Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
the mountain looks old today
under its thin blanket of snow
valley sounds vanish
in a hush of wind
shadows sharpen
only to wink out
one tall black cherry
split open along a twist
groans and mutters
like a humpbacked whale
between the clouds
the unobtainable abyss
all the while the half-
thawed earth is surfacing
my feet start to slide on slush
and continue into mud
later a gravid moon
brings light without heat
one way to evade the grim
machinery of the stars
Here we float on rafts made of rubber boots; their strings were long enough to lash them together. Sea-going container ships ran aground and tipped their bales of dyed polyesters and pleather onto the sand. Everything glitterered, even in shreds, with the dust of unraveled wires. We remembered the last time we saw a crystal vase shining in window light, its throat packed with ruffled carnations. Farther north in the world, years ago we tunneled into a glacier's womb to shelve inventories of fruit and blossom and seed. Who knew the narrow-leaved campion could emerge again from permafrost?
Too much noise, too much light, or heat, or cold. Too much salt, so the body brims over. It's 7 AM and night has not delivered its promised ledge. Every random picture on a floating screen is barbed; every close- by presence, fading in and out. Some clear blue would be a catharsis; some knowledge that there's an end to suffering.
Lord’s day. Before I went to church I sang Orpheus’ Hymn to my viall. After that to Mr. Gunning’s, an excellent sermon upon charity. Then to my mother to dinner, where my wife and the maid were come. After dinner we three to Mr. Messum’s where we met Mons. L’Impertinent, who got us a seat and told me a ridiculous story how that last week he had caused a simple citizen to spend 80l. in entertainments of him and some friends of his upon pretence of some service that he would do him in his suit after a widow. Then to my mother again, and after supper she and I talked very high about religion, I in defence of the religion I was born in. Then home.
for Orpheus a moth
a ridiculous story
how simple to entertain
a pretense of some widow
and a fence of the religion
I was born in
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 4 March 1659/60.
drab brown woods:
one white mote floats down
then all at once the sky extends
her whole milky tongue
wet snow on my umbrella
whispers of collapse
evergreen woodferns fade
into fern-shaped shrouds
a pileated woodpecker’s laughter
is muffled by fog
all his improvements to a tree
must be getting whited out
everyone gets plastered
even the young pole timber
a few wood frogs still float
between the reflections of trees
as the dark pool fattens
on clumps of cloud
To Westminster Hall, where I found that my Lord was last night voted one of the Generals at Sea, and Monk the other. I met my Lord in the Hall, who bid me come to him at noon. I met with Mr. Pierce the purser, Lieut. Lambert, Mr. Creed, and Will. Howe, and went with them to the Sun tavern. Up to my office, but did nothing. At noon home to dinner to a sheep’s head. My brother Tom came and dined with me, and told me that my mother was not very well, and that my Aunt Fenner was very ill too. After dinner I to Warwick House, in Holborn, to my Lord, where he dined with my Lord of Manchester, Sir Dudley North, my Lord Fiennes, and my Lord Barkly. I staid in the great hall, talking with some gentlemen there, till they all come out. Then I, by coach with my Lord, to Mr. Crew’s, in our way talking of publick things, and how I should look after getting of his Commissioner’s despatch. He told me he feared there was new design hatching, as if Monk had a mind to get into the saddle. Here I left him, and went by appointment to Hering, the merchant, but missed of my money, at which I was much troubled, but could not help myself. Returning, met Mr. Gifford, who took me and gave me half a pint of wine, and told me, as I hear this day from many, that things are in a very doubtful posture, some of the Parliament being willing to keep the power in their hands. After I had left him, I met with Tom Harper, who took me into a place in Drury Lane, where we drank a great deal of strong water, more than ever I did in my life at one time before. He talked huge high that my Lord Protector would come in place again, which indeed is much discoursed of again, though I do not see it possible. Hence home and wrote to my father at Brampton by the post. So to bed.
This day I was told that my Lord General Fleetwood told my lord that he feared the King of Sweden is dead of a fever at Gottenburg.
the lord a lamb
the sun a sheep’s head
and me born to bark
I lick and I look
turning doubtful
of power
their life high and fat
as my old fever
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 3 March 1659/60.
Coming home from the doctor's with a new prescription for migraine— After I take it, it's hard to tell if the sleepy exhaustion that descends is a side effect. She'd asked: what's keeping you awake, what's keeping you stressed? Let's just say it's been a long time since a day simply stretched, a clean cotton sheet; mild ripples. I pack ice cubes into a flask before filling it with water. I'm always being reminded to hydrate, even through the suffering. My tongue flicks over the edges of my teeth, feels the gaps marking previous extractions. I can't think of the word maw without thinking of a portal to some layered underworld. Relatives and other people I don't even know huddle in every corner, keeping a running tally of my transgressions. Someone has turned up the heat, and I'm struggling with the zipper of a parka. If I knew how to be a fish or a bird, I'd want nothing but blue.
on a balmy first of March
the trees’ shadows barely rustle
in the ridgetop breeze
an odor of burning plastic
which might or might not have come
all the way from East Palestine
a propeller plane circles
no clouds to hide in
i sit surrounded by the uprooted
their dwindling bulks
like old axles each with just
one decaying wheel
misaligned a freight train
shrieks around the mountain
spine beginning to twinge
i walk on
It’s always such a gift and an honor when my artist friends make adaptations of my work. Marc Neys surprised me with this yesterday: a complete and I think effective re-imagining of the original poem. You know, what any attentive reader does. But most readers aren’t crazy-brilliant Belgian artist-composers.
This morning I went early to my Lord at Mr. Crew’s, where I spoke to him. Here were a great many come to see him, as Secretary Thurlow who is now by this Parliament chosen again Secretary of State. There were also General Monk’s trumpeters to give my Lord a sound of their trumpets this morning. Thence I went to my office, and wrote a letter to Mr. Downing about the business of his house. Then going home, I met with Mr. Eglin, Chetwind, and Thomas, who took me to the Leg in King’s street, where we had two brave dishes of meat, one of fish, a carp and some other fishes, as well done as ever I ate any. After that to the Swan tavern, where we drank a quart or two of wine, and so parted. So I to Mrs. Jem and took Mr. Moore with me (who I met in the street), and there I met W. Howe and Sheply. After that to Westminster Hall, where I saw Sir G. Booth at liberty. This day I hear the City militia is put into good posture, and it is thought that Monk will not be able to do any great matter against them now, if he have a mind.
I understand that my Lord Lambert did yesterday send a letter to the Council, and that to-night he is to come and appear to the Council in person. Sir Arthur Haselrigge do not yet appear in the House. Great is the talk of a single person, and that it would now be Charles, George, or Richard again. For the last of which, my Lord St. John is said to speak high. Great also is the dispute now in the House, in whose name the writs shall run for the next Parliament; and it is said that Mr. Prin, in open House, said, “In King Charles’s.”
From Westminster Hall home. Spent the evening in my study, and so after some talk with my wife, then to bed.
a trumpeter to trump the wind
one swan
high in that open house
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 2 March 1659/60.