Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Original poetry, translations and videopoems by the authors of this blog. (See Poets and poetry for criticism, etc.)
but you wouldn’t have listened anyway
and some things have to be experienced
in order for the lessons to leave
their mark… Go ahead then, speak
to the sun as if it could not scorch
those wings patched together
with honey and wax and twine.
In response to Via Negativa: In Seething Lane.
(Lord’s day). To White Hall chapel, where I got in with ease by going before the Lord Chancellor with Mr. Kipps. Here I heard very good music, the first time that ever I remember to have heard the organs and singing-men in surplices in my life. The Bishop of Chichester preached before the King, and made a great flattering sermon, which I did not like that Clergy should meddle with matters of state. Dined with Mr. Luellin and Salisbury at a cook’s shop. Home, and staid all the afternoon with my wife till after sermon. There till Mr. Fairebrother came to call us out to my father’s to supper. He told me how he had perfectly procured me to be made Master in Arts by proxy, which did somewhat please me, though I remember my cousin Roger Pepys was the other day persuading me from it.
While we were at supper came Wm. Howe to supper to us, and after supper went home to bed.
A chapel for Chance,
with organ and singing
and a sermon like a supper by proxy,
persuading me while at supper
to supper after supper.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 8 July 1660.
wearer of gravity’s ponderous necklace—
I find my sign in the zodiac,
under the moon’s dry-erase board
and its palimpsest of calendar dates
going all the way back to the time
the great mathematician leaped
out of his bath and ran naked
into the streets, struck
by the epiphany of his own
inherent buoyancy— And I wonder
what volumes of gold or silver
or ink I have displaced,
what weights and currencies
attach to every pull and turn
on the yoke or rudder. Hold
back your hand from the mill,
you grinding girls, wrote Antipater
of Thessalonica; sleep on—
for the river has coaxed the water
over the toothed wheel so it churns
like a team of oxen; and your labors,
though long, are somewhat eased.
In response to Via Negativa: Scrivener.
To my Lord. One with me to buy a clerk’s place with me and I did demand 100l. To the Council Chamber, where I took an order for the advance of the salaries of the officers of the Navy, and I find mine to be raised to 350l. per annum. Thence to the Change, where I bought two fine prints of Ragotts from Rubens, and afterwards dined with my Uncle and Aunt Wight, where her sister Cox and her husband were. After that to Mr. Rawlinson’s with my uncle, and thence to the Navy Office, where I began to take an inventory of the papers, and goods, and books of the office. To my Lord’s, late writing letters. So home to bed.
A clerk’s place:
I raise an ox of paper
off my writing.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 7 July 1660.
sepia is the new white;
patches of the summer garden
rehearsing their going-under,
sachets of tea ambering
in mason jars on the sill—
Patience sits and steeps,
embryo in an overlay of oil:
thick sludge of brine marbling
its ivory face, perfecting
the beautiful, golden heart
that was always there.
In response to Via Negativa: Hope and Doubt.
In the morning with my Lord at Whitehall, got the order of the Council for us to act.
From thence to Westminster Hall, and there met with the Doctor that shewed us so much kindness at the Hague, and took him to the Sun tavern, and drank with him.
So to my Lord’s and dined with W. Howe and Sarah, thinking it might be the last time that I might dine with them together.
In the afternoon my Lord and I, and Mr. Coventry and Sir G. Carteret, went and took possession of the Navy Office, whereby my mind was a little cheered, but my hopes not great.
From thence Sir G. Carteret and I to the Treasurer’s Office, where he set some things in order. And so home, calling upon Sir Geoffry Palmer, who did give me advice about my patent, which put me to some doubt to know what to do, Barlow being alive.
Afterwards called at Mr. Pim’s, about getting me a coat of velvet, and he took me to the Half Moon, and the house so full that we staid above half an hour before we could get anything. So to my Lord’s, where in the dark W. Howe and I did sing extemporys, and I find by use that we are able to sing a bass and a treble pretty well. So home, and to bed.
I dine with hope and doubt
in a coat of velvet.
Half moon, half dark,
we sing bass and treble.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 6 July 1660.
1.
What was the color of the apple
when it was still the mythical center
of the world, crisp like a new paint swatch,
soft inside like the belly of a sponge?
2.
Is it nostalgic or sentimental
when you write of how there was salt
on the table, pepper on the side,
a knuckle of bone to sweeten the broth?
3.
The clapboard shingles were unpainted. But inside,
a staircase of beautiful lathe-turned balusters.
Where did it think it could go, rising up like that
out of the weeds and Queen Anne’s lace?
In response to Via Negativa: New Stockings.
This morning my brother Tom brought me my jackanapes coat with silver buttons. It rained this morning, which makes us fear that the glory of this great day will be lost; the King and Parliament being to be entertained by the City to-day with great pomp.
Mr. Hater was with me to-day, and I agreed with him to be my clerk.
Being at White Hall, I saw the King, the Dukes, and all their attendants go forth in the rain to the City, and it bedraggled many a fine suit of clothes. I was forced to walk all the morning in White Hall, not knowing how to get out because of the rain.
Met with Mr. Cooling, my Lord Chamberlain’s secretary, who took me to dinner among the gentlemen waiters, and after dinner into the wine-cellar. He told me how he had a project for all us Secretaries to join together, and get money by bringing all business into our hands.
Thence to the Admiralty, where Mr. Blackburne and I (it beginning to hold up) went and walked an hour or two in the Park, he giving of me light in many things in my way in this office that I go about. And in the evening I got my present of plate carried to Mr. Coventry’s.
At my Lord’s at night comes Dr. Petty to me, to tell me that Barlow had come to town, and other things, which put me into a despair, and I went to bed very sad.
Mr. Hater and I
go forth to the city
and get money by bringing
all business into our hands.
I walk in the park
giving light in my way,
which put me
into despair.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 5 July 1660.
There goes the wind, trying to untether things in its path, banging the windows shut and open: I do not care so much about the wind and the deck furniture, the trowels, the plastic flower boxes. I want to run outside, hold my cup to the rain beginning to fall, warm as milk or the ocean in summer. In my childhood home, when there was no water in the pipes, we flung the dinner scraps to the chickens, then washed our plates in the stream that trickled from the gutter’s crooked elbow. We gathered fallen eucalyptus leaves and cleaned the dirt off their faces, then boiled them to soften and scent pailfuls of bath water. The roosters with streaks of fire in their dark tails knew to beat their wings as they caroled the hours; even in the dark, they knew where to roost in the gaps of the barbed-wire fence.
In response to Via Negativa: In Seething Lane.
Up very early in the morning and landing my wife at White Friars stairs, I went to the Bridge and so to the Treasurer’s of the Navy, with whom I spake about the business of my office, who put me into very good hopes of my business. At his house comes Commissioner Pett, and he and I went to view the houses in Seething Lane, belonging to the Navy, where I find the worst very good, and had great fears in my mind that they will shuffle me out of them, which troubles me.
From thence to the Excise Office in Broad Street, where I received 500l. for my Lord, by appointment of the Treasurer, and went afterwards down with Mr. Luddyard and drank my morning draft with him and other officers. Thence to Mr. Backewell’s, the goldsmith, where I took my Lord’s 100l. in plate for Mr. Secretary Nicholas, and my own piece of plate, being a state dish and cup in chased work for Mr. Coventry, cost me above 19l. Carried these and the money by coach to my Lord’s at White Hall, and from thence carried Nicholas’s plate to his house and left it there, intending to speak with him anon. So to Westminster Hall, where meeting with M. L’Impertinent and W. Bowyer, I took them to the Sun Tavern, and gave them a lobster and some wine, and sat talking like a fool till 4 o’clock. So to my Lord’s, and walking all the afternoon in White Hall Court, in expectation of what shall be done in the Council as to our business. It was strange to see how all the people flocked together bare, to see the King looking out of the Council window.
At night my Lord told me how my orders that I drew last night about giving us power to act, are granted by the Council. At which he and I were very glad. Home and to bed, my boy lying in my house this night the first time.
In Seething Lane
I find the worst fears.
I shuffle out to the yard
with my dish and cup
and speak to the sun
like a clock
or a bare window.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 4 July 1660.