Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Meaning by chance, unintended.
Meaning, inspired by an occasion.
Or no particular occasion, just
the occasion of the everyday.
Issa wrote about snow
melting, and the dewdrop
world. About a snail inching
up a great mountain.
This is our life, made of small
moments. Hearing the call
of a bird, resonant
as a bell, longing
and desire become
indistinguishable.
Up, and got our people together as soon as we could; and after eating a dish of cold cream, which was my supper last night too, we took leave of our beggarly company, though they seem good people, too; and over most sad Fenns, all the way observing the sad life which the people of the place which if they be born there, they do call the Breedlings’ of the place, do live, sometimes rowing from one spot to another, and then wadeing, to Wisbeach, a pretty town, and a fine church and library, where sundry very old abbey manuscripts; and a fine house, built on the church ground by Secretary Thurlow, and a fine gallery built for him in the church, but now all in the Bishop of Ely’s hands. After visiting the church, &c., we went out of the towne, by the help of a stranger, to find out one Blinkhorne, a miller, of whom we might inquire something of old Day’s disposal of his estate, and in whose hands it now is; and by great chance we met him, and brought him to our inn to dinner; and instead of being informed in his estate by this fellow, we find that he is the next heir to the estate, which was matter, of great sport to my cozen Thomas and me, to see such a fellow prevent us in our hopes, he being Day’s brother’s, daughter’s son, whereas we are but his sister’s sons and grandsons; so that, after all, we were fain to propose our matter to him, and to get him to give us leave to look after the business, and so he to have one-third part, and we two to have the other two-third parts, of what should be recovered of the estate, which he consented to; and after some discourse and paying the reckoning, we mounted again, and rode, being very merry at our defeat, to Chatteris, my uncle very weary, and after supper, and my telling of three stories, to their good liking, of spirits, we all three in a chamber went to bed.
a beggar in the library
dry old manuscripts
of hands
in the church of thin chance
we find him telling stories
to the spirits
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 18 September 1663.
Up, and my father being gone to bed ill last night and continuing so this morning, I was forced to come to a new consideration, whether it was fit for to let my uncle and his son go to Wisbeach about my uncle Day’s estate alone or no, and concluded it unfit; and so resolved to go with them myself, leaving my wife there, I begun a journey with them, and with much ado, through the fens, along dikes, where sometimes we were ready to have our horses sink to the belly, we got by night, with great deal of stir and hard riding, to Parson’s Drove, a heathen place, where I found my uncle and aunt Perkins, and their daughters, poor wretches! in a sad, poor thatched cottage, like a poor barn, or stable, peeling of hemp, in which I did give myself good content to see their manner of preparing of hemp; and in a poor condition of habitt took them to our miserable inn, and there, after long stay, and hearing of Frank, their son, the miller, play, upon his treble, as he calls it, with which he earns part of his living, and singing of a country bawdy song, we sat down to supper; the whole crew, and Frank’s wife and child, a sad company, of which I was ashamed, supped with us. And after supper I, talking with my aunt about her report concerning my uncle Day’s will and surrender, I found her in such different reports from what she writes and says to the people, and short of what I expected, that I fear little will be done of good in it. By and by newes is brought to us that one of our horses is stole out of the stable, which proves my uncle’s, at which I am inwardly glad — I mean, that it was not mine; and at this we were at a great loss; and they doubting a person that lay at next door, a Londoner, some lawyer’s clerk, we caused him to be secured in his bed, and other care to be taken to seize the horse; and so about twelve at night or more, to bed in a sad, cold, nasty chamber, only the mayde was indifferent handsome, and so I had a kiss or two of her, and I to bed, and a little after I was asleep they waked me to tell me that the horse was found, which was good newes, and so to sleep till the morning, but was bit cruelly, and nobody else of our company, which I wonder at, by the gnatts.
a fat night
to fit in the belly
heathen like a barn
or a bawdy song
the whole company
of supper people
inwardly
was not mine
a person used to his bed
and the sad kiss of gnats
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 17 September 1663.
"Every day is a god, each day is a god."
~ Annie Dillard
You buy fruit when you can: mangoes, peaches, cherries
for their polislhed crimson globes, pears for their green
dimpled hips. Pilled high in bins at the store, apples look
like they're glowing from within because they've been
coated with carnauba or candelilla wax. An apple a day
keeps the doctor away, your mother would chant, washing
then peeling a Red Delicious apple bought from the post
exchange market where you could get "Stateside" goods.
Expensive, but worth it if it would bring your appetite back,
your health, the health of the one languishing in bed
from long illness. It's as if a god had put a miracle in
the fruit, or a god was in the fruit itself, waiting for
the merest chance to show its benevolence. If a bruise
darkens the cheek of a peach overnight, if the toilet
on your office floor smells like something died in there
or if the mail brings you alarming test results, are these,
then, also some kind of message from the divine?
Every day, you keep some kind of tally: how many cups
of coffee before noon, how much rain came down to flood
the interection, who called and left how many voicemails?
Every evening, you rinse the plates after dinner with a soapy
sponge. You draw the blinds close, heat water for tea.
The car swerving without warning into your lane just
narrowly missed you. You gave a reference for
a former student. All the things you managed to do
and say Yes to before the day, or the god, shut the door.
My youngest daughter remembers us
stopping at little hotels during family trips.
She says she feels a certain type of nostalgia
for the free-though-you-know-it’s-not-really-
free breakfasts, where there are waffle machines
you load with batter and flip over. When the beeper
goes off, you pry your breakfast from the gridded
skillet with the tip of a plastic knife and slide it onto
a paper plate. Almost made from scratch, but better
than the sad precooked pancakes in the store’s
freezer section, their taste and texture like the boxes
they’re packed in. “Convenience” is the reason
offered for almost everything “streamlined” or
“deliverable”—meaning speed, meaning you shouldn’t
have to work so hard or spend all day writing memos,
summarizing documents, reading the book, drafting
a first draft. Surveys report that 86% of college
students use AI in school. Fewer adults read books
for pleasure, and only 34% of children said they enjoyed
reading in their free time. Once, a book could be a tent
lit up with a flashlight, the wilderness of night kept
outside with a cosy blanket fort. My colleague told
her literature class to find two examples for each
of the literary terms in their book: simile, metaphor,
metonymy, conflict, rising action, irony. They blinked
and acted stupefied. What do you mean? they said,
as if she’d asked them to separate lentils and pebbles
with dented spoons. Imagine waffles and pancakes
not just landing on conveyor belts, but coming
to you pre-buttered, pre-masticated, stamped
with a complimentary phrase from Shakespeare.
Up betimes, and with my wife to Hinchingbroke to see my Lady, she being to go to my Lord this morning, and there I left her, and so back to the Court, and heard Sir R. Bernard’s charges to the Courts Baron and Leete, which took up till noon, and were worth hearing, and after putting my business into some way, went home to my father’s to dinner, and after dinner to the Court, where Sir Robert and his son came again by and by, and then to our business, and my father and I having given bond to him for the 21l. Piggott owed him, my uncle Thomas did quietly admit himself and surrender to us the lands first mortgaged for our whole debt, and Sir Robert added to it what makes it up 209l., to be paid in six months. But when I came to give him an account of more lands to be surrendered to us, wherein Piggott’s wife was concerned, and she there to give her consent, Sir Robert would not hear of it, but began to talk very high that we were very cruel, and we had caution enough for our money, and he could not in conscience let the woman do it, and reproached my uncle, both he and his son, with taking use upon use for this money. To all which I did give him such answers and spoke so well, and kept him so to it, that all the Court was silent to hear us, and by report since do confess they did never hear the like in the place. But he by a wile had got our bond, and I was content to have as much as I could though I could not get all, and so took Piggott’s surrender of them without his wife, and by Sir Robert’s own consent did tell the Court that if the money were not paid in the time, and the security prove not sufficient, I would conclude myself wronged by Sir Robert, which he granted I should do.
This kept us till night, but am heartily glad it ended so well on my uncle’s part, he doing that and Prior’s little house very willingly. So the Court broke up, and my father and Mr. Shepley and I to Gorrum’s to drink, and then I left them, and to the Bull, where my uncle was to hear what he and the people said of our business, and here nothing but what liked me very well. So by and by home and to supper, and with my mind in pretty good quiett, to bed.
her ring put me
into debt
I surrendered
my answers
kept silent
to hear the heart
like a little bull
in a well
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 16 September 1663.
What I mean is
will you read all of it, or
only the first ten pages?
Will you come at it
with a slide rule or a ruler,
or a more abstract measure
of error? Sometimes
it takes longer to work
on common mistakes.
The more difficult
to detect are the product
of some kind of subtle
engineering. Harder
to undo, until they are no
longer abstract, or
a fine line has been
crossed, broken, restructured,
embargoed, or banned.
Up pretty betimes and rode as far as Godmanchester, Mr. Moore having two falls, once in water and another in dirt, and there ‘light and eat and drunk, being all of us very weary, but especially my uncle and wife. Thence to Brampton to my father’s, and there found all well, but not sensible how they ought to treat my uncle and his son, at least till the Court be over, which vexed me, but on my counsel they carried it fair to them; and so my father, cozen Thomas, and I up to Hinchingbroke, where I find my Lord and his company gone to Boughton, which vexed me; but there I find my Lady and the young ladies, and there I alone with my Lady two hours, she carrying me through every part of the house and gardens, which are, and will be, mighty noble indeed. Here I saw Mrs. Betty Pickering, who is a very well-bred and comely lady, but very fat. Thence, without so much as drinking, home with my father and cozen, who staid for me, and to a good supper; after I had had an hour’s talk with my father abroad in the fields, wherein he begun to talk very highly of my promises to him of giving him the profits of Sturtlow, as if it were nothing that I give him out of my purse, and that he would have me to give this also from myself to my brothers and sister; I mean Brampton and all, I think: I confess I was angry to hear him talk in that manner, and took him up roundly in it, and advised him if he could not live upon 50l. per ann., which was another part of his discourse, that he would think to come and live at Tom’s again, where 50l. per ann. will be a good addition to Tom’s trade, and I think that must be done when all is done. But my father spoke nothing more of it all the time I was in the country, though at the time he seemed to like it well enough. I also spoke with Piggott too this evening before I went in to supper, and doubt that I shall meet with some knots in my business to-morrow before I can do it at the Court, but I shall do my best.
After supper my uncle and his son to Stankes’s to bed, which troubles me, all our father’s beds being lent to Hinchingbroke, and so my wife and I to bed, she very weary.
god of water and dirt
well up
through every part
of the garden
I would give
as I could live
like a pig
for supper
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 15 September 1663.
Your therapist reminds you that neither fear
nor hypervigilance are equivalent to devotion.
Roses in the bowl wilt despite the flower food
you stirred into the water. Hinges will rust
from being out in sun and rain, eventually
making it hard to push open or close
the gate. But you have a hard time separating
from scenes of disaster that play constantly
in your head. Has something terrible happened
if you don't hear from one of your daughters?
Does the silence in the alcove mean your spouse
has fallen into an irreversible trance? Light leaks
through the blinds. Spores speckle the undersides
of mushrooms that shoot up overnight after rain.
The moon comes out of hiding, its face gashed
with shadow, puffy from the blunt force of wind.
"I am a little breath that always goes the distance
Longing requires...." ~ Larry Levis
It is flooding in the south and in the north
and all the islands between, so the rice crops
shed their pearls before any harvest
and ferry boats topple their load
into the mouth of the bay. This was
a country with two seasons. But now
there is only one, into which whole towns
disappear, all the way to their church steeples.
When everything we used to know is erased
from the face of the earth, where does our
longing go? As evening fell, when I was a child
I would turn my eyes to the hills, crowned
by two radar dishes and a haunted seminary.
We lived at the bottom of this teacup, and
the world lay somewhere beyond.
Archimedes discovered that an object
submerged in liquid displaces a volume
equal to that of itself. How long
has it been since we were tipped out,
since we fell from the rim? We strain
to hear the sound a pebble makes
bouncing off rock, arriving.