Having business, we left off business
to school a school in praise
and stone a stone.
A letter from a letter
wrote a letter: A
is for arse. All men go bad.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 7 February 1659/60.
Paired
Like them I follow the current, arch
into the white curve of questions; regard
my unsleeved arms, trying to remember
what it is that feels like it is missing,
what’s necessary. And in the evenings,
as lights go on in houses by the river,
their bent heads outlined in sudden flame
are beacons on dark-blue water—
So go the myths of all great faithfulness.
But isn’t it true the rule exists where instinct
curbs most keenly toward what it fears?
Isn’t it true that the clasp of the metal ring
and the twitch of the bridle mean the heart
is fickle, that the animal could one day drift
off into the wood to die or disappear?
In response to Via Negativa: Nursery rhyme.
Nursery rhyme
[I went to my office, I went to the palace—
a swan to the swan.
I brought a bull to the chamber
and rattled the crown.]
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 6 February 1659/60.
Dream Metonymy
I have been here before, it is no accident:
even if here is in the last dream my friend has
before waking this morning in New Bedford, MA—
I can see exactly how we walked through the main street
in our hometown across the sea, looking in the shops,
digging our hands into our jean pockets for warmth.
Here is the Chinese restaurant famous for its noodles
and egg pie, here is the barbershop with its candy-
striped light. Here in a storefront window is an old-
fashioned printing press, and maps of the Philippines
drawn in blue-green ink. Here in a snow globe,
a red-tailed hawk flies clockwise then counter-
clockwise over ruins of the ancestral home.
When I hold it in my hand and twirl it,
wind stirs up sieved tears, a storm of ice.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Ineffable
“Tell me, stranger,
what love should be called.” ~ D. Bonta
Not apple or rose, not cerise;
not the nub of cartilage bobbing in the larynx.
Not hail or a plague of boils from sole to crown,
not the hot winds blowing through desert towns.
Not even the salve or the prayer,
not the miniature hidden in the mural.
Not the pleasures of mouth on skin.
Not the void in the harvest bin.
In response to Via Negativa: Stranger.
Stranger
[“Tell me, stranger,
what love should be called.”
The stranger preached the whole book
then went into court.
A drum came by, beating
a strange manner of beat—
now and then a single stroke.
I wondered at what I saw
but did not speak.]
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 5 February 1659/60.
Insurmountable
Do you remember the stories about the girl given one impossible task after another? I do not mean the one where she goes to the middle of the field to confess the sorrows of her heart to an old stove, nor the one where she passes the city gates to greet the bloodied head of a horse whose sole rider she once was— though perhaps that is the same story? I do like the one that begins with the great despair of the uncountable: a heap of grain— or is it salt or sugar or pearls?— that she must reckon by nightfall. It ends as such stories do, with a certain hope held out to those like us: how the marginal creatures emerge from the interstices to take the mountain apart, crumb by patient crumb.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Hanging jack
[My lute an office
where I expect to walk.
I found a stone in mourning
for the temple.
Bread and butter were discoursing
of the great eater.
I remember a hanging jack
to roast birds—that heat.
I played a while on my lute
and could not kill anything.]
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 4 February 1659/60.
New Year
At the dim sum restaurant, the woman who recently arrived from China with her nine year old son to join the man she married, explains that in her province the women adore crackling pork and chicken skin. She says the fat underneath— unctuous, soft like jelly— is wonderful for the skin. Collagen, says the doctor at our table. Or at least that is what I think he says, though he shakes his head when the server offers a steamer basket of spicy chicken feet. Her skin is smooth and clear, rosy like alabaster. She’s wearing hardly any makeup, but her cheeks are flushed pink as though she has just come in from the cold. Now they are are talking about wedding rings, about how, at Christmas, her husband took her and the boy to visit his parents in Pennsylvania. How the snow, so high and light, was such a wonder to them both they played in it all day. And the ring! They only realized later that her wedding ring had slipped off her finger in the snow. I listen to the story and imagine the spangled grains closing around the gold band with its tiny diamond, every surface perfect and faceted with light. They bought a metal detector to help them search, until they gave it up for good. But weeks later, when the snow melted, her father-in-law found it and sent it back to them in the mail! With his palms face down, her son mimes the way they moved the metal detector over the snow-covered yard. Then he opens the new year envelope he has been given, unfolds a crisp five dollar bill and asks his stepdad if he is right, if that is the Lincoln Memorial on the back. The servers put two teapots on the table; the one with the chopstick sticking out of the spout is the flower tea.
In response to small stone (216) and Via Negativa: Flock.
Flock
[Drank my morning quiet and my noon-time stew:
a study for a ring for a wedding for old soldiers
in the dark in the park where a far flock played.]
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 3 February 1659/60.