Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
I like the quietness of the kitchen
very late at night, when I am almost
the last one awake. I put away dishes
and wipe down the counter. I sit
at the table to finish the coffee
that remains in my cup, making
lists for what I still need to do
in the morning until I realize
it is already morning.
The clock continues its steady
parcelling out of the hours: not
doubling forward, not going back.
Quicksilver in the waning
light, water on the river.
Bridge or no bridge, there
goes the spent with the unspent.
You could count them twice,
but their sum slips through
your cupped palms the same.
In response to Via Negativa: Drunks.
Up and to my office, whither, by and by, my brother Tom came, and I did soundly rattle him for his neglecting to see and please the Joyces as he has of late done. I confess I do fear that he do not understand his business, nor will do any good in his trade, though he tells me that he do please every body and that he gets money, but I shall not believe it till I see a state of his accounts, which I have ordered him to bring me before he sees me any more.
We met and sat at the office all the morning, and at noon I to the ‘Change, where I met Dr. Pierce, who tells me that the King comes to towne this day, from Tunbridge, to stay a day or two, and then fetch the Queen from thence, who he says is grown a very debonnaire lady, and now hugs him, and meets him gallopping upon the road, and all the actions of a fond and pleasant lady that can be, that he believes has a chat now and then of Mrs. Stewart, but that there is no great danger of her, she being only an innocent, young, raw girl; but my Lady Castlemaine, who rules the King in matters of state, and do what she list with him, he believes is now falling quite out of favour. After the Queen is come back she goes to the Bath; and so to Oxford, where great entertainments are making for her.
This day I am told that my Lord Bristoll hath warrants issued out against him, to have carried him to the Tower; but he is fled away, or hid himself. So much the Chancellor hath got the better of him.
Upon the ‘Change my brother, and Will bring me word that Madam Turner would come and dine with me to-day, so I hasted home and found her and Mrs. Morrice there (The. Joyce being gone into the country), which is the reason of the mother rambling. I got a dinner for them, and after dinner my uncle Thomas and aunt Bell came and saw me, and I made them almost foxed with wine till they were very kind (but I did not carry them up to my ladies). So they went away, and so my two ladies and I in Mrs. Turner’s coach to Mr. Povy’s, who being not within, we went in and there shewed Mrs. Turner his perspective and volary, and the fine things that he is building of now, which is a most neat thing. Thence to the Temple and by water to Westminster; and there Morrice and I went to Sir R. Long’s to have fetched a niece of his, but she was not within, and so we went to boat again and then down to the bridge, and there tried to find a sister of Mrs. Morrice’s, but she was not within neither, and so we went through bridge, and I carried them on board the King’s pleasure-boat, all the way reading in a book of Receipts of making fine meats and sweetmeats, among others to make my own sweet water, which made us good sport.
So I landed them at Greenwich, and there to a garden, and gave them fruit and wine, and so to boat again, and finally, in the cool of the evening, to Lyon Kee, the tide against us, and so landed and walked to the Bridge, and there took a coach by chance passing by, and so I saw them home, and there eat some cold venison with them, and drunk and bade them good night, having been mighty merry with them, and I think it is not amiss to preserve, though it cost me a little, such a friend as Mrs. Turner. So home and to bed, my head running upon what to do to-morrow to fit things against my wife’s coming, as to buy a bedstead, because my brother John is here, and I have now no more beds than are used.
the rattle of fear
in every one of his rants
foxed with wine
I make my own water
in the cool of the evening
against the bridge
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 11 August 1663.
Night has shrunk to the dark
iridescence in a butterfly’s wing,
and the newly dead lie in their coffins,
sleeping. Is it right to disturb
the peace that is to their demise
attributed, by bringing to mind
all that they were not when they lived?
On most things we are taught to hold
our tongues and to keep counsel;
for who are we to think that others
in the world have not had terrible
things done to them? And I can say
when I received news of a certain
death, I no longer felt anything.
No flicker of anger, not sorrow
nor pity nor love. I was only
a child those many years ago,
when the first seed of my innocence
was taken. But not my wonder,
which must have curled into itself,
into a ball— Like the small
dark body that folds its wings
and lies for days, unmoving,
in the shadow of the porch.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Up, though not so early this summer as I did all the last, for which I am sorry, and though late am resolved to get up betimes before the season of rising be quite past. To my office to fit myself to wait on the Duke this day.
By and by by water to White Hall, and so to St. James’s, and anon called into the Duke’s chamber, and being dressed we were all as usual taken in with him and discoursed of our matters, and that being done, he walked, and I in the company with him, to White Hall, and there he took barge for Woolwich, and, I up to the Committee of Tangier, where my Lord Sandwich, my Lord Peterborough, (whom I have not seen before since his coming back,) Sir W. Compton, and Mr. Povy. Our discourse about supplying my Lord Teviott with money, wherein I am sorry to see, though they do not care for him, yet they are willing to let him for civility and compliment only have money almost without expecting any account of it; but by this means, he being such a cunning fellow as he is, the King is like to pay dear for our courtiers’ ceremony. Thence by coach with my Lords Peterborough and Sandwich to my Lord Peterborough’s house; and there, after an hour’s looking over some fine books of the Italian buildings, with fine cuts; and also my Lord Peterborough’s bowes and arrows, of which he is a great lover, we sat down to dinner, my Lady coming down to dinner also, and there being Mr. Williamson, that belongs to Sir H. Bennet, whom I find a pretty understanding and accomplished man, but a little conceited.
After dinner I took leave and went to Greatorex’s, whom I found in his garden, and set him to work upon my ruler, to engrave an almanac and other things upon the brasses of it, which a little before night he did, but the latter part he slubbered over, that I must get him to do it over better, or else I shall not fancy my rule, which is such a folly that I am come to now, that whereas before my delight was in multitude of books, and spending money in that and buying alway of other things, now that I am become a better husband, and have left off buying, now my delight is in the neatness of everything, and so cannot be pleased with anything unless it be very neat, which is a strange folly.
Hither came W. Howe about business, and he and I had a great deal of discourse about my Lord Sandwich, and I find by him that my Lord do dote upon one of the daughters of Mrs. [Becke] where he lies, so that he spends his time and money upon her. He tells me she is a woman of a very bad fame and very impudent, and has told my Lord so, yet for all that my Lord do spend all his evenings with her, though he be at court in the day time, and that the world do take notice of it, and that Pickering is only there as a blind, that the world may think that my Lord spends his time with him when he do worse, and that hence it is that my Lord has no more mind to go into the country than he has. In fine, I perceive my Lord is dabbling with this wench, for which I am sorry, though I do not wonder at it, being a man amorous enough, and now begins to allow himself the liberty that he says every body else at Court takes.
Here I am told that my Lord Bristoll is either fled or concealed himself; having been sent for to the King, it is believed to be sent to the Tower, but he is gone out of the way.
Yesterday, I am told also, that Sir J. Lenthall, in Southwarke, did apprehend about one hundred Quakers, and other such people, and hath sent some of them to the gaole at Kingston, it being now the time of the Assizes.
Hence home and examined a piece of, Latin of Will’s with my brother, and so to prayers and to bed.
This evening I had a letter from my father that says that my wife will come to town this week, at which I wonder that she should come to town without my knowing more of it. But I find they have lived very ill together since she went, and I must use all the brains I have to bring her to any good when she do come home, which I fear will be hard to do, and do much disgust me the thoughts of it.
summer is past
I fit myself to the white sand
like a lover
I long for a multitude
of books and evenings
when the amorous rains come
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 10 August 1663.
Alas, I am always
looking back—
A scent, a tree-
lined lane;
the way stones
are laid next
to each other
or wrap around
the rain-slicked porch
or chimney—
The shape of hills
at sundown,
the yellow of a sun-
flower bending
beneath its own weight—
I move about
in this other world now
but something in me
grows more quiet
through the years:
I am most restless
rooting in place.
In response to Via Negativa: Fallen.
(Lord’s day). Up, and leaving my brother John to go somewhere else, I to church, and heard Mr. Mills (who is lately returned out of the country, and it seems was fetched in by many of the parishioners, with great state,) preach upon the authority of the ministers, upon these words, “We are therefore embassadors of Christ.” Wherein, among other high expressions, he said, that such a learned man used to say, that if a minister of the word and an angell should meet him together, he would salute the minister first; which methought was a little too high. This day I begun to make use of the silver pen (Mr. Coventry did give me) in writing of this sermon, taking only the heads of it in Latin, which I shall, I think, continue to do. So home and at my office reading my vowes, and so to Sir W. Batten to dinner, being invited and sent for, and being willing to hear how they left things at Portsmouth, which I found but ill enough, and are mightily for a Commissioner to be at seat there to keep the yard in order.
Thence in the afternoon with my Lady Batten, leading her through the streets by the hand to St. Dunstan’s Church, hard by us (where by Mrs. Russell’s means we were set well), and heard an excellent sermon of one Mr. Gifford, the parson there, upon “Remember Lot’s wife.” So from thence walked back to Mrs. Russell’s, and there drank and sat talking a great while. Among other things talked of young Dawes that married the great fortune, who it seems has a Baronet’s patent given him, and is now Sir Thos. Dawes, and a very fine bred man they say he is. Thence home, and my brother being abroad I walked to my uncle Wight’s and there staid, though with little pleasure, and supped, there being the husband of Mrs. Anne Wight, who it seems is lately married to one Mr. Bentley, a Norwich factor. Home, and staid up a good while examining Will in his Latin below, and my brother along with him in his Greeke, and so to prayers and to bed.
This afternoon I was amused at the tune set to the Psalm by the Clerke of the parish, and thought at first that he was out, but I find him to be a good songster, and the parish could sing it very well, and was a good tune. But I wonder that there should be a tune in the Psalms that I never heard of.
if an angel should get
a little too high
I shall lead her through
the streets by the hand
and remember Lot’s wife
who stayed married to wonder
her tune
never heard
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 9 August 1663.
Yes, organic produce may have a tendency
to spoil more quickly than the shiny waxy ones.
Could the next sleeper hit be a film about what happens
to all the chicken feet cut off before the meat is packaged?
A friend sent me an article about how mummified wasps
wind up in the dense, flowery center of dried figs.
The day before, I heard a scientist featured on a radio
show, talking about her research on cockroach milk.
Every morning in summer I go out into the yard to pick fruit
from the tree; by afternoon, the half-ripe ones are ready.
What’s too high up on the tree remains on the branch. In the heat,
they split open from inside. Or the birds make pennants of them.
What falls to the ground becomes a mecca for the ants.
Just look. Everywhere, there is a mouth quietly at work.
In response to Via Negativa: Mobile Device.
Up and to my office, whither I search for Brown the mathematical instrument maker, who now brought me a ruler for measuring timber and other things so well done and in all things to my mind that I do set up my trust upon it that I cannot have a better, nor any man else have so good for this purpose, this being of my own ordering. By and by we sat all the morning dispatching of business, and then at noon rose, and I with Mr. Coventry down to the water-side, talking, wherein I see so much goodness and endeavours of doing the King service, that I do more and more admire him. It being the greatest trouble to me, he says, in the world to see not only in the Navy, but in the greatest matters of State, where he can lay his finger upon the soare (meaning this man’s faults, and this man’s office the fault lies in), and yet dare or can not remedy matters.
Thence to the Exchange about several businesses, and so home to dinner, and in the afternoon took my brother John and Will down to Woolwich by water, and after being there a good while, and eating of fruit in Sheldon’s garden, we began our walk back again, I asking many things in physiques of my brother John, to which he gives me so bad or no answer at all, as in the regions of the ayre he told me that he knew of no such thing, for he never read Aristotle’s philosophy and Des Cartes ownes no such thing, which vexed me to hear him say. But I shall call him to task, and see what it is that he has studied since his going to the University.
It was late before we could get from Greenwich to London by water, the tide being against us and almost past, so that to save time and to be clear of anchors I landed at Wapping, and so walked home weary enough, walking over the stones.
This night Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes returned [from] Portsmouth, but I did not go see them.
an instrument to set
my trust upon
I cannot have a better
world to finger
asking many things of it
green as an anchor
apping over the stones
I did not go see
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 8 August 1663.
In the yard, the widest tree
is the heat that shimmers over all
at three in the afternoon. I walk
under its canopy and my presence
beacons every small biting thing—
they live in the shadow of the leaves,
and I am blood after all, and skin.
I am porous under my bindings. The light
of the sun, where it falls on the yellow
sides of the house, is blinding. I try
to remember how it looked when we
first stepped through the gate
not so long ago— The voice of a lone
goose beginning to carve the still
luxuriant air, the foliage just
gone bare. A few of summer’s last figs
tenacious on the topmost branches:
their dark and leathery offerings.