Naked and mad

Pepys erasure #138 - letters and images by Clive Hicks-Jenkins
Click image to see the full-size version.

Clive Hicks-Jenkins made this with letters and images left over from his just-completed animation project for the Mid Wales Chamber Orchestra production of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. It is of course the poem generated from one of my recent erasures of Pepys. I told him I thought that conceptually, in relation to the erasure, it’s as if he’s put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Presented this way, it feels much more like a complete poem to me. In place of the white emptiness of erasure, there’s solid black. And Clive’s vibrantly colored majuscule letters don’t shout, but intone.

Pilgrimage

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

I lie alone, mind on her face.
In the church chancel, the mouth of a whale,
bigger than bad weather.
I keep myself in the open,
wake to piss.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 20 May 1660.

In Partibus Infidelium

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

Up early, in pink light
I see rock and a broken land,
the house sunk where children were born—
one of our villages, but for the language.
The people eat fish
but play at physician, a clapper
to frighten the birds
away from the corn.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 19 May 1660.

Skeptic

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

I hear the wind speak:
nothing but epitaph,
brass angels crying.
The church, a poor man’s box
that binds any guest
to the dying light
like some great weight.
I go down to the water
with my echo:
to say is to know.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 18 May 1660.

Heaven

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

The king is naked and mad,
the queen wagers the whole world
on heaven—a strange country.
I hide in a wagon
with one horse.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 17 May 1660.

Writer’s Confession

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

As tailors cut pieces of cloth into a flag,
I like to give a word exceeding grace,
open it to hurl, war, harp,
take it to the mouth as prayer and flesh.
I am old and very strange with letters.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 13 May 1660.

Sailor’s Advice

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

Boy in the bay, stay
and understand:
letters only attend
the coming of a sail.
Midway, we could see
places very pleasant;
the further we went,
the more we lost sight.
At cards, I come to see
my fruitless precaution,
getting without book
when I can get the book.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 12 May 1660.