A lump lodged in the toe of a shoe. When I shook it out,
it was a spider large as a fourth of my hand, all brilliant
filaments. Dark body now gone: still I feel you twitching.
In response to Via Negativa: Default.
The Seafarer
All things go to sea;
I went to fat.
All things wash to bed,
I cold and coughing.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 11 March 1659/60.
Foolish
“In a painted sea, what to write?
A letter taking tomorrow back?” ~ D. Bonta
When the tide was low, I walked and loved the water and the sugary sand. When it was high, I stayed my careful distance and fingered threads, turned pages, steeped tea, listened to the murmur of voices in public rooms. They came and went, as if there were no tomorrow. I loved the varied colors of their customs, their buttonholes and hatbands, the air suffused with smells of tobacco leaf or oranges or lavender; I loved their dark heels of stacked wood, their calves wrapped in supple leather. Wind sped through the trees, which shed their leaves then budded as the season turned. Once, flying in as evening broke and the cities below filled out their grids with light, I watched as a couple kissed and kissed in their airplane seats. They sank into each other as if the air was tasteless, as if the sky was lackluster, as if their need for delirium was the color of the sun as it seized then disappeared at the rim of the sea. I wish you were foolish with me like that, I wish you’d come to me as if I were the last cool drink of water forever and forever in the world.
In response to Via Negativa: Out of Order.
Default
We let treasure rest—
sun on fish.
We breakfast on trouble,
continue in absence,
say no to fox and fool
and so go knitting: to be.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 10 March 1659/60.
Out of Order
In a painted sea, what to write?
A letter taking tomorrow back?
But we sat and drank till drunk
and began to talk foolishly.
How to change?
I drink drink drink, for I find
it puts me out of order
in the name of liberty,
king for a day.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 9 March 1659/60.
Nuthatch calls to nuthatch, wren to wren—
and the limpid silence in between is a braid
that proves there is no difference: there is pain
anywhere, and there are brief moments made
of flame. You feed me soup or bread, then
kiss the tips of my fingers. And yes, I am afraid
when the wind’s dark voices warn that we won’t finish
what we started— Ardent love, wild hope: don’t vanish.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Lucre
White-hot and a black burn:
mind and face.
I look for direction,
see money and a petticoat.
I have taken up with that dog,
that plenipotentiary death.
What a great profit I made.
How I cheated.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 8 March 1659/60.
Better
It is better to be here
rather than anywhere else,
better to watch the wind
gusting through the trees
from behind glass, better
to drowse on the wooden bench
indoors in the chapel open
to all travelers than out
in the park where the water
has frozen in the fountain—
And it is better to find
a lucky penny on the floor
outside the washroom
than under the rim
of the urinal, better
to fill your water
bottle at the tap
than buy expensive
bottled— Better
to shun the noise
of a thousand
chattering voices
for a quiet hour in
an alcove, better
to lie on a woven mat
smelling of wood-smoke
than on an old mattress
that has not been
certified without fleas—
And I could think of any
number of things it would
be better to be
than other kinds
of things, but you
would agree it is better
when sleep overtakes you,
not sorrow; when joy
is a seed the wind could loft
into the air and you could
think it possible to follow—
In response to Via Negativa: Ash Wednesday.
Ash Wednesday
Ash overtook me, all joy
only a seed on the wind.
I went to the alley and bought a cat
and a good piece of cheese, I wonder why.
As if it is better to be here
than anywhere else.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 7 March 1659/60.
Each thing called up dissolves
“Agony is only a story I tell myself.” – seon joon
Be still I tell my heart when it startles almost out of its dress or when it jumps at the sound of thunder—
Be still for that loud report like a gun from an upstairs bedroom is only a heavy framed mirror falling from its flimsy wall hook and breaking on the floor—
Be still for that commotion in the schoolyard is an old-fashioned chase for no other reason but that school is out, not a fight being broken up by cops—
Be still as the little plane stuffed with travelers’ belongings idles on the icy tarmac as bits of frost flower at the window’s edge and the captain’s voice comes over the speakers announcing a third, maybe not final, delay—
Be still as the small machines blink to life on the night table with a message from halfway or more around the world, which can only mean either very good news or very bad news—
Be still in the middle of the airport terminal, Concourse C, ticketing, though your eyes are puffy with tears from hugging a friend you have not seen in 22 years and you know your flight to Boston is the last one out for the day because of a winter storm, but it doesn’t matter now because she is telling you that during her last visit to your hometown, she had a crypt made for her use “in the near future,” next to the one holding the ashes of her son—
Be still, be still, because this is merely another veil like the unseasonal snow falling softly outside, stenciling the trees whose branches were just beginning to send out little buds of green, beautiful points of ice shriveling the pink tissue of early crepe myrtles—
And be still when you recognize a famous poet in the crowded elevator, and you note the frailness of her bones through the unnatural pallor of her skin, and how when the doors open on her floor she sighs to her husband, I don’t know what I want to do—
In response to thus: Each thing called up dissolves.