Correspondent

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

Letters came by ox and dove, good as oysters.
After dinner I wrote a great many letters.
After that, I slept, God forgive me!
After that, I walked, talking.
After that I sat.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 25 March 1660.

Fetish

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

Carried in a black box,
my sugar woman
brought me perspective,
and I saw
people as guns—
and I was the best
that any had.
I got out of my chest
the orders to stop
all dangerous persons
going or coming.
How I slept
and was not sick
I know not.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 23 March 1659/60.

Devotional

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

I ate the key to keep
the morning private,

took the Pope’s head and his silver hatband
to do him a courtesy.

I pray God to receive my ham.
I lay all night with my marrow bone.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 22 March 1659/60.

Premonitory

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

Things against my going:
the rain, a great deal of paper,
the wind in the marsh. Oy.
I chose the saddest color
for a melancholy mother
and had a fear I should see
my house full of swords.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 20 March 1659/60.

Landsman

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

I bade adieu to a rose,
gave paper to a paper,
drank farewell and drank to one
that would have a place at sea—a seal
who had a great desire to go to sea—
and I went home and sat there
talking old, playing old
till it was time to go lay
in a fine urn.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 17 March 1659/60.

Waterbound

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

Troubled with abundance of sea,
land going to water,

I rent a raft and eat tongue,
a fat joy in the chapel Chance.

I study how this day dissolved
without fire, sad in mind.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 16 March 1659/60.