Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Original poetry, translations and videopoems by the authors of this blog. (See Poets and poetry for criticism, etc.)
As one body, as a single breath
through which any music must pass—
And to get it right means to be precise.
Think of the needle that must itself
gather courage to enter what precedes it:
never an easy matter, given the redness
of the field and what it might stand for—
unknown sacrifice, the most-desired,
the forbidden. The never again the same,
what you pay for any kind of knowing.
In response to Via Negativa: Starving Artist.
All day at home looking upon my workmen, only at noon Mr. Moore came and brought me some things to sign for the Privy Seal and dined with me. We had three eels that my wife and I bought this morning of a man, that cried them about, for our dinner, and that was all I did to-day.
At home looking at an eel
that my wife bought,
I cried for our dinner
that was all I.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 15 December 1660.
Once a poet of my people wrote: cities of falling light.
Bodies bend low in the field, whisper to the seed, tend to the orchard. On weekdays, the shirt allows for the stoop.
It is labor hardly anyone else wants, and the sea is a long way from here. A Studebaker could not make the return.
Wingtips of leather, fedoras to doff to the ladies walking down the avenue. They’ve been told not to smile but they can’t help themselves.
Oh the curve of the coast, sinuous as the hip of a goddess reclined. In the dark, fruit ripen on trees and you can tell by their scent.
For something so small as a gold tooth, there have been men that are beaten or killed. And the trains that whistle past stitch the names of towns to each other, or the stations of the dead.
At each junction, a chance to feel there might still be a choice.
Also all this day looking upon my workmen. Only met with the Comptroller at the office a little both forenoon and afternoon, and at night step a little with him to the Coffee House where we light upon very good company and had very good discourse concerning insects and their having a generative faculty as well as other creatures.
This night in discourse the Comptroller told me among other persons that were heretofore the principal officers of the Navy, there was one Sir Peter Buck, a Clerk of the Acts, of which to myself I was not a little proud.
All this day looking at the light
and insects
and other creatures to which
I was not little.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 14 December 1660.
Insidious winds will blow,
and rain or sleet come down
to blur the fields and try
the patient shoots
that bide their time
beneath the loam—
And waiting seems so long,
and spring too far away
a memory of easeful time:
even the tree whose roots I’ve
coiled indoors into a dish
knows it is time to shed
what remnants it wears
of green— Austere
the habit of the season,
a growing lean. Cast off
the surfeit, give away.
Lean on the longer days.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
All the day long looking upon my workmen who this day began to paint my parlour. Only at noon my Lady Batten and my wife came home, and so I stepped to my Lady’s, where were Sir John Lawson and Captain Holmes, and there we dined and had very good red wine of my Lady’s own making in England.
All day long looking upon my paint,
I am in the red
of my own making.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 13 December 1660.
“Oh to count the stars in the sky!
How many should we count for just one to be moved?”
~ from “Guest Songs,” An Anthology of Chuvash Poetry, trans. Peter France
If you’ve ever opened the door
to a haze of smoke draped
over the entire town—
If you’ve ever decided not to worry
that in the night, someone has taken
down your house numbers—
If you’ve ever placed the seed of a hot
pepper on your tongue just to feel
how a small thing burns—
If you’ve ever kept back something
amounting to the best part for the best
that was supposed to come—
If you’ve ever grit your teeth
through the deepening pain shooting up
your right leg and hip at night—
If you’ve ever tried to quiet an aviary
of the moment’s most insoluble problems
set loose in your chest—
If you’ve ever curled your toes or
clenched your fingers while reciting
a prayer or spell inside your head—
If you’ve ever woken in the early hours
to the hard clear sound, the flinch
of metal rung on metal—
Rare weather visits
now more often: snow
in Egypt, strange fits
of heat that torch and thaw
the icecaps— No profit
from citrus in the icy maw
of wind: only count the heads
of the stricken, the broken beds.
In response to Via Negativa: Wrecked.
Troubled with the absence of my wife. This morning I went (after the Comptroller and I had sat an hour at the office) to Whitehall to dine with my Lady, and after dinner to the Privy Seal and sealed abundance of pardons and little else. From thence to the Exchequer and did give my mother Bowyer a visit and her daughters, the first time that I have seen them since I went last to sea. From thence up with J. Spicer to his office and took 100l., and by coach with it as far as my father’s, where I called to see them, and my father did offer me six pieces of gold, in lieu of six pounds that he borrowed of me the other day, but it went against me to take it of him and therefore did not, though I was afterwards a little troubled that I did not.
Thence home, and took out this 100l. and sealed it up with the other last night, it being the first 200l. that ever I saw together of my own in my life. For which God be praised.
So to my Lady Batten, and sat an hour or two, and talked with her daughter and people in the absence of her father and mother and my wife to pass away the time. After that home and to bed, reading myself asleep, while the wench sat mending my breeches by my bedside.
I had at sea
an abundance of sea,
spice and gold
in lieu of god,
the absence of time.
At home, I sleep,
the wench mending my breeches
by my bed.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 12 December 1660.
Only close your eyes,
the teacher said; to hold
the image lightly in your mind,
do not fear how quickly
the slide is changed,
how brilliance fades.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.