Month: April 2020

It is easy to say such              & such a person 
never took care of us              when that person
has been away for years         in the land of milk

& money

It is easy to say we          did what we could when
by that is meant     we slept under another's roof &
through mutual            avoidance of confrontation
skirted the subjects          
                                of rent & obligation

How is the story                supposed to continue
perennially stuck          in games of power & water
shortage                            Spiders & snakes 

& people keep turning up in rooms   with no business
being there
                       Who is the child of the child 

or the mother                         or brother who
wrought the most ruin             Took until no more 
could be taken
                       There are cracks in the walls
& the floorboards        like a mouth of loose teeth

Everyone they say                        has a price
Name it                                 Just name it 
Just name it 

We should let the animals
         graze freely in fields. We should weave
                  fronds of sleepy fern into hammocks
for morticians whose labor prepares
        our dead for elegies. Does the smell
                 of the furnace cling to their hair
and clothes for days, and do their dreams
        echo with voices reciting
                 our offerings? Incense and
candles, rosemary wands; oranges
        wrinkled and sweet; rain water
                in a blue ceramic cup, hair
ornaments quivering with wires of clover.
        To the blue shadow of hills,
                we gave our loves and secrets.
Now we go and ransom them.
         We pin them to our chests, in case
                 the infinite comes calling.
We trace a line from our doorstep
         to any distant opening for light.

       It is my wish to learn 
the proper words to accompany
       the fermentation of grain,
the binding of affluence
       to the foot of each house
post. How sweet the yeast
       that rises at 4 AM, 
that thickens above the wrist
       which plies it into ribbons.
Will I see you then lose you again
       in this lifetime, mother?
In all your pictures, the mole 
       underneath your lip still glows 
like a small, half-buried planet; 
       one tiny hair whitens
on its surface like a flag. 
       Some tasks do not require
a knife or any other implements made 
       of teeth or metal. My fingers 
tug open the winged bean, touch 
       each numbered curl on fern.
All of them tell me what I 
       already know: the cleanest bone
is the one lifted from its body. 

 

but is tired of leaving no trace
of its origins. The land itself 
has changed; and the skies 
are always missing a body 
that vapors into nothing. But water 
is always this blue haze in the mind. 
Or a limpid thing with none of the brittle 
edges of glass. Or a glossy brown sheet 
over which a ferry is crossing. Water 
wants to touch the face looking 
over the handrail, bored by the sun,
tired of its own loneliness and need. 
The loneliness of water is also 
                      like that: empty 
theatre filled with echoes of other
voices, making it seem unoriginal. 
Water wants to throw itself into 
an opening and understand
slaked or flooded 
      or filled. But the metaphysic 
of moments is a privilege claimed 
by stable bodies. Water is not—
at the same time is more than— 
two drops fixed by gold wire 
and dangling from the earlobe.
Put it to bed in a box flocked
with velvet. 
         Carry it cupped
in both hands as you walk 
through a field that feels
larger than any sense of yourself
that you know. But still tenderly. 

Up, and when ready, and to my office, to do a little business, and, coming homeward again, saw my door and hatch open, left so by Luce, our cookmayde, which so vexed me, that I did give her a kick in our entry, and offered a blow at her, and was seen doing so by Sir W. Pen’s footboy, which did vex me to the heart, because I know he will be telling their family of it; though I did put on presently a very pleasant face to the boy, and spoke kindly to him, as one without passion, so as it may be he might not think I was angry, but yet I was troubled at it.
So away by water to White Hall, and there did our usual business before the Duke of York; but it fell out that, discoursing of matters of money, it rose to a mighty heat, very high words arising between Sir G. Carteret and W. Coventry, the former in his passion saying that the other should have helped things if they were so bad; and the other answered, so he would, and things should have been better had he been Treasurer of the Navy. I was mightily troubled at this heat, and it will breed ill blood, I fear; but things are in that bad condition that I do daily expect when we shall all fly in one another’s faces, when we shall be reduced, every one, to answer for himself. We broke up; and I soon after to Sir G. Carteret’s chamber, where I find the poor man telling his lady privately, and she weeping. I went into them, and did seem, as indeed I was, troubled for this; and did give the best advice I could, which, I think, did please them: and they do apprehend me their friend, as indeed I am, for I do take the Vice-chamberlain for a most honest man. He did assure me that he was not, all expences and things paid, clear in estate 15,000l. better than he was when the King come in; and that the King and Lord Chancellor did know that he was worth, with the debt the King owed him, 50,000l., I think, he said, when the King come into England. I did pacify all I could, and then away by water home, there to write letters and things for the dispatch of Balty away this day to sea; and after dinner he did go, I having given him much good counsell; and I have great hopes that he will make good use of it, and be a good man, for I find him willing to take pains and very sober. He being gone, I close at my office all the afternoon getting off of hand my papers, which, by the late holidays and my laziness, were grown too many upon my hands, to my great trouble, and therefore at it as late as my eyes would give me leave, and then by water down to Redriffe, meaning to meet my wife, who is gone with Mercer, Barker, and the boy (it being most sweet weather) to walk, and I did meet with them, and walked back, and then by the time we got home it was dark, and we staid singing in the garden till supper was ready, and there with great pleasure. But I tried my girles Mercer and Barker singly one after another, a single song, “At dead low ebb,” etc., and I do clearly find that as to manner of singing the latter do much the better, the other thinking herself as I do myself above taking pains for a manner of singing, contenting ourselves with the judgment and goodness of eare. So to supper, and then parted and to bed.

in matters of passion
I should have been a fly

I have grown many
hands and eyes

to meet the sweet weather
of her selves

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 12 April 1667.