Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Original poetry, translations and videopoems by the authors of this blog. (See Poets and poetry for criticism, etc.)
no more rat race
my face masked
to ask others their motherlands
who cannot read
my lips precipitous
against the form-fitting fabric
but a mask with too many
holes holds
half the battle
of one with a gun sight
rickrackety
on caterpillar tracks
with the unrusted
buzz of a bot
in my earpiece
here are the coordinates
inordinate in their pin-
prick precision
a stalk a stork
a boy with a stick
a cloud of ungodly rain
Up by five o’clock as I have long done and to my office all the morning, at noon home to dinner with my father with us. Our dinner, it being Good Friday, was only sugarsopps and fish; the only time that we have had a Lenten dinner all this Lent.
This morning Mr. Hunt, the instrument maker, brought me home a Basse Viall to see whether I like it, which I do not very well, besides I am under a doubt whether I had best buy one yet or no, because of spoiling my present mind and love to business.
After dinner my father and I walked into the city a little, and parted and to Paul’s Church Yard, to cause the title of my English “Mare Clausum” to be changed, and the new title, dedicated to the King, to be put to it, because I am ashamed to have the other seen dedicated to the Commonwealth.
So home and to my office till night, and so home to talk with my father, and supper and to bed, I have not had yet one quarter of an hour’s leisure to sit down and talk with him since he came to town, nor do I know till the holidays when I shall.
my father was a fish
the only Lenten dinner
home like a doubt
oiling my mind
and I ate because
I am dedicated
to my father on
our own holidays
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 17 April 1663.
It took years and four apartment moves
before we decided “to buy;” years before
my husband could start to feel maybe
he could call this place home. Then again,
he revised that to mean, home not as in this
region of the country but rather the house
we signed the mortgage on, this one with a fig
tree in the yard which, even more ahead of season
now than last, is pushing out little green bulbs
of fruit under each cluster of splayed green
leaves. Though we both left the country
of our first formation, I still know
all the street names, a map carved
in memory surer than stone. But sometimes
his sense of home seems more solid than mine:
his sense of family grown both older and more
burnished through the years, despite the death
of both parents— whereas mine is chipped
and cracked in so many places from a history
of rifts predating my birth, and current ones
that make it difficult to resurface any memory
without summoning clogs that choke the throat.
He can conjure streamers of many-colored pressed
rice petals strung at every window in May,
the indistinct susurrus of children’s voices
in the streets. Mostly, though, he remembers
what exactly a sibling or a parent said and
on what occasion of daily life, knighted
with the same quality of kindness.
Perhaps it’s why I’m the one more often
rendered bereft by circumstance; the ruminant,
easy to collapse in tears. These days, driving
home under the newly lush canopy of leaves
that tints green-gold in late afternoon light,
my heart constricts. It's a laden barge,
bearing crates of artifacts from each of my
previous lives to here, though I couldn't
possibly do a full inventory anymore.
“I am myself the matter of my book.”
– Michel de Montaigne
With moss and twigs, I build
a diorama. Branches knock against it
in wild weather. Tiles of slate
loosen in wind. Here, I clear a small
space, cover the walls with questions
like Montaigne did in his citadel.
But my retreat isn't made of stone,
and the hours I spend here are not
as leisurely as I'm sure his were.
How many days will it take to arrive
at the smallest room, and what flint to strike
for warmth and light? In this work of inwardness,
the dark is not necessarily made of grief,
the silence not necessarily an ending.
Up betimes and to my office, met to pass Mr. Pitt’s (anon Sir J. Lawson’s Secretary and Deputy Treasurer) accounts for the voyage last to the Streights, wherein the demands are strangely irregular, and I dare not oppose it alone for making an enemy and do no good, but only bring a review upon my Lord Sandwich, but God knows it troubles my heart to see it, and to see the Comptroller, whose duty it is, to make no more matter of it. At noon home for an hour to dinner, and so to the office public and private till late at night, so home to supper and bed with my father.
I age
where I dare
alone or making
an enemy
but it troubles my art
to see it
and to see is to make
more matter
at noon
a private night
Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 16 April 1663.
Up betimes, and after talking with my father awhile, I to my office, and there hard at it till almost noon, and then went down the river with Maynes, the purveyor, to show a ship’s lading of Norway goods, and called at Sir W. Warren’s yard, and so home to dinner.
After dinner up with my wife and Ashwell a little to the Tryangle, and so I down to Deptford by land about looking out a couple of catches fitted to be speedily set forth in answer to a letter of Mr. Coventry’s to me. Which done, I walked back again, all the way reading of my book of Timber measure, comparing it with my new Sliding Rule brought home this morning with great pleasure.
Taking boat again I went to Shishe’s yard, but he being newly gone out towards Deptford I followed him thither again, and there seeing him I went with him and pitched upon a couple, and so by water home, it being late, past 8 at night, the wind cold, and I a little weary. So home to my office, then to supper and bed.
times hard
as timber
as again she’s gone
out to follow an itch
late at night
the wind cold
and I a little oh
to the upper bed
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 15 April 1663.
Up betimes to my office, where busy till 8 o’clock that Sir W. Batten, Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Pen and I down by barge to Woolwich, to see “The Royal James” launched, where she has been under repair a great while. We staid in the yard till almost noon, and then to Mr. Falconer’s to a dinner of fish of our own sending, and when it was just ready to come upon the table, word is brought that the King and Duke are come, so they all went away to shew themselves, while I staid and had a little dish or two by myself, resolving to go home, and by the time I had dined they came again, having gone to little purpose, the King, I believe, taking little notice of them. So they to dinner, and I staid a little with them, and so good bye. I walked to Greenwich, studying the slide rule for measuring of timber, which is very fine. Thence to Deptford by water, and walked through the yard, and so walked to Redriffe, and so home pretty weary, to my office, where anon they all came home, the ship well launched, and so sat at the office till 9 at night, and I longer doing business at my office, and so home to supper, my father being come, and to bed.
Sir G. Carteret tells me to-night that he perceives the Parliament is likely to make a great bustle before they will give the King any money; will call all things into question; and, above all, the expences of the Navy; and do enquire into the King’s expences everywhere, and into the truth of the report of people being forced to sell their bills at 15 per cent. loss in the Navy; and, lastly, that they are in a very angry pettish mood at present, and not likely to be better.
down under repair
our own little dish
and the time again
gone to little purpose
I believe in little
in a little green yard
where night will call
things into question
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 14 April 1663.
See:
Orpheus, who learned
too late that looking back
can be fatal.
See:
Plato, who gave us the tale of humans
as originally whole, round with four
arms, four legs, two faces.
See:
How the gods were shook by the thought
of what could happen if these four-
limbed beings challenged them.
See:
How of course, after we were split in half
like melons, even in bed side by side, each
half longed perennially for the other.
See:
Sisyphus, who didn't start out
doing it for cardio, but most
likely looked ripped.
See:
The grocery cart with one
bad wheel, barging away from the meat
and into the vegetable display.
See also:
Time, which doesn't make sense
however way you cut it, and yourself,
making sense where you can.
Up by five o’clock and to my office, where hard at work till towards noon, and home and eat a bit, and so going out met with Mr. Mount my old acquaintance, and took him in and drank a glass or two of wine to him and so parted, having not time to talk together, and I with Sir W. Batten to the Stillyard, and there eat a lobster together, and Wyse the King’s fishmonger coming in we were very merry half an hour, and so by water to Whitehall, and by and by being all met we went in to the Duke and there did our business and so away, and anon to the Tangier Committee, where we had very fine discourse from Dr. Walker and Wiseman, civilians, against our erecting a court-merchant at Tangier, and well answered in many things by my Lord Sandwich (whose speaking I never till now observed so much to be very good) and Sir R. Ford.
By and by the discourse being ended, we fell to my Lord Rutherford’s dispatch, which do not please him, he being a Scott, and one resolved to scrape every penny that he can get by any way, which the Committee will not agree to. He took offence at something and rose away, without taking leave of the board, which all took ill, though nothing said but only by the Duke of Albemarle, who said that we ought to settle things as they ought to be, and if he will not go upon these terms another man will, no doubt. Here late, quite finishing things against his going, and so rose, and I walked home, being accompanied by Creed to Temple Bar, talking of this afternoon’s passage, and so I called at the Wardrobe in my way home, and there spoke at the Horn tavern with Mr. Moore a word or two, but my business was with Mr. Townsend, who is gone this day to his country house, about sparing Charles Pepys some money of his bills due to him when he can, but missing him lost my labour.
So walked home, finding my wife abroad, at my aunt, Wight’s, who coming home by and by, I home to supper and to bed.
my old acquaintance
wine and I
still together
and the king’s fish
all in a well
who said we ought to settle
they ought to doubt
a war horn
with one country lost
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 13 April 1663.
There are things I can do
and things over which I have
no influence. I can mail care
packages and transfer funds, check
in even if I don't get a response.
That winter, a weight arrived
uninvited and stayed. I know
I can't erase the accumulation
of hours the body has
already lived— a long chain
of hallways from whose windows
you glimpsed a train
whistling through the tracks,
the frozen landscape. All I want
for you is a normal life,
by which I mean mornings that don't
require courage, afternoons moving
forward without obstruction,
nights when sleep doesn't need
to be won by exhaustion. I scour
my world for words to hold
against its unforgivingness,
for words to lift without denying
the fires walked through, the wounds
and barbs. Since prayer is more
than asking, is waiting, then I wait for
the tender spots to show themselves
again, for the drain to clear and water
give itself so the spirit rinses even
just enough suffering from the day.