Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
We were taught to open
parasols when we walked
in the sun, and suffered
long sleeves in ninety-
degree heat. We never learned
about SPF sunscreen, but one year
the biggest trend was kaolin-
based medicinal creams. The fairest
girls were crowned school queens.
Can you see the rest of us, dark
as farmers’ daughters, throwing flowers
at floats passing us in the streets?
Lay pretty long in bed. So up and by water to St. James’s, and there attended the Duke with Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes, and having done our work with him walked to Westminster Hall, and after walking there and talking of business met Mr. Rawlinson and by coach to the ‘Change, where I did some business, and home to dinner, and presently by coach to the King’s Play-house to see “The Labyrinth,” but, coming too soon, walked to my Lord’s to hear how my Lady do, who is pretty well; at least past all fear. There by Captain Ferrers meeting with an opportunity of my Lord’s coach, to carry us to the Parke anon, we directed it to come to the play-house door; and so we walked, my wife and I and Madamoiselle. I paid for her going in, and there saw “The Labyrinth,” the poorest play, methinks, that ever I saw, there being nothing in it but the odd accidents that fell out, by a lady’s being bred up in man’s apparel, and a man in a woman’s. Here was Mrs. Stewart, who is indeed very pretty, but not like my Lady Castlemayne, for all that. Thence in the coach to the Parke, where no pleasure; there being much dust, little company, and one of our horses almost spoiled by falling down, and getting his leg over the pole; but all mended presently, and after riding up and down, home. Set Madamoiselle at home; and we home, and to my office, whither comes Mr. Bland, and pays me the debt he acknowledged he owed me for my service in his business of the Tangier Merchant, twenty pieces of new gold, a pleasant sight. It cheered my heart; and he being gone, I home to supper, and shewed them my wife; and she, poor wretch, would fain have kept them to look on, without any other design but a simple love to them; but I thought it not convenient, and so took them into my own hand. So, after supper, to bed.
past all fear
we come to a labyrinth
nothing in it
but accidents like dust
falling down over all
the land in pieces
without any other design
but love
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 2 May 1664.
I can feel the storm coming,
a system the weather reports warn
will move through the area
between midnight and early morning.
My restlessness is lit by the smell
of chemicals in the air, offset
by the sound of something kindled
as if on the other side of the world.
How do crops hold up their heads
to a battery of rain? I dream of swollen
star-apples, ruddy santol, Spanish
plums dipped in salt. By the fence,
wild berries scribble tiny hearts
along the ground. A thud in the eaves
could be the sound of flight
interrupted, a body reorienting
to the map. I pray to the heavenly ox,
to the clouds that bolt the axles
of the cart to the shaft— if it
should finally want to go, let the end
be swift. Let it come easy in sleep,
in her own bed, at the end of the day.
In response to Via Negativa: Night World.
(Lord’s day). Lay long in bed. Went not to church, but staid at home to examine my last night’s accounts, which I find right, and that I am 908l. creditor in the world, the same I was last month.
Dined, and after dinner down by water with my wife and Besse with great pleasure as low as Greenwich and so back, playing as it were leisurely upon the water to Deptford, where I landed and sent my wife up higher to land below Half-way house. I to the King’s yard and there spoke about several businesses with the officers, and so with Mr. Wayth consulting about canvas, to Half-way house where my wife was, and after eating there we broke and walked home before quite dark. So to supper, prayers, and to bed.
a long night in the world
water playing on water
land and higher land
half canvas
half dark prayer
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 1 May 1664.
According to the students at my university,
among the features of the new cafeteria
that opened in fall is a Sushi Robot—
which I thought would be an updated version
of Rosie the Robot Maid from that old sixties
cartoon, The Jetsons, until I searched
the internet for a helpful YouTube
which showed me a boxlike contraption
smaller than an ATM but larger
than a water cooler, capable of pressing out
a uniformly thin square of cooked sushi rice
upon which one can proceed to quickly lay
a sheet of nori and on top of that,
precisely measured slices of avocado,
carrots, and crab sticks
before the revolving belt platform
retracts and an arm pushes down
to fold the roll in thirds
before sliding it out onto a waiting
plastic tray. First it was the Roomba,
that circular robotized disc
quietly whirring as it went, eating dust
from room to room. Next came all the talk
about the self-driving Tesla X, capable
of accelerating from 0 to 60 in two
seconds flat. Some think this is the beginning
of our end, a future drawing nearer when we
and our hungers will simply be extruded
from one end of a pipe to the other for the sake
of efficiency, with no intervening time to meditate
on what it all means. Will there be any
further need to work, or will everyone have
access to basic income? With work distributed
to mechanized devices, will we finally enter
the temple of true pleasure, knowledge of which we
have only ever known because of its differentiation
from pain? Will there be reading and writing,
will there be poems? Will we hold our fingers up
to the light, trying to recall what they were for?
In response to Via Negativa: Circumscribed.
Up and all the morning at the office. At noon to the ‘Change, where, after business done, Sir W. Rider and Cutler took me to the Old James and there did give me a good dish of mackerell, the first I have seen this year, very good, and good discourse. After dinner we fell to business about their contract for tarr, in which and in another business of Sir W. Rider’s, canvas, wherein I got him to contract with me, I held them to some terms against their wills, to the King’s advantage, which I believe they will take notice of to my credit.
Thence home, and by water by a gally down to Woolwich, and there a good while with Mr. Pett upon the new ship discoursing and learning of him. Thence with Mr. Deane to see Mr. Falconer, and there find him in a way to be well.
So to the water (after much discourse with great content with Mr. Deane) and home late, and so to the office, wrote to my father among other things my continued displeasure against my brother John, so that I will give him nothing more out of my own purse, which will trouble the poor man, but however it is fit that I should take notice of my brother’s ill carriage to me. Then home and till 12 at night about my month’s accounts, wherein I have just kept within compass, this having been a spending month.
So my people being all abed I put myself to bed very sleepy.
All the newes now is what will become of the Dutch business, whether warr or peace. We all seem to desire it, as thinking ourselves to have advantages at present over them; for my part I dread it. The Parliament promises to assist the King with lives and fortunes, and he receives it with thanks and promises to demand satisfaction of the Dutch.
My poor Lady Sandwich is fallen sick three days since of the meazles.
My Lord Digby’s business is hushed up, and nothing made of it; he is gone, and the discourse quite ended.
Never more quiet in my family all the days of my life than now, there being only my wife and I and Besse and the little girl Susan, the best wenches to our content that we can ever expect.
I have seen a ship in a well
and a compass in bed
what will become of all my promise
in a quiet life
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 30 April 1664.
It’s difficult to practice for
the unseen, prepare for the unknown.
Meanwhile, dandelions release
their small planet load of white-
tendriled paratroopers; chickweed,
purslane, yellow oxalis creep
along the fence. Some nights,
humid, sulphurous smells come in
from the beach. Some days, we turn away
persistent salesmen from our doors.
We warn the neighbors. We plant
ourselves across the threshold.
In response to Via Negativa: Grind.
Up betimes, and with Sir W. Rider and Cutler to White Hall. Rider and I to St. James’s, and there with Mr. Coventry did proceed strictly upon some fooleries of Mr. Povy’s in my Lord Peterborough’s accounts, which will touch him home, and I am glad of it, for he is the most troublesome impertinent man that ever I met with. Thence to the ‘Change, and there, after some business, home to dinner, where Luellin and Mount came to me and dined, and after dinner my wife and I by coach to see my Lady Sandwich, where we find all the children and my Lord removed, and the house so melancholy that I thought my Lady had been dead, knowing that she was not well; but it seems she hath the meazles, and I fear the small pox, poor lady. It grieves me mightily; for it will be a sad houre to the family should she miscarry. Thence straight home and to the office, and in the evening comes Mr. Hill the merchant and another with him that sings well, and we sung some things, and good musique it seemed to me, only my mind too full of business to have much pleasure in it. But I will have more of it. They gone, and I having paid Mr. Moxon for the work he has done for the office upon the King’s globes, I to my office, where very late busy upon Captain Tayler’s bills for his masts, which I think will never off my hand. Home to supper and to bed.
times touch and trouble us
where we move
melancholy as an ox
the work done for the office
the office never off
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 29 April 1664.
“When we received the cable from Admiral Dewey telling of the taking of the Philippines I looked up their location on the globe. I could not have told where those darned islands were within 2,000 miles!” ~ President William McKinley to H.H. Kohlsaat, Editor of the Chicago-Times Herald
I’m looking at captions of old
newspaper photos from April 1898,
just before The Battle of Manila Bay—
all the language already in place,
as if to make the outcome so: War
in the Orient! American Squadron
Will Capture Philippine Islands and
American Warships Will Fight Spanish
Squadron Near Manila; A Very Desperate
Encounter is Predicted. And the fleet
of Spanish vessels goes down in flames
or sinks into the bay: the Reina Cristina
and Castilla, the gunboats Don Antonio
de Ulloa, Don Juan de Austria, Isla de Luzon,
Isla de Cuba, Velasco, Argos— while
on the American side, the Olympia plays
“The Star-Spangled Banner” and “El Capitan”
as sailors on the Baltimore, Raleigh and Boston,
the gunboats Concord and Petrel, the revenue
cutter McCulloch, and the transport ships Zafiro
and Nanshan shout “Remember the Maine!”
Admiral Dewey issues strict orders that “no
barbarous or inhuman acts are to be perpetrated
by the insurgents,” by which he means Filipinos.
Artist prints and photographs show no native casualties
of war, no native involvement— except that skirmish
cost the Spanish a 20 million dollar fine: the price
of handing over their former colony and its inhabitants
to the Americans. Who doesn’t love a good war? When news of Dewey’s
victory reaches the mainland, Americans cheer. What does it matter
that most didn’t know what and where the Philippines are,
as long as those darned islands are now the spoils of war?
Up and close at my office all the morning. To the ‘Change busy at noon, and so home to dinner, and then in the afternoon at the office till night, and so late home quite tired with business, and without joy in myself otherwise than that I am by God’s grace enabled to go through it and one day, hope to have benefit by it. So home to supper and to bed.
close to change
to quit and out myself
otherwise I am
by God’s grace bled
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 28 April 1664.