Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Infinite: in-finite, to dwell
inside what ends. On the other
hand, it’s endless, the falling
that never stops: leaves from
trees, hair from our heads, teeth
loosening throughout the terrible
funhouse interior of the mouth.
How to go on and say I go on,
how to keep coming back or
pressing re-start? Every day
I brush handfuls of dead
cells from the carpet. I look
briefly in the hallway mirror
each time I leave the house.
In response to Via Negativa: Yucca moth.
After Louise Labé, Sonnet XVII
So I’ve not been going into town or to church
or anywhere, she says, where I might
run into him and let him soft-soap me
into giving it another go.
I’ve not been dancing, or to watch the game –
it’s no fun without him anyway. I’ve tried
everything to cool things down, stay away,
find new interests, even…
find myself a new man! I’ve been taking
long walks in the woods on my own, the lot,
she says, but now it dawns on her
he won’t be leaving their town any time soon –
she’s the one who’s got to get out of there,
out of her own head, start over.
Je fuis la vile, & temples, & tous lieus,
Esquels prenant plaisir à t’ouir pleindre,
Tu peus, & non sans force, me contreindre
De te donner ce qu’estimois le mieux.
Masques, tournois, jeus me sont ennuieus,
Et rien sans toy de beau ne me puis peindre:
Tant que tachant à ce desir esteindre,
Et un nouvel obget faire à mes yeus,
Et des pensers amoureus me distraire,
Des bois espais sui le plus solitaire:
Mais j’aperçoy, ayant erré maint tour,
Que si je veus de toy estre delivre,
Il me convient hors de moymesme vivre,
Ou fais encor que loin sois en sejour.
Image: etching by Paula Modersohn-Becker, c. 1900.
My other translations and versions of sonnets by Louise Labé are here.
Up, and to White Hall with Sir J. Minnes; and there, among an infinite crowd of great persons, did kiss the Duke’s hand; but had no time to discourse. Thence up and down the gallery, and got my Lord of Albemarle’s hand to my bill for Povy, but afterwards was asked some scurvy questions by Povy about my demands, which troubled [me], but will do no great hurt I think. Thence vexed home, and there by appointment comes my cozen Roger Pepys and Mrs. Turner, and dined with me, and very merry we were. They staid all the afternoon till night, and then after I had discoursed an hour with Sir W. Warren plainly declaring my resolution to desert him if he goes on to join with Castle, who and his family I, for great provocation, love not, which he takes with some trouble, but will concur in everything with me, he says. Now I am loth, I confess, to lose him, he having been the best friend I have had ever in this office. So he being gone, we all, it being night, in Madam Turner’s coach to her house, there to see, as she tells us, how fat Mrs. The. is grown, and so I find her, but not as I expected, but mightily pleased I am to hear the mother commend her daughter Betty that she is like to be a great beauty, and she sets much by her.
Thence I to White Hall, and there saw Mr. Coventry come to towne, and, with all my heart, am glad to see him, but could have no talke with him, he being but just come. Thence back and took up my wife, and home, where a while, and then home to supper and to bed.
infinite crow of time
night desert
if love takes every turn
to find a moth
then I with my heart
have just a while
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 5 December 1664.
The world’s markets are going
to ruin amid these newly imminent
threats of war. So we are reminded
art— words— must be the natural
beeswax wrap to keep all remaining
freshness in. Half a red watermelon
radish, last night’s squash, yesterday’s
forgotten sandwich. Danger and fear—
they always have a slick but clammy
texture. You wrap and rewrap the square
envelope, the long rectangle, the flat
disc. But let it not be said we were not
mindful of adding more waste to the already
denuded environment. Pressing carefully
around all the edges yields the proverbial
hermetic seal. How can the agitated
liquids inside the cup hear the splendid
carillons break open in the air? Bees
and locusts. Whales and cranes. Notched
wheels bearing powerful rain. All
the humid sounds on the outside,
like human breathing. That apple you
returned to the fridge after you bit
into it and then changed your mind.
(Lord’s day). Lay long in bed, and then up and to my office, there to dispatch a business in order to the getting something out of the Tangier business, wherein I have an opportunity to get myself paid upon the score of freight. I hope a good sum.
At noon home to dinner, and then in the afternoon to church. So home, and by and by comes Mr. Hill and Andrews, and sung together long and with great content. Then to supper and broke up. Pretty discourse, very pleasant and ingenious, and so to my office a little, and then home (after prayers) to bed.
This day I hear the Duke of Yorke is come to towne, though expected last night, as I observed, but by what hindrance stopped I can’t tell.
ice is at the core
of an afternoon church
I drew a sun with
as little a prayer as a top
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 4 December 1664.
While there is someone left
to remember, we can believe we exist—
What of the things we used to call
ours? do they continue to exist as long
as we can call them back to mind?
Those birds we kept in a wire cage
on the porch, pairs of white and dun
and dusky yellow: how they sang
as if they’d never known migration
nor seen widows walking down the road.
For one week only, my book Ice Mountain: An Elegy is $3.00 off from the publisher. See Phoenicia Publishing’s holiday newsletter, which also features poetry books by my friends and fellow bloggers Marly Youmans and Rachel Barenblat.
Also available from Phoenicia is Luisa’s 2014 collection of prose poems, Night Willow. And Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser, selected by Mark Doty for the May Swenson Poetry Award Series from Utah State University Press, is also still in print. As are many of Luisa’s other books. Collect them all!
Up, and at the office all the morning, and at noon to Mr. Cutler’s, and there dined with Sir W. Rider and him, and thence Sir W. Rider and I by coach to White Hall to a Committee of the Fishery; there only to hear Sir Edward Ford’s proposal about farthings, wherein, O God! to see almost every body interested for him; only my Lord Annesly, who is a grave, serious man. My Lord Barkeley was there, but is the most hot, fiery man in discourse, without any cause, that ever I saw, even to breach of civility to my Lord Anglesey, in his discourse opposing to my Lord’s. At last, though without much satisfaction to me, it was voted that it should be requested of the King, and that Sir Edward Ford’s proposal is the best yet made. Thence by coach home. The Duke of Yorke being expected to-night with great joy from Portsmouth, after his having been abroad at sea three or four days with the fleete; and the Dutch are all drawn into their harbours. But it seems like a victory: and a matter of some reputation to us it is, and blemish to them; but in no degree like what it is esteemed at, the weather requiring them to do so. Home and at my office late, and then to supper and to bed.
a body in a grave is without
any breach of civility
though its mouth
is all drawn in
like what teemed
at so late a supper
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 3 December 1664.
At one end of the street, familiar barricade
and yellow tape. Lights louder than sirens.
Warnings to stay away. How far away?
All the students still at the café, busy
at their laptops. Steam hissing from coffee
machines. Assess the hierarchies of danger.
Trees surrender, having thrown up their arms.
Machines assess the hierarchies of danger.
At their laptops, steam hissing from coffee,
all the students still at the café. Busy
warnings to stay away— how far away?
And yellow tape. Lights louder than sirens.
At one end of the street, familiar barricade.
That time between seasons
when it seems there never will
be leaves again, or the color
green; and drifting clouds
of white-tendriled seed,
or the sound of moving water;
when the heart doesn’t know
how long it must hold as it’s
swung across the bridge—
Is today the day I’ll fold
a letter for the last time,
the day you’ll climb down
from your tower of long-
held fears? At times I think
we’re finally learning to sit
in the quiet of this in-between,
to stop asking if what we’ve done
could ever have been enough.
In response to Via Negativa: Plea bargain.