At the table where we were gathered,
the beekeper recounted how
a bear tipped over his bee-boxes
and raided them night after night
after night—reaching in and tearing out
the trays, having smelled the honey
and the hive on a warm downwind.
Any of us, I'm sure, would leave
our own forest cover, climb up the gully
and cross the road into alien country,
intent on the scent of what lures. In one of
the old Looney Tunes cartoons
we watched as kids on Saturday mornings,
one taste of sticky amber is enough
to drive evenTaz crazy—he forces one
paw in the opening, then the other,
despite stings and throbbing limbs.
Don't you know what you rouse
out of dormancy into seething becomes
the specter that can haunt you?
You want to tame it, possess it; marry
whatever desire has stunned you
with awe or certainty or disbelief.
The Way to the Ocean
the way to the ocean
goes through New Jersey
named for an island
where a king once kept his head
on the other side of the Atlantic
an inch and a half farther away each year
which sounds like a tall tale
a sailor might tell
if boardwalk barkers didn’t already
cover the waterfront
on the way to the ocean
circling vultures turn into gulls
fish crows
quack like ducks
a mockingbird riffs from the roof
of a manufactured home
in a manufactured village
right off U.S. Route 322
which has somehow caught up with me
after we parted in the mountains
i walk its broad shoulder
past brown fields and brownfield sites
it’s early spring so most green things
are aliens: privet ivy multiflora rose
aside from a few
prickly natives:
American holly Atlantic whitecedar
and the pines the pines
their high pitch where forest fires licked
what the locals call sugar sand
ducking into the woods
i find an old homeless camp
collapsed tent frame
discarded high-visibility coveralls
on the way to the ocean
is no way to live
to settle like fallen leaves
wherever the wind takes us
living on the road means
a groundhog oblivious to traffic
burrow hidden in a tangle
of Oriental bittersweet
or a burger place across the road
from a billboard for addiction recovery
a farmer on a backhoe
leading a small herd of goats
pray, hope & don’t worry
says a sign by someone’s mailbox
beyond which I find a faded
bouquet of artificial roses
hanging upright where i imagine
it had been flung from a car window
the right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed says a billboard
across the highway from a weeping cherry
in full glorious bloom
i turn onto a smaller road
past a resort campground
lakes are easy to make here
where the Atlantic once beached
circling one of them on foot
i am accosted twice
by people wondering whether i’m lost
or am looking for someone
and neither is a question i quite
know how to answer
a woman embracing a bear of a man
rumbles past on a Harley
and off under the pines
all around a derelict trailer
i spot the bright green flags
of skunk cabbages
the way to the ocean
doesn’t wait for continental drift
though perhaps it could i think
standing on the beach at Ocean City
gazing out at the immensity
for a heartbeat or two
then down to my feet
at scallop shells
reminding me that any road
can become a route for pilgrimage
you can walk the boardwalk
out past the end of capitalism
lie down in the sand
and rust
because the true way to the ocean
must begin at the ocean
students running with a kite
a man watching a fishing line
a child who digs shallow holes
and lets them fill with sky
with gratitude to my cousin Heidi Myers Suydam for all her hospitality
In the dunes
This day, about nine o’clock in the morning, the wind grew high, and we being among the sands lay at anchor; I began to be dizzy and squeamish. Before dinner my Lord sent for me down to eat some oysters, the best my Lord said that ever he ate in his life, though I have ate as good at Bardsey. After dinner, and all the afternoon I walked upon the deck to keep myself from being sick, and at last about five o’clock, went to bed and got a caudle made me, and sleep upon it very well. This day Mr. Sheply went to Sheppy.
the wind grew sand
dizzy for the best life
I have all afternoon to keep
from sleep
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 7 April 1660.
Selvage Song
(an emoji poem) On overcast mornings, I crave small comforts like tea or soup, a healing infusion of sunlight, a view of green. Every day we're told the world's on the brink — It could be any day in autumn, winter. Rumors shadow through spring, even as paired swans glide with ease on clear water, as if toward forever. In summer when we take trips, we pass farms where horses graze in fields of shimmering wheat. This is still the south, but desert-like days alternate with seasons of nor'easters that sting like scorpions. When streets flood, neighborhoods turn into islands. We huddle indoors, wait for the storm's wide flamenco skirts to settle with calmer rhythms. Some take out prayer beads, kneel before their gods or saints. Elsewhere, priests and shamans count the years since the last time a volcano rumbled out of sleep, the last time people believed warnings written in books, old tales of deluge. Our ailments don't lack for diagnosis— yet we hammer and saw down more forests, race to build another tallest building to reach the fabled stars. At night when I wake under a tent of new terrors, I want to learn from the bees and spiders how to honeycomb my trembling cells, how to sew a strong and tensile web; how to nest my heart in still pulsing coral. Will an angel sound a trumpet made of whelk, will a chorus of boulders sing an aria about the rubbled earth? Fire and ice, cocktails and picnics by the beach— here we are still plucking chords for music, playing darts, tugging on strings to keep things aloft. There is no more fire to steal, no thunderbolt to cast at prophets hurling their voices out of the whirlwind. 💨🌨️🍲 💉🏥🌏🍃☀️ 🍂❄️🦢🦢 🐴🌵🦂 🏝️💃🏻📿 🧎♀️🗻🧮 📝📚🏥 🔨🪵 🌃⛺️ 🧵🪡 🐝🕷️🕸️ 🪸🐚🪨🌔⚡️ 🔥🌪️🧊🥃 🪁🎼🎹🎯
Capitalist
This morning came my brother-in-law Balty to see me, and to desire to be here with me as Reformado, which did much trouble me. But after dinner (my Lord using him very civilly, at table) I spoke to my Lord, and he presented me a letter to Captain Stokes for him that he should be there. All the day with him walking and talking, we under sail as far as the Spitts. In the afternoon, W. Howe and I to our viallins, the first time since we came on board. This afternoon I made even with my Lord to this day, and did give him all the money remaining in my hands.
In the evening, it being fine moonshine, I staid late walking upon the quarter-deck with Mr. Cuttance, learning of some sea terms; and so down to supper and to bed, having an hour before put Balty into Burr’s cabin, he being out of the ship.
this desire
to be here and sail far
as the money remaining
in my hands
the fine moon
learning to put out
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 6 April 1660.
Conversion
Infinity of business all the morning of orders to make, that I was very much perplexed that Mr. Burr had failed me of coming back last night, and we ready to set sail, which we did about noon, and came in the evening to Lee roads and anchored. At night Mr. Sheply overtook us who had been at Gray’s Market this morning. I spent all the afternoon upon the deck, it being very pleasant weather. This afternoon Sir Rich. Stayner and Mr. Creed, after we were come to anchor, did come on board, and Creed brought me 30l., which my Lord had ordered him to pay me upon account, and Captain Clerke brought me a knotted cane. At night very sleepy to bed.
infinity failed
to anchor us
who had been gray weather
a creed brought order
brought me
a knotted cane
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 5 April 1660.
Here she lies
buried in a frozen stack of make-ahead meals
under a mound of clean but unfolded laundry
indistinguishable from an accumulation of small
appliances in the basement
next to the weed-whacker in the shed
in a drawer of practically new paints and brushes
indoors but pointed like a Celestron telescope to the stars
touching spine after spine lined up on the bookshelves
tracing an imagined pilgimage on a map
Gadfly
This morning I dispatch many letters of my own private business to London. There come Colonel Thomson with the wooden leg, and General Pen, and dined with my Lord and Mr. Blackburne, who told me that it was certain now that the King must of necessity come in, and that one of the Council told him there is something doing in order to a treaty already among them. And it was strange to hear how Mr. Blackburne did already begin to commend him for a sober man, and how quiet he would be under his government, &c.
I dined all alone to prevent company, which was exceeding great to-day, in my cabin.
After these two were gone Sir W. Wheeler and Sir John Petters came on board and staid about two or three hours, and so went away.
The Commissioners came to-day, only to consult about a further reducement of the Fleet, and to pay them as fast as they can.
I did give Davis, their servant, 5l. 10s. to give to Mr. Moore from me, in part of the 7l. that I borrowed of him, and he is to discount the rest out of the 36s. that he do owe me.
At night, my Lord resolved to send the Captain of our ship to Waymouth and promote his being chosen there, which he did put himself into a readiness to do the next morning.
many letters of my lone pen
burn the ear
how quiet is the wheel
of a fast mouth
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 4 April 1660.
Infarction
Late to bed. About three in the morning there was great knocking at my cabin, which with much difficulty (so they say) waked me, and I rose, but it was only for a packet, so went to my bed again, and in the morning gave it my Lord.
This morning Capt. Isham comes on board to see my Lord and drunk his wine before he went into the Downs, there likewise come many merchants to get convoy to the Baltique, which a course was taken for.
They dined with my Lord, and one of them by name Alderman Wood talked much to my Lord of the hopes that we have now to be settled, (under the King he meant); but my Lord took no notice of it. After dinner which was late my Lord went on shore, and after him I and Capt. Sparling went in his boat, but the water being almost at low water we could not stay for fear of not getting into our boat again. So back again. This day come the Lieutenant of the Swiftsure, who was sent by my Lord to Hastings, one of the Cinque Ports, to have got Mr. Edward Montagu to have been one of their burgesses, but could not, for they were all promised before. After he had done his message, I took him and Mr. Pierce, the surgeon (who this day came on board, and not before), to my cabin, where we drank a bottle of wine. At night, busy a-writing, and so to bed. My heart exceeding heavy for not hearing of my dear wife, and indeed I do not remember that ever my heart was so apprehensive of her absence as at this very time.
a great knocking in me
and I went down
like a boat at low water
I urge the surgeon on
my heart exceeding my heart
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 3 April 1660.
In the long quiet of the afterhours,
only the hum of crickets. Distantly, the passage of eighteen-wheelers. Some nights, emergency sirens and flashing lights. When I can't go back to sleep, I turn toward the window. I don't get up—I just lie there. Maybe I'm waiting for the moon's milky light to come through the blinds; maybe, the flap of wings or a shingle's rattle. Some noise, any welcome noise to let me know there's still a chance the thing I wish for most could arrive, though as of now, I have not heard anything.