Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
This blue
is the sea we crossed
This depth
the ground we thought
we covered
Each day the sounds
of heat
from an unseen hive
The industry
of water on slate
Everything repeats
as we have come
to know—
As if there are
things that can
be done over
In response to Via Negativa: Sea dream.
We two are travellers
in a single dream.
Face up we float
together on a painted sea.
If we close our eyes,
we can drink the scent
of lilies, sense the touch
of angels’ wings.
We are bathing
in impastoed depths.
We are summoned
by siren songs of blue.
If we swim to shore,
escape the frame,
we shall not meet again.
Travellers in a Single Dream, a painting by Victoria Crowe
Half of my life
passing behind me—
Late night,
still drawn
to the light’s
blinking cursor—
I drink from the cup
more slowly.
In response to Via Negativa: Perspective.
Up and by water with Commissioner Pett to Deptford, and there looked over the yard, and had a call, wherein I am very highly pleased with our new manner of call-books, being my invention. Thence thinking to have gone down to Woolwich in the Charles pleasure boat, but she run aground, it being almost low water, and so by oars to the town, and there dined, and then to the yard at Mr. Ackworth’s, discoursing with the officers of the yard about their stores of masts, which was our chief business, and having done something therein, took boat and to the pleasure boat, which was come down to fetch us back, and I could have been sick if I would in going, the wind being very fresh, but very pleasant it was, and the first time I have sailed in any one of them. It carried us to Cuckold’s Point, and so by oars to the Temple, it raining hard, where missed speaking with my cosen Roger, and so walked home and to my office; there spent the night till bed time, and so home to supper and to bed.
water or ground
which was our sure boat
the wind in a sail
one of them is speaking
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 20 February 1662/63.
In those days we kept
a wire cage full of them
on the porch— paired,
the grey-headed and black-
collared ones; the females
mostly green, flushed beaks,
white eye-rings. Their feathers
filtered morning light a second
time that passed through leaves
of the guava tree, the redolence
of ginger flowers; at night
they made their own susurrus
behind the tarp we lowered
to shelter them from cold.
What perversity of human
nature made us want
to read in them analogy
after analogy? —The year
we fought so bitterly
over every little thing,
the year we found body
after body fallen
into viral lethargy
and stasis. Then every
last bird took its leave
and none would fledge again.
In response to Via Negativa: Blinded.
You came.
You saw.
You conquered.
Close to five
centuries after our
supposed discovery—
Close to seventy
some years
after that program
of liberation—
Well?
Those cities
bombed to ash
teem with call
centers and
terrible traffic.
In forest towns
the women begin
all weaving
by planting the eye
of a hurricane
in the middle
of their mats.
Patience
is an analog
virtue. All
who’ve lived
on the margins
practice daily.
Up and to my office, where abundance of business all the morning. Dined by my wife’s bedside, she not being yet well. We fell out almost upon my discourse of delaying the having of Ashwell, where my wife believing that I have a mind to have Pall, which I have not, though I could wish she did deserve to be had. So to my office, where by and by we sat, this afternoon being the first we have met upon a great while, our times being changed because of the parliament sitting. Being rose, I to my office till twelve at night, drawing out copies of the overcharge of the Navy, one to send to Mr. Coventry early to-morrow. So home and to bed, being weary, sleepy, and my eyes begin to fail me, looking so long by candlelight upon white paper.
This day I read the King’s speech to the Parliament yesterday; which is very short, and not very obliging; but only telling them his desire to have a power of indulging tender consciences, not that he will yield to have any mixture in the uniformity of the Church’s discipline; and says the same for the Papists, but declares against their ever being admitted to have any offices or places of trust in the kingdom; but, God knows, too many have.
morning fell almost as a pall
over the bed
my eyes fail me looking so long
upon white uniformity
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 19 February 1662/63.
I have had many dreams
in which I am desperate
to find a bathroom—
In one, I walked in circles
through a house full of people:
the lights were blazing;
the women were like tufted flowers
in their ball gowns. I tried
door after door only to find
myself in a parlor where the rugs
were deep crimson, and skeleton keys
dangled in lieu of crystals
from the chandelier. There was only
a grand piano, and a piano seat
with its hinged lid
suggestively open—
In another, I walked
out of a desert and into a house
where the unseen owner demanded
my capture. There I sat
on an actual toilet only to know
I would be apprehended and detained
the minute I stepped out
of the bathroom. A hand slid
my ransom note under the door
then retreated. I calculated the sums
and asked myself what it all meant.
Through a skylight I glimpsed
the moon’s trapdoor receding
in the sky. Doves cooed
on the patio, their voices
muted by linen curtains.
In response to Via Negativa: Sacred time.
Up, leaving my wife sick as last night in bed. I to my office all the morning, casting up with Captain Cocke their accounts of 500 tons of hemp brought from Riga, and bought by him and partners upon account, wherein are many things worth my knowledge. So at noon to dinner, taking Mr. Hater with me because of losing them, and in the afternoon he and I alone at the office, finishing our account of the extra charge of the Navy, not properly belonging to the Navy, since the King’s coming in to Christmas last; and all extra things being abated, I find that the true charge of the Navy to that time hath been after the rate of 374,743l. a-year. I made an end by eleven o’clock at night, and so home to bed almost weary.
This day the Parliament met again, after their long prorogation; but I know not any thing what they have done, being within doors all day.
I bought many things worth my hate
alone at the office
coming into Christmas time
the year is again a door
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 18 February 1662/63.
We dine on gruel and despair,
our Lenten deprivation.
We hear the creatures scurry
in the attic. We hope
they will dine on the cheese
we’ve left in the traps.
The dog hides in the bathtub.
Once he only hid during storms.
Now he seems to crave the cool
enamel, the clean curves
holding him.
The teenagers keep their evening
plans, despite the threat
of precipitation. You light
the fire, in the hope
that the hearth will lead
them back to safety.
I finger the well-worn beads
brought to this country
in a different century, prayers
lifted in a different language.
Inspired by Dave Bonta’s “In/mates” and Luisa A. Igloria’s “Niyebe” and ““Depth of Field.”