Cabbage Mind

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

O infinity of papers, give a piece of me
to the surgeon, to soldiers, to the town
where I seem a dull heavy man.
I had a mind to some cabbage,
I sent for some and had it.
A strange thing how I am
already in the book
of rain and night.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 14 March 1659/60.

Pepys Noir

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

Rain.
I got up early.

I was deputy to trouble;
I could not talk.

A place other
than the void tonight?

I go out without
any qualification.

Doubt will be
the end of me.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 13 March 1659/60.

Watching TV in the ’70s

I can’t remember exactly when we got our first
television set, a black and white console
in a sliding cabinet on spindly legs designed
to blend in with the living room furniture—

It must have been sometime in ’75, in time
for the “Thrilla in Manila,” or the ’74
Ms. Universe pageant which Bob Barker hosted
and which a Spanish girl named Amparo won—

But I know we did not have it in ’66 when the Beatles
snubbed Imelda and were harassed by an angry mob
all the way to the airport. And in ’69 the neighbors
invited us over to watch the Apollo moon landing,

after which lunch was served, but I wanted to know
most of all where the bathroom was. We were among
the last on our street to get one, but the novelty
never quite wore off— Waiting for the jeepney

that would take me to school after breakfast,
I watched wire cleaner antennae rise up and down
from behind Ray Walston’s bumpy head in reruns
of “My Favorite Martian;” and when I returned

in the afternoon, there was “Darna,” “The Three
Stooges,” or pre-war Tagalog romances where
beautiful women with marcelled hair let men in suits
and two-tone shoes light their cigarettes— And we

had no idea the scene from “Singing in the Rain”
had black umbrellas and yellow raincoats,
but my father pronounced everything dashing
and debonair. And he most of all stayed up

to watch the “Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson; he sat
in his old bathrobe on an ottoman pulled up to the screen,
glued to “M.A.S.H.” or “I Love Lucy” or Bob Hope specials,
chuckling despite canned laughter and broadcast delays.

 

In response to Via Negativa: The Seafarer.

Unfinished

Is the moon spun of pearl, is it gathered
like honey and festooned with the smoke
from bitter herbs? Does milk foam better
with or without an egg in it? Is the bed
softer made or unmade, tousled by love
or not at all? Is a square of cotton or pressed
linen kinder for tears or for starch? And that
moment when the woman opens her eyes and looks
into the face of the one she walked away from
years ago— is that the depth or the height
of being, the tally of what has been lost
or found? I do not want to have to choose,
I do not wish to pare it down to just one
or the other— Everything is the ground
of our affections, everything is this moment—
the red dress you wear which is both brighter
and darker than flame, the surface of the table
which gleams like our skin, like our faces: rich
with the grains of the past and the not yet here—

 

In response to thus: close to the ground.

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.

Out of Order

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

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.