There are stories about people who, at the edge of some extremity, somehow find the audacity to hail the future— I don't mean that the hero turns around at precisely the moment the firing squad releases a volley of shots just to say Hey or There will be more books written about me than there will be of you. I mean, is the future a straight line that intersects with the horizon or does it know there are interesting little towns along the way, where in a thrift shop one might find the kind of old-fashioned alcohol stove where a folded note might be hidden after the ashes of the fire have cooled? I mean a poem, certainly, could be a kind of letter to the future. But I mean I don't always know what to say or if I should say anything from inside what feels like a woefully banal moment. And should that even be delivered into the time we hope will survive us, our bad habits of procrastination, our love for sugar, our petty materialisms? But I'm a sucker for fountain pens and inks with names like Armada or Piloncitos; so when I read All the stars in the sky will be dissolved and the heavens rolled up like a scroll; all the starry host will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shriveled figs from the tree, I can see the gleaming wash of water over paper: how streams of color find their way, how the tip of a brush fills in outlines of shapes that look as though they've always been there. How some moments are really envelopes, holding the very message you need and that you find when it finds you.
Certain Ruin
List the places
mothers shouldn't aspire
to be if they want to make sure
their children don't turn out
failures, forgers
of checks, degenerates;
prone to violent
outbursts followed by year
after year of exponentially
increasing unhappiness.
One of these days;
mark my words, said friends from work.
They didn't mean take a piece of chalk
and draw a circle around every
other one.
They were talking about children:
mine. Which means they were
also talking about me.
Certain ruin
was the curtain with which they wanted
to darken the view from every window.
Inside, trained birds lisped
the impossibility of joy.
But I'm tired of feeding
animals
dried kernels of sorrow, or tearing
hanks of bread to throw into water
that should reflect
lIke quicksilver— a surface
that doesn't break up the changing
light into points as much as it
proliferates like spores.
Performative
Up, and to the office, where all the morning, at noon home, and after dinner with wife and Deb., carried them to Unthanke’s, and I to Westminster Hall expecting our being with the Committee this afternoon about Victualling business, but once more waited in vain. So after a turn or two with Lord Brouncker, I took my wife up and left her at the ’Change while I to Gresham College, there to shew myself; and was there greeted by Dr. Wilkins, Whistler, and others, as the patron of the Navy Office, and one that got great fame by my late speech to the Parliament. Here I saw a great trial of the goodness of a burning glass, made of a new figure, not spherical (by one Smithys, I think, they call him), that did burn a glove of my Lord Brouncker’s from the heat of a very little fire, which a burning glass of the old form, or much bigger, could not do, which was mighty pretty. Here I heard Sir Robert Southwell give an account of some things committed to him by the Society at his going to Portugall, which he did deliver in a mighty handsome manner. Thence went away home, and there at my office as long as my eyes would endure, and then home to supper, and to talk with Mr. Pelling, who tells me what a fame I have in the City for my late performance; and upon the whole I bless God for it. I think I have, if I can keep it, done myself a great deal of repute. So by and by to bed.
on a committee
I am myself
a whistler at burning love
my little glass
much bigger in society
to live in a mighty hand
as long as my eyes
endure me and my
performance of repute
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 12 March 1668
Night from the inside
The more time I spend outside at night, the more fearful I become. You’d think it would be the opposite. But daytime rules don’t always apply. For example, it’s possible during the day to pretend there’s a hard and fast line between reality and imagination.
*
flickering
through skeletal trees
the bat’s back story
*
sunset
lava
on all screens
*
swamp tree
parodied by
its reflection
holding it
under
*
fire trucks
one after another
into the sunset
*
porcupine
grazing at dark
unreadable weeds
*
right at dusk
that old coyote-
shaped hole
nosing wild
onions
*
ruffed grouse
the split second
before LAUNCH
*
The angel with a flaming sword as a middle-aged gardener, standing astride the cosmos going whack whack whack at every planet unfortunate enough to have been parasitized by intelligent life.
*
your pale face
brushed by moth wings
without moon
*
barn swallows night nesting nesting
*
a glow
from the quarry
jacklighting deer
*
stars among clouds
I feel for
my missing teeth
*
sleeping
with the sky
for a quilt
the heat
of my sunburn
*
What does it mean to be a chaser of oblivion? Will the stars throw down their spears?
*
off alone
in the cosmos
forest pool
ripples left by
a bat’s swift drink
Process notes
Is this a haibun, a linked verse sequence, or just a bunch of haiku with some tanka and random thoughts thrown in? All of the above. What it really is is a bunch of things written at dusk or after dark on my Notes app. Since my phone doesn’t shoot good video in low-light conditions, though, it may or may not end up in a videopoem. It could also be the start of a new series. Time will tell.
Our Fathers
One of our fathers, as a boy, went to school without shoes. One of our fathers did not like school at all. He bit the arm or ear of whoever was taking him to school then ran away to hide in the fields. One of our fathers lived in that other part of town. One of our fathers lived in a house circled day and night by horse- drawn carriages. During the war, one of our fathers was sent to look for frogs and snails in shallow ditches; and one of our fathers walked for days with other men to a garrison where they would be kept as prisoners of war. One of our fathers had nothing much to lose but was unsure of what he might gain. One of our fathers gave up driving when he almost ran over a woman on the street. One of our fathers had only a sweet yellow fruit to offer as a gift to the woman he'd wind up marrying. One of our fathers felt he was almost past his prime. One of our fathers nearly drank himself into oblivion each night if not for the thing that he said finally saved him. One of our fathers liked late night shows and barber- shop shaves. One of our fathers who liked to refinish his own furniture and floors also liked telenovelas. One of our fathers lies in the ground on a hillside that used to be latticed with trees. One of our fathers has a plaque over the urn that held his ashes; surrounding that, the clipped and carefully tended grass.
Subdivision
Up, and betimes to the office, where busy till 8 o’clock, and then went forth, and meeting Mr. Colvill, I walked with him to his building, where he is building a fine house, where he formerly lived, in Lumbard Street: and it will be a very fine street. Thence walked down to the Three Cranes and there took boat to White Hall, where by direction I waited on the Duke of York about office business, and so by water to Westminster, where walking in the Hall most of the morning, and up to my Lady Jem. in Lincoln’s Inn Fields to get her to appoint the day certain when she will come and dine with me, and she hath appointed Saturday next. So back to Westminster; and there still walked, till by and by comes Sir W. Coventry, and with him Mr. Chichly and Mr. Andrew Newport, I to dinner with them to Mr. Chichly’s, in Queene Street, in Covent Garden. A very fine house, and a man that lives in mighty great fashion, with all things in a most extraordinary manner noble and rich about him, and eats in the French fashion all; and mighty nobly served with his servants, and very civilly; that I was mighty pleased with it: and good discourse. He is a great defender of the Church of England, and against the Act for Comprehension, which is the work of this day, about which the House is like to sit till night. After dinner, away with them back to Westminster, where, about four o’clock, the House rises, and hath done nothing more in the business than to put off the debate to this day month. In the mean time the King hath put out his proclamations this day, as the House desired, for the putting in execution the Act against Nonconformists and Papists, but yet it is conceived that for all this some liberty must be given, and people will have it. Here I met with my cozen Roger Pepys, who is come to town, and hath been told of my performance before the House the other day, and is mighty proud of it, and Captain Cocke met me here to-day, and told me that the Speaker says he never heard such a defence made; in all his life, in the House; and that the Sollicitor-Generall do commend me even to envy. I carried cozen Roger as far as the Strand, where, spying out of the coach Colonel Charles George Cocke, formerly a very great man, and my father’s customer, whom I have carried clothes to, but now walks like a poor sorry sneake, he stopped, and I ’light to him. This man knew me, which I would have willingly avoided, so much pride I had, he being a man of mighty height and authority in his time, but now signifies nothing. Thence home, where to the office a while and then home, where W. Batelier was and played at cards and supped with us, my eyes being out of order for working, and so to bed.
where a building is building
where a street will be street
three cranes walk in the fields
in a manner mighty civil
the work of this day rises
to an execution
for some liberty given people
with never a light in the eyes
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 11 March 1668
What doesn’t kill you makes you
obsessively check your grammar, makes you come back with updated lists of why you shouldn't be demoted or fired, nonrenewed, disinvited, sent back- to-square-one-do-not-pass-go. (When nothing more can be found wrong, proofread for mechanics.) What doesn't kill you makes you cover one more hour or one more shift or one more long weekend—shouldn't it be compensation enough that it didn't kill you? And what doesn't kill you makes you harder to break the next time around, unless the sugar binges and emotional eating have made you dangerously soft and bloated. What doesn't kill you sometimes makes you do rash or foolish things like shout I quit! in the middle of traffic, or run away from everything you think your life has become without knowing where the hell you're going in the middle of the night— just that your lungs are about to burst but you feel alive in the cold, exhilarating air.
House church
Up, and to the office betimes, where all the morning. At noon home to dinner with my clerks, and after dinner comes Kate Joyce, who tells me she is putting off her house, which I am glad of, but it was pleasant that she come on purpose to me about getting a ticket paid, and in her way hither lost her ticket, so that she is at a great loss what to do. — There comes in then Mrs. Mercer, the mother, the first time she has been here since her daughter lived with us, to see my wife, and after a little talk I left them and to the office, and thence with Sir D. Gawden to Westminster Hall, thinking to have attended the Committee about the Victualling business, but they did not meet, but here we met Sir R. Brookes, who do mightily cry up my speech the other day, saying my fellow-officers are obliged to me, as indeed they are. Thence with Sir D. Gawden homewards, calling at Lincolne’s Inn Fields: but my Lady Jemimah was not within: and so to Newgate, where he stopped to give directions to the jaylor about a Knight, one Sir Thomas Halford brought in yesterday for killing one Colonel Temple, falling out at a taverne. So thence as far as Leadenhall, and there I ’light, and back by coach to Lincoln’s Inn Fields; but my Lady was not come in, and so I am at a great loss whether she and her brother Hinchingbroke and sister will dine with me to-morrow or no, which vexes me. So home; and there comes Mr. Moore to me, who tells me that he fears my Lord Sandwich will meet with very great difficulties to go through about the prizes, it being found that he did give orders for more than the King’s letter do justify; and then for the Act of Resumption, which he fears will go on, and is designed only to do him hurt, which troubles me much. He tells me he believes the Parliament will not be brought to do anything in matters of religion, but will adhere to the Bishops. So he gone, I up to supper, where I find W. Joyce and Harman come to see us, and there was also Mrs. Mercer and her two daughters, and here we were as merry as that fellow Joyce could make us with his mad talking, after the old wont, which tired me. But I was mightily pleased with his singing; for the rogue hath a very good eare, and a good voice. Here he stayed till he was almost drunk, and then away at about ten at night, and then all broke up, and I to bed.
it is pleasant getting lost
at home in the leaden light
of religion
that mad old singing
till almost drunk
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 10 March 1668
Poem for Making our Dead Visible
They come into the light drawn by votives floated on water. Gold flame of candles, our mouthed prayers; banners painted for protest marches in the aftermath of their deaths— For years to come they'll eat the offerings we leave on makeshift altars: spaces cleared on top of the TV stand, the tiled counter next to the sink, a subway entrance, a street corner— When a butterfly When a bird of a different color When a residue of ash forms the hand- drawn shapes of their names When a pattern of lifted fish scales makes a trellis on the body— Memory makes a silk knot in the vein. Memory rushes away, sure of its going; escort now to the migratory flock. In the wood, the trees only appear identical. The moon when it rises scatters words of mother-of-pearl. Memory finds the rusted padlock, the boarding pass; the wooden plank, the plastic gun in the park. Notice how a blade of grass, held against skin, is both soft and sharp enough.
Prospects
Up betimes, and anon with Sir W. Warren, who come to speak with me, by coach to White Hall, and there met Lord Brouncker: and he and I to the Commissioners of the Treasury, where I find them mighty kind to me, more, I think, than was wont. And here I also met Colvill, the goldsmith; who tells me, with great joy, how the world upon the ’Change talks of me; and how several Parliamentmen, viz., Boscawen and Major Walden, of Huntingdon, who, it seems, do deal with him, do say how bravely I did speak, and that the House was ready to have given me thanks for it; but that, I think, is a vanity. Thence I with Lord Brouncker, and did take up his mistress, Williams, and so to the ’Change, only to shew myself, and did a little business there, and so home to dinner, and then to the office busy till the evening, and then to the Excize Office, where I find Mr. Ball in a mighty trouble that he is to be put out of his place at Midsummer, the whole Commission being to cease, and the truth is I think they are very fair dealing men, all of them. Here I did do a little business, and then to rights home, and there dispatched many papers, and so home late to supper and to bed, being eased of a great many thoughts, and yet have a great many more to remove as fast as I can, my mind being burdened with them, having been so much employed upon the public business of the office in their defence before the Parliament of late, and the further cases that do attend it.
here where I find gold
am I hunting myself
and where I find a hole
do I move as fast as I can
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 9 March 1668