Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Isn’t it a relief now to emerge
in that early hour artificially rigged
to provide a little more light?
You can see by the watermark
where the rocks go under
at high tide.
At the river’s edge,
a wading bird holds its pose
of asking-not-asking-just-being.
When you come back at the end
of the day you imagine it’s still there,
holding up its share, not being swallowed.
In response to Via Negativa: Obliterated.
I went to my office, where the money was again expected from the Excise office, but none brought, but was promised to be sent this afternoon. I dined with Mr. Sheply, at my Lord’s lodgings, upon his turkey-pie. And so to my office again; where the Excise money was brought, and some of it told to soldiers till it was dark.
Then I went home, and after writing a letter to my Lord and told him the news that the Parliament hath this night voted that the members that were discharged from sitting in the years 1648 and 49, were duly discharged; and that there should be writs issued presently for the calling of others in their places, and that Monk and Fairfax were commanded up to town, and that the Prince’s lodgings were to be provided for Monk at Whitehall.
Then my wife and I, it being a great frost, went to Mrs. Jem’s, in expectation to eat a sack-posset, but Mr. Edward not coming it was put off; and so I left my wife playing at cards with her, and went myself with my lanthorn to Mr. Fage, to consult concerning my nose, who told me it was nothing but cold, and after that we did discourse concerning public business; and he told me it is true the City had not time enough to do much, but they are resolved to shake off the soldiers; and that unless there be a free Parliament chosen, he did believe there are half the Common Council will not levy any money by order of this Parliament. From thence I went to my father’s, where I found Mrs. Ramsey and her grandchild, a pretty girl, and staid a while and talked with them and my mother, and then took my leave, only heard of an invitation to go to dinner to-morrow to my cosen Thomas Pepys.
I went back to Mrs. Jem, and took my wife and Mrs. Sheply, and went home.
in the dark home
the embers discharge their own
great city
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 5 January 1659/60. (See the original erasure.)
It was raining in London – serious rain with fast-flowing gutters and burst water mains – and I’d stopped serially internet-dating “Other-American” poets in order to hang out for a while with Jacques Brault. Both of these are from his first collection, Mémoire (1965).
Nameless
Here on the streets the water wails its old lament
Seagulls crash-land
I do not know your name know nothing any more
All these human shapes barely floating now in the gutters
Fingernails marred by eyelids
Smiles in the hollow of a groin
Jumbled faces in old windows
So many dead unadorned unlabelled
Melting in the sweet water
April casts its light and shadow on their graves
Water mingles our little hopes
Mutely agile not a bubble or an eddy
A volley of laughter rains down on the streets
Oh watery folly
The water’s soft lament against the tide of time
This murmuring of pale lips this wrinkling of old skin
All those who leave here are undone
And you scattered to the four winds
You whom I seek among these long tresses swept towards the sewers
But water runs its own business in its own way
A fine embroiderer of death’s complex designs
Water sews and re-sews a lovely length of fabric
As it flows
Anonyme
L’eau dans la rue se plaint d’une vieille plainte
Où se cassent des mouettes d’eau
Je ne sais ton nom je ne sais plus
Tant de formes humaines à peine coulent encore dans les caniveaux
Doigts à l’ongle embué de paupières
Sourires au creux de l’aine
Visages disjoints de vieilles fenêtres
Tant de morts sans collier ni bannière
Fondent en la douceur de l’eau
Avril sur les tombes met une ombre de lumière
L’eau raccorde les petits espoirs
Agile et muette et sans bulles ni remous
Une volée de rires qui s’abattent dans la rue
O folie de l’eau
La plainte de l’eau tout bas à contre-courant de l’heure
C’est un murmure de lèvres blanches un froissis de vieilles peaux
Tous ceux-là que s’en vont se défont
Et toi éparse çà et là
Toi que je cherche parmi les cheveux qui s’allongent vers l’égout
Mais l’eau mène bien son ouvroir et sa façon
Brodeuse fine des morts aux dessins compliqués
L’eau coud et recoud fait une belle étoffe longue
Et coule
Like All Those Others
You are the one invented by my gaze
like the shape of an ink blot on paper
and I am unafraid to speak my love
for you the way you are just as I fashion you
as my hands find themselves again upon your body
and the greedy expectancy of every day
the annunciation of a world scarcely beginning
the gestures of morning on a street corner
that snatch at a vagabond’s one instant of light
and this folly of feeling like your newest unborn child
I love you like all those others yesterday tomorrow
still learning this old refrain learning it always
I love you in the future wind in the rubble of fear
love you in the little life of hair curlers
love you in these paltry ecstasies these meagre glories
love you alone and abandoned by myself
Comme tant d’autres
Ton être que j’invente du regard
comme une tache d’encre sur le papier
je n’ai pas peur de nommer mon amour
tu es comme je t’aime telle que je te fais
avec mes mains retrouvées sur ton corps
et l’espérance goulue de chaque jour
l’annonciation d’un monde qui commence à peine
le geste du matin au coin de la rue
qui reprend à la rôdeuse un instant de lumière
et cette folie d’être en toi un nouvel enfant à naître
je t’aime comme tant d’autres hier demain
cette vieille rengaine je l’apprends encore je l’apprends toujours
je t’aime dans le vent du futur dans la pierraille de la peur
je t’aime dans la petite existence en bigoudis
je t’aime dans les pauvres extases dans les chiches gloires
je t’aime seul et déserté de moi-même
Lay long talking pleasantly with my wife in bed, it having rained, and do still, very much all night long. Up and to the office, where we sat till noon. This morning we had news by letters that Sir Richard Stayner is dead at sea in the Mary, which is now come into Portsmouth from Lisbon; which we are sorry for, he being a very stout seaman. But there will be no great miss of him for all that. Dined at home with my wife, and all the afternoon among my workmen, and at night to my office to do business there, and then to see Sir W. Pen, who is still sick, but his pain less than it was. He took occasion to talk with me about Sir J. Minnes’s intention to divide the entry and the yard, and so to keep him out of the yard, and forcing him to go through the garden to his house. Which he is vexed at, and I am glad to see that Sir J. Minnes do use him just as he do me, and so I perceive it is not anything extraordinary his carriage to me in the matter of our houses, for this is worse than anything he has done to me, that he should give order for the stopping up of his way to his house without so much as advising with him or letting of him know it, and I confess that it is very highly and basely done of him. So to my office again, and after doing business there, then home to supper and to bed.
with my wife all night
where letters stay dead in the mouth
we are seasick and glad
for any stop
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 4 November 1662.
Isn’t it always about our relationship to time:
how we bargain, attempt to wrestle with
the impossible, rewrite the memos that read
like intractable sentences? Those summer months
when the cruel grandmother had come to live
with us, past midnight I heard her cries
from the room down the hall: calling for her son,
for water, for the bedpan. And yet he never
was the one to attend to her afflictions,
but the daughter-in-law she treated for decades
as someone not good enough for the favorite,
her unico hijo. Though muffled, the emanations
of that pain, and my mother’s, felt quilled
and tufted into every mattress. How pitifully
they shuffled in their robes and house slippers
around the breakfast table; how meanly laid
the lines around their eyes, when each
was barely looking. I thought I’d try to make
some things easier: fetch and carry, put away,
my small hands clasping the water pitcher.
One morning, rushing ahead of grandmother,
thinking to open the heavy door before
she got there— how could I anticipate
she’d trip and fall? No one perceived
my small intention; and the bones
are more brittle after a certain age.
Though she recovered from that incident,
her later years were divided between wheel-
chair and bed. Imperious until the end,
she became the idol whose whims we served:
smoking her thin cigars, rasping orders
until her own grip on life at last unfixed.
Early came Mr. Vanly to me for his half-year’s rent, which I had not in the house, but took his man to the office and there paid him. Then I went down into the Hall and to Will’s, where Hawly brought a piece of his Cheshire cheese, and we were merry with it. Then into the Hall again, where I met with the Clerk and Quarter Master of my Lord’s troop, and took them to the Swan and gave them their morning’s draft, they being just come to town. Mr. Jenkins shewed me two bills of exchange for money to receive upon my Lord’s and my pay. It snowed hard all this morning, and was very cold, and my nose was much swelled with cold. Strange the difference of men’s talk! Some say that Lambert must of necessity yield up; others, that he is very strong, and that the Fifth-monarchy-men stick to him, if he declares for a free Parliament. Chillington was sent yesterday to him with the vote of pardon and indemnity from the Parliament.
From the Hall I came home, where I found letters from Hinchingbroke and news of Mr. Sheply’s going thither the next week. I dined at home, and from thence went to Will’s to Shaw, who promised me to go along with me to Atkinson’s about some money, but I found him at cards with Spicer and D. Vines, and could not get him along with me. I was vext at this, and went and walked in the Hall, where I heard that the Parliament spent this day in fasting and prayer; and in the afternoon came letters from the North, that brought certain news that my Lord Lambert his forces were all forsaking him, and that he was left with only fifty horse, and that he did now declare for the Parliament himself; and that my Lord Fairfax did also rest satisfied, and had laid down his arms, and that what he had done was only to secure the country against my Lord Lambert his raising of money, and free quarter.
I went to Will’s again, where I found them still at cards, and Spicer had won 14s. of Shaw and Vines.
Then I spent a little time with G. Vines and Maylard at Vines’s at our viols.
So home, and from thence to Mr. Hunt’s, and sat with them and Mr. Hawly at cards till ten at night, and was much made of by them.
Home and so to bed, but much troubled with my nose, which was much swelled.
we were merry as
a swan in snow
no news of it
but for the night of the nose
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 4 January 1659/60. (See the original erasure.)
Horrid slogan on a building-site hoarding
They did well for themselves the Victorians
No better monument to their efficiency and progress
than these enduring streets of red-brick and yellow-brick houses
We find them surprisingly comforting and congenial
Hard work hard money they speak of and we admire that
but find ourselves worthy of more and better
We are scaling up!
Our new homes behind these old walls
will have bigger rooms especially bigger kitchens
lined with appliances the Victorians never imagined
We must have as many bathrooms as bedrooms
We keep ourselves cleaner than they did
Our windows will be triple-glazed and won’t open
We don’t care about the world outside because
it’s not our private property!
We don’t care about fresh air because our air will be conditioned
and as for daylight – the lovely leaf-dappled light
of a hundred and fifty suburban springs and summers and autumns –
we shan’t care about that either when our eyes are fixed
on our high-definition immersive TV and computer screens
We care for nothing and no one for we have the best of both worlds:
Upscale apartments within a Victorian façade!
Up and with Sir J. Minnes in his coach to White Hall, to the Duke’s; but found him gone out a-hunting. Thence to my Lord Sandwich, from whom I receive every day more and more signs of his confidence and esteem of me. Here I met with Pierce the chyrurgeon, who tells me that my Lady Castlemaine is with child; but though it be the King’s, yet her Lord being still in town, and sometimes seeing of her, though never to eat or lie together, it will be laid to him. He tells me also how the Duke of York is smitten in love with my Lady Chesterfield (a virtuous lady, daughter to my Lord of Ormond); and so much, that the duchess of York hath complained to the King and her father about it, and my Lady Chesterfield is gone into the country for it. At all which I am sorry; but it is the effect of idleness, and having nothing else to employ their great spirits upon. Thence with Mr. Creede and Mr. Moore (who is got upon his legs and come to see my Lord) to Wilkinson’s, and there I did give them and Mr. Howe their dinner of roast beef, cost me 5s., and after dinner carried Mr. Moore as far as Paul’s in a coach, giving him direction about my law business, and there set him down, and I home and among my workmen, who happened of all sorts to meet to their making an end of a great many jobbs, so that after to-morrow I shall have but a little plastering and all the painting almost to do, which was good content to me. At night to my office, and did business; and there came to me Mr. Wade and Evett, who have been again with their prime intelligencer, a woman, I perceive: and though we have missed twice, yet they bring such an account of the probability of the truth of the thing, though we are not certain of the place, that we shall set upon it once more; and I am willing and hopefull in it. So we resolved to set upon it again on Wednesday morning; and the woman herself will be there in a disguise, and confirm us in the place. So they took leave for the night, and I to my business, and then home to my wife and to supper and bed, my pain being going away. So by God’s great blessing my mind is in good condition of quiet.
I go out hunting
from an urge to see
though never to lie in a field
in idleness is almost
to miss the truth of the place
in the guise of quiet
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 3 November 1662.
I went out in the morning, it being a great frost, and walked to Mrs. Turner’s to stop her from coming to see me to-day, because of Mrs. Jem’s coming, thence I went to the Temple to speak with Mr. Calthrop, and walked in his chamber an hour, but could not see him, so went to Westminster, where I found soldiers in my office to receive money, and paid it them. At noon went home, where Mrs. Jem, her maid, Mr. Sheply, Hawly, and Moore dined with me on a piece of beef and cabbage, and a collar of brawn. We then fell to cards till dark, and then I went home with Mrs. Jem, and meeting Mr. Hawly got him to bear me company to Chancery Lane, where I spoke with Mr. Calthrop, he told me that Sir James Calthrop was lately dead, but that he would write to his Lady, that the money may be speedily paid. Thence back to White Hall, where I understood that the Parliament had passed the act for indemnity to the soldiers and officers that would come in, in so many days, and that my Lord Lambert should have benefit of the said act. They had also voted that all vacancies in the House, by the death of any of the old members, shall be filled up; but those that are living shall not be called in. Thence I went home, and there found Mr. Hunt and his wife, and Mr. Hawly, who sat with me till ten at night at cards, and so broke up and to bed.
morning frost
the dead lamb cannot
be called in
Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 3 January 1659/60. (See the original erasure.)
(Lord’s day). Lay long with pleasure talking with my wife, in whom I never had greater content, blessed be God! than now, she continuing with the same care and thrift and innocence, so long as I keep her from occasions of being otherwise, as ever she was in her life, and keeps the house as well.
To church, where Mr. Mills, after he had read the service, and shifted himself as he did the last day, preached a very ordinary sermon. So home to dinner with my wife. Then up into my new rooms which are, almost finished, and there walked with great content talking with my wife till church time, and then to church, and there being a lazy preacher I slept out the sermon, and so home, and after visiting the two Sir Williams, who are both of them mending apace, I to my office preparing things against to-morrow for the Duke, and so home and to bed, with some pain in making water, having taken cold this morning in sitting too long bare-legged to pare my corns.
My wife and I spent a good deal of this evening in reading “Du Bartas’ Imposture” and other parts which my wife of late has taken up to read, and is very fine as anything I meet with.
who ever had less
than the same innocence
as the wise?
she keeps house
where the day rooms
out in the bare-legged corn
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 2 November 1662.