Lord, don’t let my heart
give out yet, my senses
take flight, my limbs lose
favor with their sockets—
My office is hard, but
there’s no one in sight
I could appoint to fill
a sudden vacancy—
In response to Via Negativa: Functionary.
Holding space
If listening is a kind
of knowledge,
if losing,
if not finding—
Why does it hurt
to listen to the loud
hammering in my heart
after rude encounter—
If listening is a bird
that would rather sing
but not show its face,
if hoping—
Why does the cup I hold
in the evening never run
out of questions, why can’t I
make the suffering stop—
At the club
Up betimes, and by water to White Hall; and thence to Sir Philip Warwick, and there had half an hour’s private discourse with him; and did give him some good satisfaction in our Navy matters, and he also me, as to the money paid and due to the Navy; so as he makes me assured by particulars, that Sir G. Carteret is paid within 80,000l. every farthing that we to this day, nay to Michaelmas day next have demanded; and that, I am sure, is above 50,000l. more than truly our expenses have been, whatever is become of the money.
Home with great content that I have thus begun an acquaintance with him, who is a great man, and a man of as much business as any man in England; which I will endeavour to deserve and keep.
Thence by water to my office, in here all the morning, and so to the ‘Change at noon, and there by appointment met and bring home my uncle Thomas, who resolves to go with me to Brampton on Monday next. I wish he may hold his mind. I do not tell him, and yet he believes that there is a Court to be that he is to do some business for us there. The truth is I do find him a much more cunning fellow than I ever took him for, nay in his very drink he has his wits about him.
I took him home to dinner, and after dinner he began, after a glass of wine or two, to exclaim against Sir G. Carteret and his family in Jersey, bidding me to have a care of him, and how high, proud, false, and politique a fellow he is, and how low he has been under his command in the island.
After dinner, and long discourse, he went away to meet on Monday morning, and I to my office, and thence by water to White Hall and Westminster Hall about several businesses, and so home, and to my office writing a laborious letter about our last account to my Lord Treasurer, which took me to one o’clock in the morning,
private as a fart
this man of money
to keep his wit in
an after-dinner glass
and his family in a false
laborious account
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 12 September 1663.
Tenement
This morning, about two or three o’clock, knocked up in our back yard, and rising to the window, being moonshine, I found it was the constable and his watch, who had found our back yard door open, and so came in to see what the matter was. So I desired them to shut the door, and bid them good night, and so to bed again, and at 6 o’clock up and a while to my vyall, and then to the office, where all the morning upon the victualler’s accounts, and then with him to dinner at the Dolphin, where I eat well but drank no wine neither; which keeps me in such good order that I am mightily pleased with myself for it. Hither Mr. Moore came to me, and he and I home and advised about business, and so after an hour’s examining the state of the Navy debts lately cast up, I took coach to Sir Philip Warwick’s, but finding Sir G. Carteret there I did not go in, but directly home, again, it raining hard, having first of all been with Creed and Mrs. Harper about a cook maid, and am like to have one from Creed’s lodging. In my way home visited my Lord Crew and Sir Thomas, thinking they might have enquired by the by of me touching my Lord’s matters at Chelsey, but they said nothing, and so after some slight common talk I bid them good night.
At home to my office, and after a while doing business home to supper and bed.
knocked up
rising to the window
moon
shine on her lip like
a light supper
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 11 September 1663.
Girl with hula hoop
The brown sedan in front on the road
is going too slowly, is stopping and starting
and stopping again, which leads your husband
to say what he often likes to say at times
like these: If you’re lost, pull over—
meaning stop, take stock, reorient yourself
on the map. But the moving blue dot only behaves
like you, weaving uncertainly from side street
to highway then back to the rest stop where you’ll
reconfigure this part of the itinerary, backtrack
to the last point before you got distracted,
before you took the wrong exit and suddenly you
were on a bridge and the sign said, implausibly:
in 15 miles, New Jersey. And so it is with other
parts of whatever journey— You moped
for months in your rooms, wringing your hands
at the unchanging landscape of closets,
at the unexciting light you thought poured
day after day the way milk weakens the cup
of strong black tea. And you may have wanted
a change, may have wondered how some people
get to go about their business like actors
on a stage, dressed so wonderfully for the part;
like a singer about to deliver the throaty wound
that changes forever the placid atmosphere
floating as backdrop to the moment. But the moon
shone through the window as the man came up
the driveway and fumbled for his keys
on the doorstep— its silvered light fell too,
as if orchestrated by an illusionist’s assistant,
on an arrangement of pictures in the vestibule: one,
where a boy observes red carp leap through arteries
of streets; and another, where a girl on a green hill twirls
and twirls her bright hula hoop without worry, in place.
In response to Via Negativa: Tenement.
Extrajudicial Ghazal
Daily, the toll rises. Cradled by the ones who love them,
the bodies sprawl in blood, on the streets, as the sky darkens.
Photos in the news show what naked grief looks like: just like
the Pietà, but rawer. Not beautiful or marble, as the sky darkens.
There was the little girl who waited for her father, afternoons on the stoop.
Who’ll wear the boots and raincoat he promised her, as the sky darkens?
The family sat down to their meagre meal. Was it fish and rice?
The bullet sang through the open doorway, as the sky darkened.
The gunmen are anonymous; only eyes show above tightly cinched bandanas.
They pull up on motorcycles, aim, then drive away as the sky darkens.
How does one know who’s truly guilty, who’s accidental casualty?
All are easy targets for the flimsiest charge, as the sky darkens.
The one in power says Fuck human rights; urges people to take
things into their own hands. The sky weeps blood as it darkens.
The fast buck, the swindle, the easy lay, the profit from every little
skirmish or big war. The poor don’t get commissions as the sky darkens.
Rain, incessant floods, the terrible traffic that chokes the streets:
cemeteries of poverty where the living dead reside, as the sky darkens.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Functionary
Up betimes and to my office, and there sat all the morning making a great contract with Sir W. Warren for 3,000l. worth of masts; but, good God! to see what a man might do, were I a knave, the whole business from beginning to end being done by me out of the office, and signed to by them upon the once reading of it to them, without the least care or consultation either of quality, price, number, or need of them, only in general that it was good to have a store. But I hope my pains was such, as the King has the best bargain of masts has been bought these 27 years in this office.
Dined at home and then to my office again, many people about business with me, and then stepped a little abroad about business to the Wardrobe, but missed Mr. Moore, and elswhere, and in my way met Mr. Moore, who tells me of the good peace that is made at Tangier with the Moores, but to continue but from six months to six months, and that the Mole is laid out, and likely to be done with great ease and successe, we to have a quantity of ground for our cattle about the town to our use.
To my office late, and then home to supper, after writing letters, and to bed.
This day our cook maid (we having no luck in maids now-adays), which was likely to prove a good servant, though none of the best cooks, fell sick and is gone to her friends, having been with us but 4 days.
what might I sign to once
without the least care or need
it was good to have an office
many people to moo
and my way laid out
like ground for cattle to use
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 10 September 1663.
here
here is the peeling slat
and the corded wood
here is the clothesline
and the weeded plot
here is the thorn-wrapped stem
that wraps itself around the camellias
here is the seat of rocks
grown over by slippery moss
here is the hinged gate leading
to the other side of the pasture
here is the water that comes
to its other life through the gutter
here is the otherworldly moon
peering into that container
In response to Via Negativa: Tableaux.
Ballad of a bastard
Up by break of day, and then to my vials a while, and so to Sir W. Warren’s by agreement, and after talking and eating something with him, he and I down by water to Woolwich, and there I did several businesses, and had good discourse, and thence walked to Greenwich; in my way a little boy overtook us with a fine cupp turned out of Lignum Vitae, which the poor child confessed was made in the King’s yard by his father, a turner there, and that he do often do it, and that I might have one, and God knows what, which I shall examine. Thence to Sir W. Warren’s again, and there drew up a contract for masts which he is to sell us, and so home to dinner, finding my poor wife busy.
I, after dinner, to the office, and then to White Hall, to Sir G. Carteret’s, but did not speak with him, and so to Westminster Hall, God forgive me, thinking to meet Mrs. Lane, but she was not there, but here I met with Ned Pickering, with whom I walked 3 or 4 hours till evening, he telling me the whole business of my Lord’s folly with this Mrs. Becke, at Chelsey, of all which I am ashamed to see my Lord so grossly play the beast and fool, to the flinging off of all honour, friends, servants, and every thing and person that is good, and only will have his private lust undisturbed with this common whore his sitting up night after night alone, suffering nobody to come to them, and all the day too, casting off Pickering, basely reproaching him with his small estate, which yet is a good one, and other poor courses to obtain privacy beneath his honour, and with his carrying her abroad and playing on his lute under her window, and forty other poor sordid things, which I am grieved to hear; but believe it to no purpose for me to meddle with it, but let him go on till God Almighty and his own conscience and thoughts of his lady and family do it. So after long discourse, to my full satisfaction but great trouble, I home by water and at my office late, and so to supper to my poor wife, and so to bed, being troubled to think that I shall be forced to go to Brampton the next Court, next week.
poor child of God
knows what war
poor beast flinging off friends
and everything that is good
poor wind
and poor sordid water
poor wife forced
to go to court
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 9 September 1663.
Tableaux
Up and to my viall a while, and then to my office on Phillips having brought me a draught of the Katherine yacht, prettily well done for the common way of doing it. At the office all the morning making up our last half year’s account to my Lord Treasurer, which comes to 160,000l. or there abouts, the proper expense of this half year, only with an addition of 13,000l. for the third due of the last account to the Treasurer for his disbursements, and 1100l. for this half year’s; so that in three years and a half his thirds come to 14,100l.. Dined at home with my wife. It being washing day, we had a good pie baked of a leg of mutton; and then to my office, and then abroad, and among other places to Moxon’s, and there bought a payre of globes cost me 3l. 10s., with which I am well pleased, I buying them principally for my wife, who has a mind to understand them, and I shall take pleasure to teach her. But here I saw his great window in his dining room, where there is the two Terrestrial Hemispheres, so painted as I never saw in my life, and nobly done and to good purpose, done by his own hand.
Thence home to my office, and there at business late, and then to supper home and to bed, my people sitting up longer than ordinary before they had done their washing.
prettily done for the common way
the road cost me my wife
who has a mind
to understand each window
here is the terrestrial
here painted as life
here at home people sit up longer
before their ash
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 8 September 1663.