s (she being come this afternoon to bring her mother some apples, neat’s tongues, and brain); I home, and there at my office late with Sir W. Warren, and had a great deal of good discourse and counsel from him, which I hope I shall take, being all for my good in my deportment in my office, yet with all honesty.
He gone I home to supper and to bed.
a perfect god in high heels
slipping on the frosty street
our usual hands founder
lost at land
doubts made of jest
may be given over for a sacrifice
no surprise is new
on the tailor’s mother tongue
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 9 January 1665.
—and so you took out of their box
a dusty pair of never used, hand-
painted glass candlesticks, and set them
fabulously on a side table. Even without
tapers, the late afternoon light
struck in them something like beaten
copper, or luck, or honey. Some
watermark sliding under a surface
you thought could not possibly
have anything significant to say.
(Lord’s day). Up betimes, and it being a very fine frosty day, I and my boy walked to White Hall, and there to the Chappell, where one Dr. Beaumont preached a good sermon, and afterwards a brave anthem upon the 150 Psalm, where upon the word “trumpet” very good musique was made.
So walked to my Lady’s and there dined with her (my boy going home), where much pretty discourse, and after dinner walked to Westminster, and there to the house where Jane Welsh had appointed me, but it being sermon time they would not let me in, and said nobody was there to speak with me. I spent the whole afternoon walking into the Church and Abbey, and up and down, but could not find her, and so in the evening took a coach and home, and there sat discoursing with my wife, and by and by at supper, drinking some cold drink I think it was, I was forced to go make water, and had very great pain after it, but was well by and by and continued so, it being only I think from the drink, or from my straining at stool to do more than my body would. So after prayers to bed.
the word trump dined with us
but nobody was there
the hole in me is drinking
some cold drink
I go make water
by straining my body
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 8 January 1665.
~ after a photograph by John-Henry Doucette
In a pool of icy water, an egret shapes
a question about the future. What question?
Oh, you know— the same one you ask
whenever you come to an edge
resembling darkness.
You want to know what’s there,
and what’s coming. All around you,
powdery drifts that blur the dirt;
leaf mold, the sweetgum’s dry
but dangerous grenades. So much
that seems to go endlessly on:
banks of cold white, sky like rubbed
newsprint flaking off in thin patches.
Up and to the office all the morning. At noon dined alone, my wife and family most of them a-bed. Then to see my Lady Batten and sit with her a while, Sir W. Batten being out of town, and then to my office doing very much business very late, and then home to supper and to bed.
all alone I am them
to see and sit
with a town
doing much in me
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 7 January 1665.