In the quiet well of a Friday afternoon,
I carry laundry in my arms up the stairs.
As long as the light falls without burning,
the plant by the bathroom window
can lower its hands after a night
of praying. It takes a lifetime of work
to learn how to consume your portion,
and just as long to even begin to understand
you are not what you choose to carry,
you can choose to set it down.
Autodidact
Going to my office I met with Tom Newton, my old comrade, and took him to the Crown in the Palace, and gave him his morning draft. And as he always did, did talk very high what he would do with the Parliament, that he would have what place he would, and that he might be one of the Clerks to the Council if he would. Here I staid talking with him till the offices were all shut, and then I looked in the Hall, and was told by my bookseller, Mrs. Michell, that Mr. G. Montagu had inquired there for me. So I went to his house, and was forced by him to dine with him, and had a plenteous brave dinner and the greatest civility that ever I had from any man. Thence home and so to Mrs. Jem, and played with her at cards, and coming home again my wife told me that Mr. Hawly had been there to speak with me, and seemed angry that I had not been at the office that day, and she told me she was afraid that Mr. Downing may have a mind to pick some hole in my coat. So I made haste to him, but found no such thing from him, but he sent me to Mr. Sherwin’s about getting Mr. Squib to come to him tomorrow, and I carried him an answer. So home and fell a writing the characters for Mr. Downing, and about nine at night Mr. Hawly came, and after he was gone I sat up till almost twelve writing, and — wrote two of them. In the morning up early and wrote another, my wife lying in bed and reading to me.
my comrade the crow
is always talking
I look in an old book
for my own mind
some hole in my coat has nothing
to answer the night
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 27 January 1659/60.
Because it is written
"Because it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy."
~ 1 Peter 1: 15-16
Every letter is folded into a disguise—
ships' billows across the water, a rose
thorn scribbling a postscript on your hand.
In the yard, the secretary spiders are still
working feverishly on their lines.
What was it they were being punished for?
In the school play, the child says the one
line she has memorized: Fear not, for I
bring you good news of great joy.
We know
what the angel must have said
because someone wrote it down.
And someone entered your name on the birth
record, though not the more homely name spun
by your parents out of air: your secret.
Your mother's veins
steeped in the scent of dry tobacco, spittle,
and bitter gourds; your father's in the shape
of a valley, church bells in a distant town.
Your name bled from a rift
in the clouds, where the ancestors
dream of the last sweet they put in their mouths,
the last book they read when they were alive.
What are we if not made of writing?*
What are we if not the conjurements
we press upon time?
(*thanks to Mattie Britt from my Craft of Poetry class
for the line)
Discharge
To my office for 20l. to carry to Mr. Downing, which I did and back again. Then came Mr. Frost to pay Mr. Downing his 500l., and I went to him for the warrant and brought it Mr. Frost. Called for some papers at Whitehall for Mr. Downing, one of which was an Order of the Council for 1800l. per annum, to be paid monthly; and the other two, Orders to the Commissioners of Customs, to let his goods pass free. Home from my office to my Lord’s lodgings where my wife had got ready a very fine dinner — viz. a dish of marrow bones; a leg of mutton; a loin of veal; a dish of fowl, three pullets, and two dozen of larks all in a dish; a great tart, a neat’s tongue, a dish of anchovies; a dish of prawns and cheese.
My company was my father, my uncle Fenner, his two sons, Mr. Pierce, and all their wives, and my brother Tom. We were as merry as I could frame myself to be in the company, W. Joyce talking after the old rate and drinking hard, vexed his father and mother and wife. And I did perceive that Mrs. Pierce her coming so gallant, that it put the two young women quite out of courage. When it became dark they all went away but Mr. Pierce, and W. Joyce, and their wives and Tom, and drank a bottle of wine afterwards, so that Will did heartily vex his father and mother by staying. At which I and my wife were much pleased. Then they all went and I fell to writing of two characters for Mr. Downing, and carried them to him at nine o’clock at night, and he did not like them but corrected them, so that to-morrow I am to do them anew.
To my Lord’s lodging again and sat by the great log, it being now a very good fire, with my wife, and ate a bit and so home.
The news this day is a letter that speaks absolutely Monk’s concurrence with this Parliament, and nothing else, which yet I hardly believe.
After dinner to-day my father showed me a letter from my Uncle Robert, in answer to my last, concerning my money which I would have out of my Coz. Beck’s hand, wherein Beck desires it four months longer, which I know not how to spare.
I went to war
and brought home
a dish of bones
and a tongue for the night
like a great fire
that speaks absolutely
nothing I believe
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 26 January 1659/60. See also the 2015 erasure, Skylark.
Hair’s Breadth
Do things get clearer as you close distance and approach? An object in motion remains in constant motion. The line it draws is straight unless acted on by an unbalanced force. When cause skews the light or the viewfinder or the usual schedule? A boy struggles to disarm the stranger bent on doing harm. When you see the future it seems such an ordinary moment— a man hesitates at the loading platform, a child's face presses against glass. Doors whir close then open, as though they chose who should get on, who gets left behind.
Our Lady of the Alleghenies
so often the sky looks more
maternal than the earth
i am listening to the traffic
of wind through bare trees
snow on the cliffs growing
roots of ice
from the drained lake
a mechanical thumping
I recall a feeder stream
in lurid unrhyming orange
what’s behind the allegheny front
but played-out coal
the late afternoon light
gains a hint of sunset
warm air dancing with cold air
the clouds turn voluptuous
and the distance even bluer
my own mountain included
on the way home
the apparition of an old man
bent nearly double beside the road
dragging a full bin of trash
the next day snow falls
soft and heavy even in the valleys
with winds off the front
molehills become mountains again
trees are striped white
on the weather side
down in the hollow i spot
the first winter wren in weeks
bobbing with excitement
at the end of a snowy limb
Revolutionary dawn
Called up early to Mr. Downing; he gave me a Character, such a one as my Lord’s, to make perfect, and likewise gave me his order for 500l. to carry to Mr. Frost, which I did and so to my office, where I did do something about the character till twelve o’clock. Then home find found my wife and the maid at my Lord’s getting things ready against to-morrow. I went by water to my Uncle White’s to dinner, where I met my father, where we alone had a fine jole of Ling to dinner. After dinner I took leave, and coming home heard that in Cheapside there had been but a little before a gibbet set up, and the picture of Huson hung upon it in the middle of the street. I called at Paul’s Churchyard, where I bought Buxtorf’s Hebrew Grammar; and read a declaration of the gentlemen of Northampton which came out this afternoon. Thence to my father’s, where I staid with my mother a while and then to Mr. Crew’s about a picture to be sent into the country, of Mr. Thomas Crew, to my Lord. So [to] my Lady Wright to speak with her, but she was abroad, so Mr. Evans, her butler, had me into his buttery, and gave me sack and a lesson on his lute, which he played very well. Thence I went to my Lord’s and got most things ready against tomorrow, as fires and laying the cloth, and my wife was making of her tarts and larding of her pullets till eleven o’clock. This evening Mr. Downing sent for me, and gave me order to go to Mr. Jessop for his papers concerning his dispatch to Holland which were not ready, only his order for a ship to transport him he gave me. To my Lord’s again and so home with my wife, tired with this day’s work.
frost white on a gibbet
set up in the street
picture a peak
red with work
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 25 January 1659/60. (See the original erasure.)
The Loneliest Country in the World
This is not a country for the old or the young. Opportunity and abundance: poorly made promises that break before they come clattering off conveyor belts, that rot before they can be loaded into baskets. The young are names inside foil hearts tacked on a schoolroom wall, outlines on the floor where they crouched and bent their heads to the linoleum heart of this country. Don't say apple or flag or Thanks- giving. This country is becoming the loneliest country in the world. It is the smell of floors bleached after a rain of blood, the blind heat of hatred strung like lights in dance halls, incandescent as bullets boiled in a crucible of darkness. Just like in Stockton and Watsonville, the old washed the dirt of farms from their hands, put on their finest threads. If this was their only defiance, let it have been the moon they skated on, the pulse of a little joy that throbbed in their temples before the end.
Alarming
In the morning to my office, where, after I had drank my morning draft at Will’s with Ethell and Mr. Stevens, I went and told part of the excise money till twelve o’clock, and then called on my wife and took her to Mr. Pierces, she in the way being exceedingly troubled with a pair of new pattens, and I vexed to go so slow, it being late. There when we came we found Mrs. Carrick very fine, and one Mr. Lucy, who called one another husband and wife, and after dinner a great deal of mad stir. There was pulling off Mrs. bride’s and Mr. bridegroom’s ribbons; with a great deal of fooling among them that I and my wife did not like. Mr. Lucy and several other gentlemen coming in after dinner, swearing and singing as if they were mad, only he singing very handsomely. There came in afterwards Mr. Southerne, clerk to Mr. Blackburne, and with him Lambert, lieutenant of my Lord’s ship, and brought with them the declaration that came out to-day from the Parliament, wherein they declare for law and gospel, and for tythes; but I do not find people apt to believe them.
After this taking leave I went to my father’s, and my wife staying there, he and I went to speak with Mr. Crumlum (in the meantime, while it was five o’clock, he being in the school, we went to my cozen Tom Pepys’ shop, the turner in Paul’s Churchyard, and drank with him a pot of ale); he gave my father directions what to do about getting my brother an exhibition, and spoke very well of my brother.
Thence back with my father home, where he and I spoke privately in the little room to my sister Pall about stealing of things as my wife’s scissars and my maid’s book, at which my father was much troubled.
Hence home with my wife and so to Whitehall, where I met with Mr. Hunt and Luellin, and drank with them at Marsh’s, and afterwards went up and wrote to my Lord by the post.
This day the Parliament gave order that the late Committee of Safety should come before them this day se’nnight, and all their papers, and their model of Government that they had made, to be brought in with them. So home and talked with my wife about our dinner on Thursday.
morning after morning
the old clock with
a new mad stir
the room’s fool
coming to burn my ship
and I am ok with it
as if a book
met with a committee
of paper
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 24 January 1659/60.
Rooms Within Rooms Within Rooms
In a hutch with sliding glass doors, shelves displayed crystal we barely used— serving plates, footed bowls, a faceted soup tureen. But over the years, it became a holdall: a portmanteau of assorted souvenirs and kitsch, their faded sentiments crammed cheek-to-cheek with vials of prescription drugs; a wide- mouthed jar stuffed with receipts. Of other rooms in that house, I remember very little now— only how crowded they were with plaster saints, furniture that had seen better days but that they couldn't bear to throw away. Sometimes, when I look up from these rooms in which I write, I think about light from thinly curtained windows, a view of hills; the horns of jeepneys flying past, their headlights crosshatching the bedroom walls. The yard where we slept in the days and nights following the earthquake, where we fed a makeshift stove with old newspapers and listened to rescue helicopters probing the dark.