In the mountains where I used to live, once I went to the market to buy oranges, and a woman vendor told me the sweetest varieties come from groves whose roots reach back centuries in the soil. She said the original tree was cut down in heaven. It fell to earth and sank through horizon after horizon. Topsoil is exposed to the greatest degree of weathering. Silt, sand, wild grass, particles of clay. Cake layer of humus: nitrogen rich from the decomposition of plants and animals. We never see how deep a geology. How each burnished slice in our mouths is a key to that first treasure.
Chatterbox
Up, and at the office all the morning. At noon eat a mouthful, and so with my wife to Madam Turner’s, and find her gone, but The. staid for us; and so to the King’s house, to see “Horace;” this the third day of its acting — a silly tragedy; but Lacy hath made a farce of several dances — between each act, one: but his words are but silly, and invention not extraordinary, as to the dances; only some Dutchmen come out of the mouth and tail of a Hamburgh sow. Thence, not much pleased with the play, set them at home in the Strand; and my wife and I home, and there to do a little business at the Office, and so home to supper and to bed.
on a day of tragedy
words dance out
of the mouth
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 19 January 1669.
Escapism
Up by candlelight, and with W. Hewer walked to the Temple, and thence took coach and to Sir William Coventry’s, and there discoursed the business of my Treasurer’s place, at Tangier, wherein he consents to my desire, and concurs therein, which I am glad of, that I may not be accountable for a man so far off. And so I to my Lord Sandwich’s, and there walk with him through the garden, to White Hall, where he tells me what he had done about this Treasurer’s place, and I perceive the whole thing did proceed from him: that finding it would be best to have the Governor have nothing to do with the pay of the garrison, he did propose to the Duke of York alone that a pay-master should be there; and that being desirous to do a courtesy to Sir Charles Harbord, and to prevent the Duke of York’s looking out for any body else, he did name him to the Duke of York. That when he come the other day to move this to the Board of Tangier, the Duke of York, it seems, did readily reply, that it was fit to have Mr. Pepys satisfied therein first, and that it was not good to make places for persons. This my Lord in great confidence tells me, that he do take very ill from the Duke of York, though nobody knew the meaning of these words but him; and that he did take no notice of them, but bit his lip, being satisfied that the Duke of York’s care of me was as desirable to him, as it could be to have Sir Charles Harbord: and did seem industrious to let me see that he was glad that the Duke of York and he might come to contend who shall be the kindest to me, which I owned as his great love, and so I hope and believe it is, though my Lord did go a little too far in this business, to move it so far, without consulting me. But I took no notice of that, but was glad to see this competition come about, that my Lord Sandwich is apparently jealous of my thinking that the Duke of York do mean me more kindness than him. So we walked together, and I took this occasion to invite him to dinner one day to my house, and he readily appointed Friday next, which I shall be glad to have over to his content, he having never yet eat a bit of my bread. Thence to the Duke of York on the King’s side, with our Treasurers of the Navy, to discourse some business of the Navy, about the pay of the yards, and there I was taken notice of, many Lords being there in the room, of the Duke of York’s conference with me; and so away, and meeting Mr. Sidney Montagu and Sheres, a small invitation served their turn to carry them to London, where I paid Sheres his 100l., given him for his pains in drawing the plate of Tangier fortifications, &c., and so home to my house to dinner, where I had a pretty handsome sudden dinner, and all well pleased; and thence we three and my wife to the Duke of York’s playhouse, and there saw “The Witts,” a medley of things, but some similes mighty good, though ill mixed; and thence with my wife to the Exchange and bought some things, and so home, after I had been at White Hall, and there in the Queen’s withdrawing-room invited my Lord Peterborough to dine with me, with my Lord Sandwich, who readily accepted it. Thence back and took up my wife at the ’Change, and so home. This day at noon I went with my young gentlemen (thereby to get a little time while W. Hewer went home to bid them get a dinner ready) to the Pope’s Head tavern, there to see the fine painted room which Rogerson told me of, of his doing; but I do not like it at all, though it be good for such a publick room.
a far walk to where
I have nothing to do
out of body
words take no notice of me
I could be industrious
or in love
thought I go too far
to walk it all back
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 18 January 1669.
Boundaries
Here, everyone wants a window overlooking the ocean. We remember rainforests when swamps steam up in summer. Tourists drag surfboards and coolers of beer to the beach. The building on the knoll has the name of Cavalier. Cavalier can mean a gallant, a knight; someone offhand or dismissive. It's said the ghost of a WWII soldier limps through corridors at night. A piano starts playing at dawn in the grand ballroom. What do you understand of this time and the idea of haunting? For many months parents could not bear the sight of playgrounds, where only the wind set the swings in motion. I think everyone has at least one ghost of themselves by now. One is always dreaming of inventive ways to encounter others. One finds the practice of solitude the hardest lesson of survival. I can't remember the name of the movie in which a man beheaded all the roses in a bouquet to encircle his wife with petals.
Classical Muse
the classical hides
within the vernacular
like a clutch of eggs
wood-winded
or unreedable
all flesh is brass
shivery
with bowed strings
and ceremonious mallets
an attenuated conductor
bobs in the dark mirror
of a piano
a piccolo shrieks
like a rabbit
caught by an owl
clarinets
and cellos swell
like unexpected tumors
the concert hall throbs
like an engine
for the holy
and we must not
must not cough
or laugh or whisper
and if there are dancers
they too must aspire
to escape their bodies
if there are singers
their lungs must be filled
with light
if a movement ends
an errant string may be coaxed back
to the straight and narrow
we sit in darkness
the instruments star in a movie
about prize fish
the baton keeps prophesying
one second into
the future
until at last we enter
the common surf
of applause
Entreaty for Tears
Blink to make more tears because water will not make tears for water, nor pull brine from a stone. Spring melt and rain, fresh and salt water. What rises from and what sinks to the bottom, what rapid swirl disappearing into a point. Collect a debt that was written in water. Collect a debt into a point. What rapid swirl disappearing, and what sinks to the bottom. Water and what rises from melt and rain, fresh and salt. Brine from a stone. No spring tears for water. Nor pull. Water will not make. Blink to make more tears.
Clothes moth
(Lord’s day). To church myself after seeing every thing fitted for dinner, and so, after church, home, and thither comes Mrs. Batelier and her two daughters to dinner to us; and W. Hewer and his mother, and Mr. Spong. We were very civilly merry, and Mrs. Batelier a very discreet woman, but mighty fond in the stories she tells of her son Will. After dinner, Mr. Spong and I to my closet, there to try my instrument Parallelogram, which do mighty well, to my full content; but only a little stiff, as being new. Thence, taking leave of my guests, he and I and W. Hewer to White Hall, and there parting with Spong, a man that I mightily love for his plainness and ingenuity, I into the Court, and there up and down and spoke with my Lords Bellassis and Peterborough about the business now in dispute, about my deputing a Treasurer to pay the garrison at Tangier, which I would avoid, and not be accountable, and they will serve me therein. Here I met Hugh May, and he brings me to the knowledge of Sir Henry Capell, a Member of Parliament, and brother of my Lord of Essex, who hath a great value, it seems, for me; and they appoint a day to come and dine with me, and see my books, and papers of the Office, which I shall be glad to shew them, and have opportunity to satisfy them therein. Here all the discourse is, that now the King is of opinion to have the Parliament called, notwithstanding his late resolutions for proroguing them; so unstable are his councils, and those about him. So staying late talking in the Queen’s side, I away, with W. Hewer home, and there to read and talk with my wife, and so to bed.
a moth and the stories
she tells to my closet
her instrument full
as a white bell
and out in the void
rings another
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 17 January 1669.
Walking Blues
woke up this morning with my shoes
gaping at me like open graves
the tapping of rain on the roof
made a rhythm I could almost feel
this isn’t walking weather
and my feet need to move
restless for no good reason
that bivalve in my chest keeps opening
a mussel gluing down its good foot
so it can rock in the current
I want to go where the river goes
to the sky or its best mirrors
which have the blues too in at least
three different ways
all of which call to me
in the melisma of a mirage
I want the horizon to stop receding
I want forests to reclaim the fields
I want a woman whose eyes
are as dark as the earth
bodies of water
~ after Lucille Clifton harbor aqueduct bog channel conduit wash estuary sluice lick spillway canal creek cove bay spit stream marsh mere brook bayou swamp river reservoir rivulet rill inlet moat seep strait slough weir port tidepool ocean pond
Prophetic
Up, and to the office all the morning, dined at home with my people, and so all the afternoon till night at the office busy, and so home to supper and to bed. This morning Creed, and in the afternoon comes Povy, to advise with me about my answer to the Lords of Tangier, about the propositions for the Treasurership there, which I am not much concerned for. But the latter, talking of publick things, told me, as Mr. Wren also did, that the Parliament is likely to meet again, the King being frighted with what the Speaker hath put him in mind of — his promise not to prorogue, but only to adjourne them. They speak mighty freely of the folly of the King in this foolish woman’s business, of my Lady Harvy. Povy tells me that Sir W. Coventry was with the King alone, an hour this day; and that my Lady Castlemayne is now in a higher command over the King than ever — not as a mistress, for she scorns him, but as a tyrant, to command him: and says that the Duchess of York and the Duke of York are mighty great with her, which is a great interest to my Lord Chancellor’s family; and that they do agree to hinder all they can the proceedings of the Duke of Buckingham and Arlington: and so we are in the old mad condition, or rather worse than any; no man knowing what the French intend to do the next summer.
morning comes
with a public wren
free of the folly
of the high corn
and says we are mad
no man knowing the summer
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 16 January 1669.