Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
The sky shakes its maracas and the sound falls in broken pieces. What do we know of eternity? After the warning sirens, egrets come back to fish in the shallows. A man takes off his shoes to walk in the flooded street.
Rose betimes and abroad in one shirt, which brought me a great cold and pain. Murford took me to Harvey’s by my father’s to drink and told me of a business that I hope to get 5l. by.
To my Lord, and so to White Hall with him about the Clerk of the Privy Seal’s place, which he is to have.
Then to the Admiralty, where I wrote some letters. Here Coll. Thompson told me, as a great secret; that the Nazeby was on fire when the King was there, but that is not known; when God knows it is quite false. Got a piece of gold from Major Holmes for the horse of Dixwell’s I brought to town.
Dined at Mr. Crew’s, and after dinner with my Lord to Whitehall. Court attendance infinite tedious. Back with my Lord to my Lady Wright’s and staid till it had done raining, which it had not done a great while.
After that at night home to my father’s and to bed.
a road brought me the sea
as a great secret
but now god knows
it is a horse of infinite rain
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 16 June 1660.
The sight of it makes grown men weak in the knees. Others are driven to near hysteria, panic that blanks out emergency numbers, or freezes fingers that once passed first aid and CPR courses. The taste of it pools down the throat after tipping back the head in a nosebleed, after the reflex sucking when a nicked finger flies to the mouth— hard to believe the body carries only an average of five liters, or a volume equivalent to two and a half bottles of Coke. In sleep, when you bite the inside of your cheek, don't your dreams seem curtained in crimson plush?
All the morning at the Commissioners of the Navy about getting out my bill for 50l. for the last quarter, which I got done with a great deal of ease, which is not common.
After that with Mr. Turner to the Dolphin and drunk, and so by water to W. Symons, where D. Scobell with his wife, a pretty and rich woman. Mrs. Symons, a very fine woman, very merry after dinner with marrying of Luellin and D. Scobell’s kinswoman that was there. Then to my Lord who told me how the King has given him the place of the great Wardrobe.
My Lord resolves to have Sarah again. I to my father’s, and then to see my uncle and aunt Fenner. So home and to bed.
morning of my last one
no common drunk
a bell is a fine woman
with an old wardrobe
again my fathers
see me to bed
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 15 June 1660.
what does it mean
to be an object
under the soft hammers
of rain on the roof
to waken in the night
with the sky at all the windows
what does it mean
to be a subject
a hummingbird buzzing
somewhere over my head
returning to its perfect teacup nest
in the last rays of sun
what does it mean for subject
and object to merge
peering up from the hollow
of a tree after rain
my own face
as startled as a deer
Yesterday, in the heat we parted leafy clumps to pluck gleaming fruit from the tree—and I will never get over how they ripen from stone- green to fleshy pulp inside, despite our inconstant care: only this season's infrequent rains, somehow, have sustained them. When the wet months begin in the Northern Territory, the water-holding frog digs itself out of the underground where it has kept itself cocooned inside its skin for two, even three, improbable years. In scarcity, the body learns to draw into itself and use the least amount of energy. Aboriginal peoples in the desert who know every part of a plant can be used—lilies and tubers, stalk and seed— have learned to drink water straight from the frog. In scarcity, the body is a divining rod tapping for sustenance. But in scarcity, sometimes it feels incapable of giving up its last stores.
Up to my Lord and from him to the Treasurer of the Navy for 500l.. After that to a tavern with Washington the Purser, very gallant, and ate and drank. To Mr. Crew’s and laid my money.
To my Lady Pickering with the plate that she did give my Lord the other day.
Then to Will’s and met William Symons and Doling and Luellin, and with them to the Bull–head, and then to a new alehouse in Brewer’s Yard, where Winter that had the fray with Stoakes, and from them to my father’s.
a treasure of ash
on my plate
I give my bull head
a new winter
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 14 June 1660.
Turbulence across the water, curtains of smoke. Through the harbor, ships come, having sailed from far away. Port, meaning a place where something enters the body; a bay, or cove, or inlet. Even in our houses with sealed windows, we smell the char of forests for days.
- after Leonora Carrington, "And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur" (1953) In the heart of our labyrinth where orbs float from table to floor and the ghost dogs pause before coitus, we find you whole and untroubled. The reddest thing here is a rose: disheveled, it will not turn into a ball of twine or a blinking signal on a hand-held GPS. In the heart of a snail, in the eye of a whorl— a petal tumbles like a clean white sheet in the dryer whereas the floating clouds need one more cycle. A weed's delicate blossom waves from the head of a departing figure: perhaps she'll find what she is looking for inside a rune or a tarot. Perhaps the light is brighter in the upper regions, though it isn't always so.
To my Lord’s and thence to the Treasurer’s of the Navy, with Mr. Creed and Pierce the Purser to Rawlinson’s, whither my uncle Wight came, and I spent 12s. upon them. So to Mr. Crew’s, where I blotted a new carpet that was hired, but got it out again with fair water.
By water with my Lord in a boat to Westminster, and to the Admiralty, now in a new place.
After business done there to the Rhenish wine-house with Mr. Blackburne, Creed, and Wivell.
So to my Lord’s lodging and to my father’s, and to bed.
sand in the water
water in a boat
the admiral in wine
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 13 June 1660.