Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
What is the name of those little bugs
whose backs are stencilled with
a Mondrian-like design? —squares
within squares in a grid of black and
green, spots of red in between.
They like to linger on the siding
around the mailbox and the lamp,
meticulous as pendants or cufflinks.
Some days, the humdrum walls
look curated, like in museums.
So much amassed inventory,
not all tagged and labeled;
miniature pans of color that look as if
they'd bloom with the merest touch.
(Lord’s day). At church in the morning, and dined at home alone with my wife very comfortably, and so again to church with her, and had a very good and pungent sermon of Mr. Mills, discoursing the necessity of restitution.
Home, and I found my Lady Batten and her daughter to look something askew upon my wife, because my wife do not buckle to them, and is not solicitous for their acquaintance, which I am not troubled at at all.
By and by comes in my father (he intends to go into the country to-morrow), and he and I among other discourse at last called Pall up to us, and there in great anger told her before my father that I would keep her no longer, and my father he said he would have nothing to do with her. At last, after we had brought down her high spirit, I got my father to yield that she should go into the country with my mother and him, and stay there awhile to see how she will demean herself. That being done, my father and I to my uncle Wight’s, and there supped, and he took his leave of them, and so I walked with [him] as far as Paul’s and there parted, and I home, my mind at some rest upon this making an end with Pall, who do trouble me exceedingly.
alone with my comfort
a pungent necessity
to look askew
to call up a high spirit
to yield to the mother
of all trouble
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 25 August 1661.
At the office all the morning and did business; by and by we are called to Sir W. Batten’s to see the strange creature that Captain Holmes hath brought with him from Guiny; it is a great baboon, but so much like a man in most things, that though they say there is a species of them, yet I cannot believe but that it is a monster got of a man and she-baboon. I do believe that it already understands much English, and I am of the mind it might be taught to speak or make signs.
Hence the Comptroller and I to Sir Rd. Ford’s and viewed the house again, and are come to a complete end with him to give him 200l. per an. for it.
Home and there met Capt. Isham inquiring for me to take his leave of me, he being upon his voyage to Portugal, and for my letters to my Lord which are not ready. But I took him to the Mitre and gave him a glass of sack, and so adieu, and then straight to the Opera, and there saw “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,” done with scenes very well, but above all, Betterton did the prince’s part beyond imagination.
Hence homeward, and met with Mr. Spong and took him to the Sampson in Paul’s churchyard, and there staid till late, and it rained hard, so we were fain to get home wet, and so to bed.
like a species of monster
that understands English
I might take a glass
of straight rain
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 24 August 1661.
Reclining on a pincushion, your needle eyes tethered to their fine threads of dream, how extravagant were you, my siren! A movable feast of wreckage brought the best jetsam, ship bellies opening on the reef, releasing their cargo into the current. Yet we fish in your waters still, drawn by the roar and hiss of surf, applicants for permanent residence in the flow state. Our ships carry factories; our nets are vast and drag weights that brutalize the unseen depths. Our earplugs are made of old age and apostasy. I sing sometimes in the shower, under my breath.
At the beginning of time, all creatures of the deep
were summoned to a meeting. And all came, except
for one who claimed it did not have enough bones
in its body that would allow it to cover the great
distance; and so all the other fish gifted it one bone
from their own bodies. When I feel I have too much,
sometimes I remember this story about bangus:
milkfish, nawa, ikan bandung, chanos chanos—
and how its body came to be a minefield of shafts.
Its scientific name derives from the Greek χάνος
which means mouth (though its mouth is small
and toothless). This is a story I was told in childhood,
often as I nearly choked on thread-thin clumps hiding
within mouthfuls of its tender flesh. There's a whole
museum dedicated to bangus in a city in Taiwan,
where schools of sculpted, gleaming milkfish float
above the staircase, held by fishing lines. Then
as now, I want to know why it didn't or couldn't
give back what was clearly too much; and what it learned,
slicing through the waters with its own arsenal of barbs.
This morning I went to my father’s, and there found him and my mother in a discontent, which troubles me much, and indeed she is become very simple and unquiet. Hence he and I to Dr. Williams, and found him within, and there we sat and talked a good while, and from him to Tom Trice’s to an alehouse near, and there sat and talked, and finding him fair we examined my uncle’s will before him and Dr. Williams, and had them sign the copy and so did give T. Trice the original to prove, so he took my father and me to one of the judges of the Court, and there we were sworn, and so back again to the alehouse and drank and parted.
Dr. Williams and I to a cook’s where we eat a bit of mutton, and away, I to W. Joyce’s, where by appointment my wife was, and I took her to the Opera, and shewed her “The Witts,” which I had seen already twice, and was most highly pleased with it.
So with my wife to the Wardrobe to see my Lady, and then home.
in a tent I become simple
and quiet with rice
to copy the original joy
in my high
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 23 August 1661.
To the Privy Seal, and sealed; so home at noon, and there took my wife by coach to my uncle Fenner’s, where there was both at his house and the Sessions, great deal of company, but poor entertainment, which I wonder at; and the house so hot, that my uncle Wight, my father and I were fain to go out, and stay at an alehouse awhile to cool ourselves. Then back again and to church, my father’s family being all in mourning, doing him the greatest honour, the world believing that he did give us it: so to church, and staid out the sermon, and then with my aunt Wight, my wife, and Pall and I to her house by coach, and there staid and supped upon a Westphalia ham, and so home and to bed.
the sea is great company
but poor entertainment
and so hot
we cool ourselves in a church
mourn the world
give the land up
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 22 August 1661.
as in purposeful, deliberate. With foreknowledge, rather than
by accident. In Metaphysics, however, pertaining to the capacity
of the mind to refer to an existent or non-existent object. In other
words, what one means to do doesn't necessarily yield the intended
outcome. In which case, the mind might be said to produce a series
of beautiful mirages: well-meaning, even ideally proportioned;
the very thing that would have satisfied, if the outcome had equated
to whatever wish set it in motion. Prometheus, whose name means
foresight, stole one flint of fire for humankind from the gods and hid it
in the hollow of a fennel stalk. Didn't the gods mean to bind him to
a granite cliff and make the vultures feed on his liver as he watched?
We're told his ravished body healed each day, only to be ready for
the next assault. This too is intention—the punishments designed
to be more intricate, more excruciatingly terrible than the crime.
This morning by appointment I went to my father, and after a morning draft he and I went to Dr. Williams, but he not within we went to Mrs. Terry, a daughter of Mr. Whately’s, who lately offered a proposal of her sister for a wife for my brother Tom, and with her we discoursed about and agreed to go to her mother this afternoon to speak with her, and in the meantime went to Will. Joyce’s and to an alehouse, and drank a good while together, he being very angry that his father Fenner will give him and his brother no more for mourning than their father did give him and my aunt at their mother’s death, and a very troublesome fellow I still find him to be, that his company ever wearys me. From thence about two o’clock to Mrs. Whately’s, but she being going to dinner we went to Whitehall and there staid till past three, and here I understand by Mr. Moore that my Lady Sandwich is brought to bed yesterday of a young Lady, and is very well. So to Mrs. Whately’s again, and there were well received, and she desirous to have the thing go forward, only is afeard that her daughter is too young and portion not big enough, but offers 200l. down with her. The girl is very well favoured, and a very child, but modest, and one I think will do very well for my brother: so parted till she hears from Hatfield from her husband, who is there; but I find them very desirous of it, and so am I. Hence home to my father’s, and I to the Wardrobe, where I supped with the ladies, and hear their mother is well and the young child, and so home.
by appointment we rot
in the meantime
death to the clock
not on the field of war
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 21 August 1661.
"My spirit moves to tell of shapes transformed..."
Ovid, Metamorphosis
The body knows before you do.
The body rouses in the early hours
to empty what it can no longer
accommodate. How long did it believe
—not in its invincibility, but in the dream
of absolution? Now the summer winds
itself around a spool. Now the long
rains come, and the body knows
how shadows pool like grief
in the throats of anemones, press
down the length of reeds. The body
fears how much it feels, even as light
shapes a film like armor around
each object in the world