what if a loaf
split open in the oven
oh mouth
what if a love
were left out to ripen
under the moon
what if a leaf
let go the moment
the fetus kicked
what if a life
drew power from each
caught breath
Simplicity Itself
Passing
(Lord’s day). Up, after some talk with my wife, soberly, upon yesterday’s difference, and made good friends, and to church to hear Mr. Mills, and so home, and Mr. Moore and my brother Tom dined with me. My wife not being well to-day did not rise. In the afternoon to church again, and heard drowsy Mr. Graves, and so to see Sir W. Pen, who continues ill in bed, but grows better and better every day. Thence to Sir W. Batten’s, and there staid awhile and heard how Sir R. Ford’s daughter is married to a fellow without friends’ consent, and the match carried on and made up at Will Griffin’s, our doorkeeper’s. So to my office and did a little business, and so home and to bed.
I talked to my brother to-day, who desires me to give him leave to look after his mistress still; and he will not have me put to any trouble or obligation in it, which I did give him leave to do.
I hear to-day how old rich Audley is lately dead, and left a very great estate, and made a great many poor familys rich, not all to one. Among others, one Davis, my old schoolfellow at Paul’s, and since a bookseller in Paul’s Church Yard: and it seems do forgive one man 60,000l. which he had wronged him of, but names not his name; but it is well known to be the scrivener in Fleet Street, at whose house he lodged. There is also this week dead a poulterer, in Gracious Street, which was thought rich, but not so rich, that hath left 800l. per annum, taken in other men’s names, and 40,000 Jacobs in gold.
yesterday’s rot
did not rise again
graves grow
old and poor
the dead
take other names
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 23 November 1662.
Apparently I can’t count?
Does this mean my daily practice has been running for
15 years instead of 14 (as I thought)? I suck at Math.
Palimpsests and Oblivion
(For Peter S., Nini and Pancho L,
Aileen and Paul C.)
Terminal hallway
Echoes at 4 am but
not from crows calling
Between one time zone
and the next and the next, does
Fate move forward and back
Seals in their rookery
at low tide Marine layer
pressed on the trees
Palimpsest of hills
And the body remembers
other hills elsewhere
We catch up with time
Meeting again under ceilings
clothed by dreamweavers
Leaves of the laurel
that we call bay Myth of a
body changed by the gods
Salt spray in the air—
Maladies named and unnamed
What we seek as cure
Walls of mission white
Scalloped roofs of terracotta
Scrolled ironwork grilles
Bowls of oxtail stew—
A restaurant in a casino
called Lucky Chances
Departures and arrivals
Estuaries still lead to the sea
Monuments of claiming
In the museum
a robot spews glitter in a
future afterparty
Hunt
This morning, from some difference between my wife and Sarah, her maid, my wife and I fell out cruelly, to my great discontent. But I do see her set so against the wench, whom I take to be a most extraordinary good servant, that I was forced for the wench’s sake to bid her get her another place, which shall cost some trouble to my wife, however, before I suffer to be.
Thence to the office, where I sat all the morning, then dined; Mr. Moore with me, at home, my wife busy putting her furniture in order. Then he and I out, and he home and I to my cozen Roger Pepys to advise about treating with my uncle Thomas, and thence called at the Wardrobe on Mr. Moore again, and so home, and after doing much business at my office I went home and caused a new fashion knocker to be put on my door, and did other things to the putting my house in order, and getting my outward door painted, and the arch.
This day I bought the book of country dances against my wife’s woman Gosnell comes, who dances finely; and there meeting Mr. Playford he did give me his Latin songs of Mr. Deering’s, which he lately printed.
This day Mr. Moore told me that for certain the Queen-Mother is married to my Lord St. Albans, and he is like to be made Lord Treasurer.
Newes that Sir J. Lawson hath made up a peace now with Tunis and Tripoli, as well as Argiers, by which he will come home very highly honoured.
out for some trouble
however I suffer
all my fur in order
after a fashion
I dance a dance
the deer made up
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 22 November 1662.
Do Not Walk Outside this Area,
say the signs stenciled across
the wing of the plane. Meaning this
is an edge, or danger— whether
the aircraft is at rest or in flight.
Such warnings anticipate the possible
before the actual, the impulse before
it materializes as the decision to move
in a certain direction. It means someone
thought of consequences others might not
have foreseen— and so there are neon-
colored guard rails, there are graded
ramps up the entrances to buildings.
Break glass in case of emergency, printed
across the fire extinguisher box affixed
to the wall. Alarm Bell, says the sign
above a hand-sized red button near
the stairwell. There are similar
devices that only certain individuals
can activate, if they perceive a threat
(whether the perception is correct or
the person was just kidding). Such devices
could start wars, could even nuke our entire
planet. In such cases, there isn’t a failsafe.
No moment after for saying Oops, my bad.
In the mountains
Within all day long, helping to put up my hangings in my house in my wife’s chamber, to my great content. In the afternoon I went to speak to Sir J. Minnes at his lodgings, where I found many great ladies, and his lodgings made very fine indeed.
At night to supper and to bed: this night having first put up a spitting sheet, which I find very convenient. This day come the King’s pleasure-boats from Calais, with the Dunkirk money, being 400,000 pistols.
within my amber tent
a peak
lodging where
I found a lodging
night having come
from a pistol
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 21 November 1662.
Pauper’s Purse
I am poor and I owe
an incalculable debt
to the world— I have taken
more than my share of what
it has given, and still
it does not begrudge another
chance to secure my so-called
fortune. I owe a debt to my
friends, who puzzle, together
with me, the ledger figures
in our shared accounting of
this life. On one side, I am
still short of a complete
reckoning, a clearing of
the slate. On the other,
the hourglass sheds its
crystals at a faster rate.
It has a narrow waist
that reminds me of a certain
ache that falls somewhere
between needing more and
wanting less, that at some
point it will start its motion
all over again, not out
of meanness or spite
but because that is its
nature. And I am rich with
a surplus, always, of feeling.
There is so much, I often
don’t know what to do with it;
and other times, it saves me
from thinking I am completely
bereft, empty as a pauper’s purse.
Invasive
All the morning sitting at the office, at noon with Mr. Coventry to the Temple to advise about Field’s, but our lawyers not being in the way we went to St. James’s, and there at his chamber dined, and I am still in love more and more with him for his real worth. I broke to him my desire for my wife’s brother to send him to sea as a midshipman, which he is willing to agree to, and will do it when I desire it. After dinner to the Temple, to Mr. Thurland; and thence to my Lord Chief Baron, Sir Edward Hale’s, and back with Mr. Thurland to his chamber, where he told us that Field will have the better of us; and that we must study to make up the business as well as we can, which do much vex and trouble us: but I am glad the Duke is concerned in it. Thence by coach homewards, calling at a tavern in the way (being guided by the messenger in whose custody Field lies), and spoke with Mr. Smith our messenger about the business, and so home, where I found that my wife had finished very neatly my study with the former hangings of the diningroom, which will upon occasion serve for a fine withdrawing room. So a little to my office and so home, and spent the evening upon my house, and so to supper and to bed.
is a field in love with the sea
as a ship is with land
where will we make war
whose home will serve
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 20 November 1662.
What Parts of the Body Burn in Cremation?
~ after "The Funeral of Shelley," Louis Edouard Fournier; 1889
Soft tissue, mostly.
Hair, skin, nails, muscles,
organs. All the water of the body
turns to vapor. Some parts of teeth
survive the heat, though gums liquefy
as pulp. Bone fragments can also survive;
and the jaw, the skull. In Fournier's
picture, Mary Shelley kneels in the sand,
hands crossed over her breast. Byron,
Trelawney and Hunt argue over the charred
bit of muscle that surprisingly survives
the fire— but Mary gets to keep what was
believed to be her poet-husband's calcified
heart, after he drowned and was cremated
on a beach in Viareggio. She wrapped it in
a bit of silk or linen and some pages of
his poetry. It lay in her drawer until
its discovery after her death.