Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
The last thing in your mouth:
a spoonful of scrambled egg.
Before that, the speckled loaf
of store-bought bread floated away
out the window, never
to be seen again. We fed
torn newspapers to a stove
of tin so sparks could make
little accords
with the rain-brushed night.
We did not get to say a proper
goodbye. We could have spun
a record and used that last
little loop of time.
Parables instruct; refusal
is more truthful.
Lay long with my wife, contenting her about the business of Gosnell’s going, and I perceive she will be contented as well as myself, and so to the office, and after sitting all the morning in hopes to have Mr. Coventry dine with me, he was forced to go to White Hall, and so I dined with my own company only, taking Mr. Hater home with me, but he, poor man, was not very well, and so could not eat any thing. After dinner staid within all the afternoon, being vexed in my mind about the going away of Sarah this afternoon, who cried mightily, and so was I ready to do, and Jane did also, and then anon went Gosnell away, which did trouble me too; though upon many considerations, it is better that I am rid of the charge. All together makes my house appear to me very lonely, which troubles me much, and in a melancholy humour I went to the office, and there about business sat till I was called to Sir G. Carteret at the Treasury office about my Lord Treasurer’s letter, wherein he puts me to a new trouble to write it over again. So home and late with Sir John Minnes at the office looking over Mr. Creed’s accounts, and then home and to supper, and my wife and I melancholy to bed.
her mind going is no trouble to her
which troubles me
and puts me to looking
over accounts
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 9 December 1662.
Up, and carrying Gosnell by coach, set her down at Temple Barr, she going about business of hers today. By the way she was telling me how Balty did tell her that my wife did go every day in the week to Court and plays, and that she should have liberty of going abroad as often as she pleased, and many other lies, which I am vexed at, and I doubt the wench did come in some expectation of, which troubles me.
So to the Duke and Mr. Coventry, and alone, the rest being at a Pay and elsewhere, and alone with Mr. Coventry I did read over our letter to my Lord Treasurer, which I think now is done as well as it can be. Then to my Lord Sandwich’s, and there spent the rest of the morning in making up my Lord’s accounts with Mr. Moore, and then dined with Mr. Moore and Battersby his friend, very well and merry, and good discourse. Then into the Park, to see them slide with their skeates, which is very pretty. And so to the Duke’s, where the Committee for Tangier met: and here we sat down all with him at a table, and had much good discourse about the business, and is to my great content. That done, I hearing what play it was that is to be acted before the King to-night, I would not stay, but home by coach, where I find my wife troubled about Gosnell, who brings word that her uncle, justice Jiggins, requires her to come three times a week to him, to follow some business that her mother intrusts her withall, and that, unless she may have that leisure given her, he will not have her take any place; for which we are both troubled, but there is no help for it, and believing it to be a good providence of God to prevent my running behindhand in the world, I am somewhat contented therewith, and shall make my wife so, who, poor wretch, I know will consider of things, though in good earnest the privacy of her life must needs be irksome to her. So I made Gosnell and we sit up looking over the book of Dances till 12 at night, not observing how the time went, and so to prayers and to bed.
going about business
every day in the week
I see them slide
what jig requires us
to run the world?
what contented life irks?
I sit looking over
the book of dances
serving time
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 8 December 1662.
Gargoyles and winged lions.
Bridges and parks.
The gold angel bearing aloft
a cross in the shadow of the winter palace.
A chained bear on its side in the square,
around which a crowd has gathered.
It has possibly been drugged.
Little children can come up
to pet its matted fur, feel its flanks
rise and fall with ragged breath.
Like everything torn out of place,
it reeks of the momentous.
But isn’t that how it is under every facade?
Especially where light looks the most
severe, where the lines try their best
to hold in, deflect, contain.
In response to Via Negativa: Absent.
Every time I stay in London, I pay a visit to Hampstead Heath—which, despite its name, is in fact more like what we Yanks would call a forest with a few large meadows (while many of the historical “forests” around the UK are, I gather, more like heaths). Continue reading “Return to Hampstead Heath”
Before I went to my office I went to Mr. Crew’s and paid Mr. Andrews the same 60l. that he had received of Mr. Calthrop the last week. So back to Westminster and walked with him thither, where we found the soldiers all set in the Palace Yard, to make way for General Monk to come to the House. At the Hall we parted, and meeting Swan, he and I to the Swan and drank our morning draft. So back again to the Hall, where I stood upon the steps and saw Monk go by, he making observance to the judges as he went along. At noon my father dined with me upon my turkey that was brought from Denmark, and after dinner he and I to the Bull Head Tavern, where we drank half a pint of wine and so parted. I to Mrs. Ann, and Mrs. Jem being gone out of the chamber she and I had a very high bout, I rattled her up, she being in her bed, but she becoming more cool, we parted pretty good friends. Thence I went to Will’s, where I staid at cards till 10 o’clock, losing half a crown, and so home to bed.
soldiers
make way for a swan
that high rattle
Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 6 February 1659/60. (See the original erasure.)
(Lord’s day). A great snow, and so to church this morning with my wife, which is the first time she hath been at church since her going to Brampton, and Gosnell attending her, which was very gracefull. So home, and we dined above in our dining room, the first time since it was new done, and in the afternoon I thought to go to the French church; but finding the Dutch congregation there, and then finding the French congregation’s sermon begun in the Dutch, I returned home, and up to our gallery, where I found my wife and Gosnell, and after a drowsy sermon, we all three to my aunt Wight’s, where great store of her usuall company, and here we staid a pretty while talking, I differing from my aunt, as I commonly do, in our opinion of the handsomeness of the Queen, which I oppose mightily, saying that if my nose be handsome, then is her’s, and such like. After much discourse, seeing the room full, and being unwilling to stay all three, I took leave, and so with my wife only to see Sir W. Pen, who is now got out of his bed, and sits by the fireside. And after some talk, home and to supper, and after prayers to bed. This night came in my wife’s brother and talked to my wife and Gosnell about his wife, which they told me afterwards of, and I do smell that he I doubt is overreached in thinking that he has got a rich wife, and I fear she will prove otherwise. So to bed.
a congregation
at the gallery
we eat and differ in our opinion
hands like seeing fires
some talk in which I smell
doubt and fear
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 7 December 1662.
Welcome back, dear friend: I have missed your doomsday predictions, your crisp, dry spells of migratory quiet. I still have your last letter, warning that there is barely any trace of almonds in almond milk; and that you have managed to build a small cob house. My daughter says her workmate has a miniature herbarium on his desk where he grows basil and rosemary. Do plants know the subtle differences among the kinds of warmth they aspire to? The world is still always trying to become, aided now too with LED lights. Wasn’t it just yesterday we thought Y2K would make time turn upon itself? But we are also infinitely foolish to think that neither the sun nor the wind could die.
In response to Via Negativa: Lull.
unfurling like an idea
everyone thought was slow
but isn’t anymore.
No one knows if the shadow
will stick to the sundial,
or if the cistern’s green depth
equals the condition of our
collective disbelief.
The flower on the sill
swivels its dyed head to follow
a plane of moving light.
Once there was a way to live
that wasn’t always a weighing
against different forms of despair.
(Lord’s day). In the morning before church time Mr. Hawly, who had for this day or two looked something sadly, which methinks did speak something in his breast concerning me, came to me telling me that he was out 24l. which he could not tell what was become of, and that he do remember that he had such a sum in a bag the other day, and could not tell what he did with it, at which I was very sorry but could not help him. In the morning to Mr. Gunning, where a stranger, an old man, preached a good honest sermon upon “What manner of love is this that we should be called the sons of God.” After sermon I could not find my wife, who promised to be at the gate against my coming out, and waited there a great while; then went to my house and finding her gone I returned and called at the Chequers, thinking to dine at the ordinary with Mr. Chetwind and Mr. Thomas, but they not being there I went to my father and found her there, and there I dined. To their church in the afternoon, and in Mrs. Turner’s pew my wife took up a good black hood and kept it. A stranger preached a poor sermon, and so read over the whole book of the story of Tobit. After sermon home with Mrs. Turner, staid with her a little while, then she went into the court to a christening and we to my father’s, where I wrote some notes for my brother John to give to the Mercers’ to-morrow, it being the day of their apposition. After supper home, and before going to bed I staid writing of this day its passages, while a drum came by, beating of a strange manner of beat, now and then a single stroke, which my wife and I wondered at, what the meaning of it should be.
This afternoon at church I saw Dick Cumberland newly come out of the country from his living, but did not speak to him.
what manner of love is this
that we should call and call
but not be there
where a drum came
beating a single stroke
out of the living
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 5 February 1659/60. (See the original erasure.)