If you surrender your passport
to the guard, it's hard to tell
if you'll get it back; or
get it back at all.
If you forget your water bottle
at the airport terminal, there won't
be any place to get mineral water
in the countryside for miles.
If someone yells fire or active
shooter, in one case there may be time
to jump through a window, text a message;
play dead on the floor, trying to survive.
Umwelt
(Lord’s day). My wife up between three and four of the clock in the morning to dress herself, and I about five, and were all ready to take coach, she and I and Mercer, a little past five, but, to our trouble, the coach did not come till six. Then with our coach of four horses I hire on purpose, and Leshmore to ride by, we through the City to Branford and so to Windsor, Captain Ferrers overtaking us at Kensington, being to go with us, and here drank, and so through, making no stay, to Cranborne, about eleven o’clock, and found my Lord and the ladies at a sermon in the house; which being ended we to them, and all the company glad to see us, and mighty merry to dinner. Here was my Lord, and Lord Hinchingbroke, and Mr. Sidney, Sir Charles Herbert, and Mr. Carteret, my Lady Carteret, my Lady Jemimah, and Lady Slaning. After dinner to talk to and again, and then to walke in the Parke, my Lord and I alone, talking upon these heads; first, he has left his business of the prizes as well as is possible for him, having cleared himself before the Commissioners by the King’s commands, so that nothing or little is to be feared from that point, he goes fully assured, he tells me, of the King’s favour. That upon occasion I may know, I desired to know, his friends I may trust to, he tells me, but that he is not yet in England, but continues this summer in Ireland, my Lord Orrery is his father almost in affection.
He tells me my Lord of Suffolke, Lord Arlington, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Treasurer, Mr. Atturny Montagu, Sir Thomas Clifford in the House of Commons, Sir G. Carteret, and some others I cannot presently remember, are friends that I may rely on for him.
He tells me my Lord Chancellor seems his very good friend, but doubts that he may not think him so much a servant of the Duke of Yorke’s as he would have him, and indeed my Lord tells me he hath lately made it his business to be seen studious of the King’s favour, and not of the Duke’s, and by the King will stand or fall, for factions there are, as he tells me, and God knows how high they may come.
The Duke of Albemarle’s post is so great, having had the name of bringing in the King, that he is like to stand, or, if it were not for him, God knows in what troubles we might be from some private faction, if an army could be got into another hand, which God forbid!
It is believed that though Mr. Coventry be in appearance so great against the Chancellor, yet that there is a good understanding between the Duke and him.
He dreads the issue of this year, and fears there will be some very great revolutions before his coming back again.
He doubts it is needful for him to have a pardon for his last year’s actions, all which he did without commission, and at most but the King’s private single word for that of Bergen; but he dares not ask it at this time, lest it should make them think that there is something more in it than yet they know; and if it should be denied, it would be of very ill consequence.
He says also, if it should in Parliament be enquired into the selling of Dunkirke (though the Chancellor was the man that would have it sold to France, saying the King of Spayne had no money to give for it); yet he will be found to have been the greatest adviser of it; which he is a little apprehensive may be called upon this Parliament.
He told me it would not be necessary for him to tell me his debts, because he thinks I know them so well.
He tells me, that for the match propounded of Mrs. Mallett for my Lord Hinchingbroke, it hath been lately off, and now her friends bring it on again, and an overture hath been made to him by a servant of hers, to compass the thing without consent of friends, she herself having a respect to my Lord’s family, but my Lord will not listen to it but in a way of honour.
The Duke hath for this weeke or two been very kind to him, more than lately; and so others, which he thinks is a good sign of faire weather again.
He says the Archbishopp of Canterbury hath been very kind to him, and hath plainly said to him that he and all the world knows the difference between his judgment and brains and the Duke of Albemarle’s, and then calls my Lady Duchesse the veryest slut and drudge and the foulest worde that can be spoke of a woman almost.
My Lord having walked an houre with me talking thus and going in, and my Lady Carteret not suffering me to go back again to-night, my Lord to walke again with me about some of this and other discourse, and then in a-doors and to talke with all and with my Lady Carteret, and I with the young ladies and gentle men, who played on the guittar, and mighty merry, and anon to supper, and then my Lord going away to write, the young gentlemen to flinging of cushions, and other mad sports; at this late till towards twelve at night, and then being sleepy, I and my wife in a passage-room to bed, and slept not very well because of noise.
four in the morning
and the wind in my head has
a clear affection for factions
and now how high a ringing
like some private god
there between the ears
some great revolution
without a single word
lest it make them think
there is something more
than they know
I listen to the weather
to all the rains that poke
about the door
you who play guitar
go away to write
a passage of noise
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 25 February 1666.
Face It, Her Suffering Makes a Good Story
Sonnenizio with a line from Christina Rossetti
One face looks out from all his canvases, Christina writes.
She’s beauty’s face, he says, the only muse he needs,
the face of his Elizabeth, her wild yet delicate solemnity.
Not often shown full-face, her long, pale profile
faces beyond the painting’s frame, her red mane flares.
She looks remote, mysterious, surely faced poverty
before her face became her entrée to the Brotherhood
and faces even in this new life illness and addiction.
Painter and poet, not merely the model, memorable face
of Dante’s visions, Lizzie will meet the face of death –
their stillborn child – then face her own (an overdose…)
He can’t face life without her, casts his manuscript
into her grave but then repents, exhumes her rotting face
which follows him, now facing sorrow, guilt, disgrace.
Inspired by Luisa’s recent sonnenizios on Donne and Hopkins, this takes a line from In An Artist’s Studio by Christina Rossetti, thought to be about her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his partner Elizabeth Siddall.
Unself-actualization
All the morning at the office till past three o’clock. At that houre home and eat a bit alone, my wife being gone out. So abroad by coach with Mr. Hill, who staid for me to speake about business, and he and I to Hales’s, where I find my wife and her woman, and Pierce and Knipp, and there sung and was mighty merry, and I joyed myself in it; but vexed at first to find my wife’s picture not so like as I expected; but it was only his having finished one part, and not another, of the face; but, before I went, I was satisfied it will be an excellent picture. Here we had ale and cakes and mighty merry, and sung my song, which she [Knipp] now sings bravely, and makes me proud of myself.
Thence left my wife to go home with Mrs. Pierce, while I home to the office, and there pretty late, and to bed, after fitting myself for to-morrow’s journey.
alone abroad
I find my unself
find my if picture
like another face
I will make my go home
fit my tomorrow journey
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 24 February 1666.
Suerte Suerte
Did you know
you were pulot only,
picked up from the stoop
or from the fork of a tree,
out of the dumpster in
the alley, your face
scrunched up like a piece
of champoy, salted plum
candy? And did you know
your wrapper was stiff yellow
though you didn't freeze
overnight in the wind
or get eaten by wild dogs?
Lucky lucky, said the nuns
looking into the milk
carton and finding you under a pile
of rags. Suerte suerte lang---
If not for the trash
collector, if not for scissors-
grinder rapping at the gate,
if not for the maid who took
you into the kitchen where she fed you
the pap skimmed off the top
of a pot of boiling rice.