Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
When I was child, I played
with chesspieces but out of order,
not heeding rules or design.
I skirted around the bishop, laid
the rounded head of a pawn
in the bowl at the castle's top.
The horses were only horses'
heads, so I could not bridle
them or take them for a canter.
Slender king, dangerous queen,
walking the edges of a checkered
field beyond which forests
breathed, and the patient
tongues of the sea waited.
A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond. Although I tend to quote my favorite bits, please do click through and read the whole posts. You can also browse the blog digest archive at Via Negativa or, if you’d like it in your inbox, subscribe on Substack (where the posts might be truncated by some email providers).
This week: dreams and ghosts, forgetting and remembering, program and underprogram, wasps, spiders and cicadas. Enjoy.
Continue reading “Poetry Blog Digest 2024, Week 21”
To the Wardrobe, and from thence with my Lords Sandwich and Hinchinbroke to the Lords’ House by boat at Westminster, and there I left them. Then to the lobby, and after waiting for Sir G. Downing’s coming out, to speak with him about the giving me up of my bond for my honesty when I was his clerk, but to no purpose, I went to Clerke’s at the Legg, and there I found both Mr. Pierces, Mr. Rolt, formerly too great a man to meet upon such even terms, and there we dined very merry, there coming to us Captain Ferrers, this being the first day of his going abroad since his leap a week ago, which I was greatly glad to see. By water to the office, and there sat late, Sir George Carteret coming in, who among other things did inquire into the naming of the maisters for this fleet, and was very angry that they were named as they are, and above all to see the maister of the Adventure (for whom there is some kind of difference between Sir W. Pen and me) turned out, who has been in her last.
The office done, I went with the Comptroller to the Coffee house, and there we discoursed of this, and I seem to be fond of him, and indeed I find I must carry fair with all as far as I see it safe, but I have got of him leave to have a little room from his lodgings to my house, of which I am very glad, besides I do open him a way to get lodgings himself in the office, of which I should be very glad.
Home and to bed.
coming out of my egg
I found the first day
going into another
cursed little room
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 27 May 1661.
He said, forgive.
Meaning herself.
How near and soft
that sky is sometimes.
Other times, a heated
iron roof above the sea.
(Lord’s day). Lay long in bed. To church and heard a good sermon at our own church, where I have not been a great many weeks. Dined with my wife alone at home pleasing myself in that my house do begin to look as if at last it would be in good order.
This day the Parliament received the communion of Dr. Gunning at St. Margaret’s, Westminster.
In the afternoon both the Sir Williams came to church, where we had a dull stranger. After church home, and so to the Mitre, where I found Dr. Burnett, the first time that ever I met him to drink with him, and my uncle Wight and there we sat and drank a great deal, and so I to Sir W. Batten’s, where I have on purpose made myself a great stranger, only to get a high opinion a little more of myself in them. Here I heard how Mrs. Browne, Sir W. Batten’s sister, is brought to bed, and I to be one of the godfathers, which I could not nor did deny. Which, however, did trouble me very much to be at charge to no purpose, so that I could not sleep hardly all night, but in the morning I bethought myself, and I think it is very well I should do it.
Sir W. Batten told me how Mr. Prin (among the two or three that did refuse to-day to receive the sacrament upon their knees) was offered by a mistake the drink afterwards, which he did receive, being denied the drink by Dr. Gunning, unless he would take it on his knees; and after that by another the bread was brought him, and he did take it sitting, which is thought very preposterous. Home and to bed.
alone at home
I begin to look at a gun
in anger I have made
myself a stranger
high on god I could
not sleep or think
how to receive
the sacrament of the gun
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 26 May 1661.
A woman tends a garden
filled with a great variety of roses.
Climbing or opening, each of their
names is a poem.
The walkway is trellised
with braided boughs.
In another garden, a fig tree
towers next to a persimmon.
They have secret names, too:
crow-feathered poems.
Mystery's the answer
to what I can't explain.
Moss thickens like ache
among islands of grass.
All the morning at home about business. At noon to the Temple, where I staid and looked over a book or two at Playford’s, and then to the Theatre, where I saw a piece of “The Silent Woman,” which pleased me. So homewards, and in my way bought “The Bondman” in Paul’s Churchyard, and so home, where I found all clean, and the hearth and range, as it is now enlarged, set up, which pleases me very much.
all morning in a book
and then to my yard
where I found the earth
enlarged
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 25 May 1661.
Among the things
that are hardest to forget,
one is the feel of a small
mouth latching.
Why can't I remember what
it felt like with my own mouth
around that which pulled
me into the world?
At home all the morning making up my private accounts, and this is the first time that I do find myself to be clearly worth 500l. in money, besides all my goods in my house, &c.
In the afternoon at the office late, and then I went to the Wardrobe, where I found my Lord at supper, and therefore I walked a good while till he had done, and I went in to him, and there he looked over my accounts. And they were committed to Mr. Moore to see me paid what remained due to me. Then down to the kitchen to eat a bit of bread and butter, which I did, and there I took one of the maids by the chin, thinking her to be Susan, but it proved to be her sister, who is very like her.
From thence home.
my private war at supper
on a bit of bread
and butter which I took
on the chin
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 24 May 1661.
More often now,
it glimmers—scroll
of a sky unfurling
its banner overhead.
And I, on a boat,
borne by the current.
Overhead banner
of the sky unfurling,
scroll of glimmering.
More often now.