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I wonder at the whole
design of ruin… ~ D. Bonta
When you walk beneath their shadow
it is their breathing that first
alerts you— that musk, low
on the wind, meaning the buds
have ripened. That’s how it is
oftentimes in the world—
Just above your reach, all
the beautiful milky flowers
have opened their throats to sing.
And you, uncertain again
on the path of your calling,
of what brought you here.
In response to Via Negativa: Decline and fall.
Up betimes and to my office, and there busy all the morning, among other things walked a good while up and down with Sir J. Minnes, he telling many old stories of the Navy, and of the state of the Navy at the beginning of the late troubles, and I am troubled at my heart to think, and shall hereafter cease to wonder, at the bad success of the King’s cause, when such a knave as he (if it be true what he says) had the whole management of the fleet, and the design of putting out of my Lord Warwick, and carrying the fleet to the King, wherein he failed most fatally to the King’s ruin.
Dined at home, and after dinner up to try my dance, and so to the office again, where we sat all the afternoon. In the evening Deane of Woolwich went home with me and showed me the use of a little sliding ruler, less than that I bought the other day, which is the same with that, but more portable; however I did not seem to understand or even to have seen anything of it before, but I find him an ingenious fellow, and a good servant in his place to the King.
Thence to my office busy writing letters, and then came Sir W. Warren, staying for a letter in his business by the post, and while that was writing he and I talked about merchandise, trade, and getting of money. I made it my business to enquire what way there is for a man bred like me to come to understand anything of trade. He did most discretely answer me in all things, shewing me the danger for me to meddle either in ships or merchandise of any sort or common stocks, but what I have to keep at interest, which is a good, quiett, and easy profit, and once in a little while something offers that with ready money you may make use of money to good profit. Wherein I concur much with him, and parted late with great pleasure and content in his discourse, and so home to supper and to bed. It has been this afternoon very hot and this evening also, and about 11 at night going to bed it fell a-thundering and lightening, the greatest flashes enlightening the whole body of the yard, that ever I saw in my life.
I wonder at the whole
design of ruin
evening is the same
but more portable
like a quiet pleasure
enlightening the body
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 5 May 1663.
Up betimes and to setting my Brampton papers in order and looking over my wardrobe against summer, and laying things in order to send to my brother to alter. By and by took boat intending to have gone down to Woolwich, but seeing I could not get back time enough to dinner, I returned and home. Whither by and by the dancing-master came, whom standing by, seeing him instructing my wife, when he had done with her, he would needs have me try the steps of a coranto, and what with his desire and my wife’s importunity, I did begin, and then was obliged to give him entry-money 10s., and am become his scholler. The truth is, I think it a thing very useful for a gentleman, and sometimes I may have occasion of using it, and though it cost me what I am heartily sorry it should, besides that I must by my oath give half as much more to the poor, yet I am resolved to get it up some other way, and then it will not be above a month or two in a year. So though it be against my stomach yet I will try it a little while; if I see it comes to any great inconvenience or charge I will fling it off.
After I had begun with the steps of half a coranto, which I think I shall learn well enough, he went away, and we to dinner.
And by and by out by coach, and set my wife down at my Lord Crew’s, going to see my Lady Jem. Montagu, who is lately come to town, and I to St. James’s; where Mr. Coventry, Sir W. Pen and I staid a good while for the Duke’s coming in, but not coming, we walked to White Hall; and meeting the King, we followed him into the Park, where Mr. Coventry and he talked of building a new yacht, which the King is resolved to have built out of his privy purse, he having some contrivance of his own. The talk being done, we fell off to White Hall, leaving the King in the Park, and going back, met the Duke going towards St. James’s to meet us. So he turned back again, and to his closett at White Hall; and there, my Lord Sandwich present, we did our weekly errand, and so broke up; and I down into the garden with my Lord Sandwich (after we had sat an hour at the Tangier Committee); and after talking largely of his own businesses, we begun to talk how matters are at Court: and though he did not flatly tell me any such thing, yet I do suspect that all is not kind between the King and the Duke, and that the King’s fondness to the little Duke do occasion it; and it may be that there is some fear of his being made heir to the Crown. But this my Lord did not tell me, but is my guess only; and that my Lord Chancellor is without doubt falling past hopes. He being gone to Chelsey by coach I to his lodgings, where my wife staid for me, and she from thence to see Mrs. Pierce and called me at Whitehall stairs (where I went before by land to know whether there was any play at Court to-night) and there being none she and I to Mr. Creed to the Exchange, where she bought something, and from thence by water to White Fryars, and wife to see Mrs. Turner, and then came to me at my brother’s, where I did give him order about my summer clothes, and so home by coach, and after supper to bed to my wife, with whom I have not lain since I used to lie with my father till to-night.
in war-time the master of money
must give the poor
some other stomach
but the new contrivance
of king and sandwich
broke down into sand
our sin matters little
fear is the only wife now
with whom I lie
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 4 May 1663.
On sultry afternoons or evenings during brownouts,
someone would take out a deck of cards and we’d play,
the still-warm ironing board dragged near the edge
of the bed so we could use it as a table— Nothing
complicated, mostly a game of matching pairs, one
card conveniently hidden away under the pillow.
That’s how we learned how much stock was placed
on finding the other half to make up a pair,
so as not to wind up the monkey, the tsongo,
the odd one out— Unpartnered in life, soltera
just like Ms. Concepcion Atienza who lived on the corner
of Palma and gave music lessons to us but did not know
how to iron a shirt nor boil a pot of water to steep
her own tea. But she has servants, my cousin reminded,
triumphantly fishing out the last pairable card
from my hand before flushing the Queen out in plain
view— And she took trips abroad, I knew: to Spain,
where she bought that cologne she liked to wear
that smelled of violets. She came from old stock,
a family with an estate somewhere in Batangas. Still,
everyone pitied her, though she knew music, both scales
and solfeggio, and therefore, now I think, more than
a little math— Only embroidery and crochet
besides piano, and no English at all though times
had changed. Our fathers and mothers brought us to her
so she could add to our repertoire of skills to fluff out
at some appropriate time: our coming out? some grand
debut? She led my fingers through exercises
on the weighted keys, the first of many teachers
in succession until at fifteen I played in my first
solo recital. By then, we heard she’d died, more alone
than in her former life, after a season of wasting
away on a hospital bed in the capital. And by then
I’d grown weary of the discipline of only scales,
abandoned dreams that others had for me of entering
conservatory. I longed to plunge ahead into that more
open field called college, where I’d glimpsed
flashes of other lives I might perhaps slip into;
and, after the silences of the library, the dim
musk of folk-houses filling after dusk with smoke
and tambourines, plaintive with Dylan or Simon and Garfunkel
—music against which our bodies strained to find each other.
* By pairs
Tuesday, rain, distant thunder;
and this restlessness
beneath my ribs.
I cannot pinpoint its source
though I’ve felt it before.
Ghost of a deep-
seated longing, skeleton
of a self looking upon itself
as though through other selves—
like rain pouring down in a room,
but always just a few steps
ahead of the moving body.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
(Lord’s day). Up before 5 o’clock and alone at setting my Brampton papers to rights according to my father’s and my computation and resolution the other day to my good content, I finding that there will be clear saved to us 50l. per annum, only a debt of it may be 100l.
So made myself ready and to church, where Sir W. Pen showed me the young lady which young Dawes, that sits in the new corner-pew in the church, hath stole away from Sir Andrew Rickard, her guardian, worth 1000l. per annum present, good land, and some money, and a very well-bred and handsome lady: he, I doubt, but a simple fellow. However, he got this good luck to get her, which methinks I could envy him with all my heart. Home to dinner with my wife, who not being very well did not dress herself but staid at home all day, and so I to church in the afternoon and so home again, and up to teach Ashwell the grounds of time and other things on the tryangle, and made her take out a Psalm very well, she having a good ear and hand. And so a while to my office, and then home to supper and prayers, to bed, my wife and I having a little falling out because I would not leave my discourse below with her and Ashwell to go up and talk with her alone upon something she has to say. She reproached me but I had rather talk with any body than her, by which I find I think she is jealous of my freedom with Ashwell, which I must avoid giving occasion of.
a paper heart to teach
the rounds of a triangle
her good hand falling
on a roach
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 3 May 1663.
The figs are starting to come in
on the tree in the backyard,
I tell my neighbor. And she says
her sister put in the tree
years ago when she still owned
the house that we now live in.
They give us such pleasure,
I say of the figs. Well I’m glad,
says my neighbor, though my sister
no longer gives me any.
Being weary last night, I slept till almost seven o’clock, a thing I have not done many a day. So up and to my office (being come to some angry words with my wife about neglecting the keeping of the house clean, I calling her beggar, and she me pricklouse, which vexed me) and there all the morning. So to the Exchange and then home to dinner, and very merry and well pleased with my wife, and so to the office again, where we met extraordinary upon drawing up the debts of the Navy to my Lord Treasurer.
So rose and up to Sir W. Pen to drink a glass of bad syder in his new far low dining room, which is very noble, and so home, where Captain Ferrers and his lady are come to see my wife, he being to go the beginning of next week to France to sea and I think to fetch over my young Lord Hinchinbroke. They being gone I to my office to write letters by the post, and so home to supper and to bed.
weary as a clock
I neglect keeping clean
a louse vexed the ex
and me well pleased
I draw a rose
drink a glass of bad cider
and go to France to write
letters home
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 2 May 1663.
Up betimes and my father with me, and he and I all the morning and Will Stankes private, in my wife’s closet above, settling our matters concerning our Brampton estate, &c., and I find that there will be, after all debts paid within 100l., 50l. per annum clear coming towards my father’s maintenance, besides 25l. per annum annuities to my Uncle Thomas and Aunt Perkins. Of which, though I was in my mind glad, yet thought it not fit to let my father know it thoroughly, but after he had gone out to visit my uncle Thomas and brought him to dinner with him, and after dinner I got my father, brother Tom, and myself together, I did make the business worse to them, and did promise 20l. out of my own purse to make it 50l. a year to my father, propounding that Stortlow may be sold to pay 200l. for his satisfaction therein and the rest to go towards payment of debts and legacies. The truth is I am fearful lest my father should die before debts are paid, and then the land goes to Tom and the burden of paying all debts will fall upon the rest of the land. Not that I would do my brother any real hurt. I advised my father to good husbandry and to living within the compass of 50l. a year, and all in such kind words, as not only made, them but myself to weep, and I hope it will have a good effect. That being done, and all things agreed on, we went down, and after a glass of wine we all took horse, and I, upon a horse hired of Mr. Game, saw him out of London, at the end of Bishopsgate Street, and so I turned and rode, with some trouble, through the fields, and then Holborn, &c., towards Hide Park, whither all the world, I think, are going, and in my going, almost thither, met W. Howe coming galloping upon a little crop black nag; it seems one that was taken in some ground of my Lord’s, by some mischance being left by his master, a thief; this horse being found with black cloth ears on, and a false mayne, having none of his own; and I back again with him to the Chequer, at Charing Cross, and there put up my own dull jade, and by his advice saddled a delicate stone–horse of Captain Ferrers’s, and with that rid in state to the Park, where none better mounted than I almost, but being in a throng of horses, seeing the King’s riders showing tricks with their managed horses, which were very strange, my stone-horse was very troublesome, and begun to, fight with other horses, to the dangering him and myself, and with much ado I got out, and kept myself out of harm’s way.
Here I saw nothing good, neither the King, nor my Lady Castlemaine, nor any great ladies or beauties being there, there being more pleasure a great deal at an ordinary day; or else those few good faces that there were choked up with the many bad ones, there being people of all sorts in coaches there, to some thousands, I think.
Going thither in the highway, just by the Park gate, I met a boy in a sculler boat, carried by a dozen people at least, rowing as hard as he could drive, it seems upon some wager.
By and by, about seven or eight o’clock, homeward; and changing my horse again, I rode home, coaches going in great crowds to the further end of the town almost. In my way, in Leadenhall Street, there was morris-dancing which I have not seen a great while. So set my horse up at Game’s, paying 5s. for him. And so home to see Sir J. Minnes, who is well again, and after staying talking with him awhile, I took leave and went to hear Mrs. Turner’s daughter, at whose house Sir J. Minnes lies, play on the harpsicon; but, Lord! it was enough to make any man sick to hear her; yet I was forced to commend her highly.
So home to supper and to bed, Ashwell playing upon the tryangle very well before I went to bed.
This day Captain Grove sent me a side of pork, which was the oddest present, sure, that was ever made any man; and the next, I remember I told my wife, I believe would be a pound of candles, or a shoulder of mutton; but the fellow do it in kindness, and is one I am beholden to.
So to bed very weary, and a little galled for lack of riding, praying to God for a good journey to my father, of whom I am afeard, he being so lately ill of his pain.
all morning in my mind with no compass
I turn towards the world
going on a delicate stone horse
to see the stone faces of the crowd
I hear lies enough
to make any man sick
the oddest present
would be a pound of candles for God
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 1 May 1663.
Up, and after drinking my morning draft with my father and W. Stankes, I went forth to Sir W. Batten, who is going (to no purpose as he uses to do) to Chatham upon a survey.
So to my office, where till towards noon, and then to the Exchange, and back home to dinner, where Mrs. Hunt, my father, and W. Stankes; but, Lord! what a stir Stankes makes with his being crowded in the streets and wearied in walking in London, and would not be wooed by my wife and Ashwell to go to a play, nor to White Hall, or to see the lyons, though he was carried in a coach. I never could have thought there had been upon earth a man so little curious in the world as he is.
At the office all the afternoon till 9 at night, so home to cards with my father, wife, and Ashwell, and so to bed.
who on a hunt
would not be wooed by lions
I never could have thought
there had been upon earth
a man so little curious
the world is all cards and ash
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 30 April 1663.