Regular readers may remember this poem from last June. My friend Marc Neys has just released a video adaptation. Check it out:
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Extra Terrestrial: audiovisual version by Marc Neys
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Watch on Vimeo
Postmemory
"It is the memory of love we love."
~ Sandeep Parmar
if it's true death binds us closer to history
then we've always studied elegy
schooled in grief the moment we break
from the womb we squint through the first door
overcome by light and air— i dont' know
how to describe the first cry that left my lips
how long it bannered until subsiding
a friend asked if i could remember how it felt to be carried
in my mother's arms what color and texture
how time felt then how it feels now
Anonymous source
(Lord’s day). My wife got up to put on her mourning to-day and to go to Church this morning. I up and set down my journall for these 5 days past. This morning came one from my father’s with a black cloth coat, made of my short cloak, to walk up and down in. To church my wife and I, with Sir W. Batten, where we heard of Mr. Mills a very good sermon upon these words, “So run that ye may obtain.”
After dinner all alone to Westminster. At Whitehall I met with Mr. Pierce and his wife (she newly come forth after childbirth) both in mourning for the Duke of Gloucester. She went with Mr. Child to Whitehall chapel and Mr. Pierce with me to the Abbey, where I expected to hear Mr. Baxter or Mr. Rowe preach their farewell sermon, and in Mr. Symons’s pew I sat and heard Mr. Rowe. Before sermon I laughed at the reader, who in his prayer desires of God that He would imprint his word on the thumbs of our right hands and on the right great toes of our right feet. In the midst of the sermon some plaster fell from the top of the Abbey, that made me and all the rest in our pew afeard, and I wished myself out.
After sermon with Mr. Pierce to Whitehall, and from thence to my Lord, but Diana did not come according to our agreement. So calling at my father’s (where my wife had been this afternoon but was gone home) I went home.
This afternoon, the King having news of the Princess being come to Margate, he and the Duke of York went down thither in barges to her.
a journal for the past
in black cloth
for a child in the well
who desires God
his great feet of plaster
not in the news
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 23 September 1660.
Stages of Grief
What you find is there's no definitive progression from 1 to 5. You knew acceptance long before the last time you guided her slowly to the bathroom (she had begun to fold into herself, like a bird; could still walk, but not on her own) and sat her down on the cold toilet rim. You never thought to offer prayer that was plea; bargaining—for what? more time, more days of the mind's awful fading away, flashing less and less in random bursts of remembrance? As for anger—it came much earlier, learning of the forms of cruel neglect at the hands of kin supposed to be caring for her. Long years of bereavement, prior to the fact of her actual passing; coming upon fragments of her life in such sad disarray. Until just before the end, there was no denying the strength of her spirit. Seven months ago, she'd asked for a swipe of lipstick, loved on slices of custard pie; declared she wanted to live to be a hundred. Until just before the end and the body's failing, still fiercely unwilling to let go yet of this life.
Projectile
This morning I called up my boy, and found him a pretty, well-looked boy, and one that I think will please me.
I went this morning by land to Westminster along with Luellin, who came to my house this morning to get me to go with him to Capt. Allen to speak with him for his brother to go with him to Constantinople, but could not find him. We walked on to Fleet street, where at Mr. Standing’s in Salsbury Court we drank our morning draft and had a pickled herring. Among other discourse here he told me how the pretty woman that I always loved at the beginning of Cheapside that sells child’s coats was served by the Lady Bennett (a famous strumpet), who by counterfeiting to fall into a swoon upon the sight of her in her shop, became acquainted with her, and at last got her ends of her to lie with a gentleman that had hired her to procure this poor soul for him. To Westminster to my Lord’s, and there in the house of office vomited up all my breakfast, my stomach being ill all this day by reason of the last night’s debauch. Here I sent to Mr. Bowyer’s for my chest and put up my books and sent them home. I staid here all day in my Lord’s chamber and upon the leads gazing upon Diana, who looked out of a window upon me. At last I went out to Mr. Harper’s, and she standing over the way at the gate, I went over to her and appointed to meet to-morrow in the afternoon at my Lord’s. Here I bought a hanging jack. From thence by coach home (by the way at the New Exchange I bought a pair of short black stockings, to wear over a pair of silk ones for mourning; and here I met with The. Turner and Joyce, buying of things to go into mourning too for the Duke, which is now the mode of all the ladies in town), where I wrote some letters by the post to Hinchinbroke to let them know that this day Mr. Edw. Pickering is come from my Lord, and says that he left him well in Holland, and that he will be here within three or four days.
To-day not well of my last night’s drinking yet. I had the boy up to-night for his sister to teach him to put me to bed, and I heard him read, which he did pretty well.
called by a cheap
child’s trumpet
this poor soul
vomited up
out of a window over the town
my last drink
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 22 September 1660.
September Ghosts
fog forms in the meadow
at first light
rising from the mop-
topped goldenrod
as if it were the conjoined breaths
of a shadowy golden horde
massed against the bald
white fact of the barn
its credible rooflines
asphalt-tiled
in the same dark green as
the ridges that flank the field
the barn’s ridgeline broken
by a slatted cupola
to draw air through
whether for hay or horses
or once a hundred years ago
a circus elephant
who spent the summer tethered
on the threshing floor
no one can remember why
only that it was here and lonely
like the young lady
a generation later
who came to the hollow to hide
an unplanned pregnancy
one winter shuttered up
in the summer house
with a church organ
they heard her playing Bach
for years after she and the child
died together at birth
every Appalachian hollow
has its share of ghosts
but the sun tops the ridge
and the fog shapes vanish
catching in spiderwebs
glistening on the breast of a wren
Villain #2
(Office day). There all the morning and afternoon till 4 o’clock. Hence to Whitehall, thinking to have put up my books at my Lord’s, but am disappointed from want of a chest which I had at Mr. Bowyer’s. Back by water about 8 o’clock, and upon the water saw the corpse of the Duke of Gloucester brought down Somerset House stairs, to go by water to Westminster, to be buried to-night. I landed at the old Swan and went to the Hoop Tavern, and (by a former agreement) sent for Mr. Chaplin, who with Nicholas Osborne and one Daniel came to us and we drank off two or three quarts of wine, which was very good; the drawing of our wine causing a great quarrel in the house between the two drawers which should draw us the best, which caused a great deal of noise and falling out till the master parted them, and came up to us and did give us a large account of the liberty that he gives his servants, all alike, to draw what wine they will to please his customers; and we did eat above 200 walnuts. About 10 o’clock we broke up and so home, and in my way I called in with them at Mr. Chaplin’s, where Nicholas Osborne did give me a barrel of samphire, and showed me the keys of Mardyke Fort, which he that was commander of the fort sent him as a token when the fort was demolished, which I was mightily pleased to see, and will get them of him if I can.
Home, where I found my boy (my maid’s brother) come out of the country to-day, but was gone to bed and so I could not see him to-night.
To bed.
white ink in my book
my disappointed chest
I saw the corpse
buried in a drawer
like the key
to a demolished home
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 21 September 1660.
Water course
At home, and at the office, and in the garden walking with both Sir Williams all the morning. After dinner to Whitehall to Mr. Dalton, and with him to my house and took away all my papers that were left in my closet, and so I have now nothing more in the house or to do with it. We called to speak with my Landlord Beale, but he was not within but spoke with the old woman, who takes it very ill that I did not let her have it, but I did give her an answer. From thence to Sir G. Downing and staid late there (he having sent for me to come to him), which was to tell me how my Lord Sandwich had disappointed him of a ship to bring over his child and goods, and made great complaint thereof; but I got him to write a letter to Lawson, which it may be may do the business for him, I writing another also about it. While he was writing, and his Lady and I had a great deal of discourse in praise of Holland.
By water to the Bridge, and so to Major Hart’s lodgings in Cannon-street, who used me very kindly with wine and good discourse, particularly upon the ill method which Colonel Birch and the Committee use in disbanding of the army and the navy; promising the Parliament to save them a great deal of money, when we judge that it will cost the King more than if they had nothing to do with it, by reason of their delays and scrupulous enquirys into the account of both.
walking with nothing
more to be
but an answer to the sand
appointed to us
in praise of water
the birch and I sing
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 20 September 1660.
Sky Grief
Noctalgia is the term scientists have coined to describe the pain we feel, and will increasingly feel, as it gets more and more impossible to see the night sky— Its vast, mysterious stretches pinpricked only by faint galaxy glow and the show of constellations our fathers first taught us to find, assembling like a cast of familiar characters against dark velvet curtains. Now, we shade our eyes from the blare of city lights, the gaudy jewels decorating every monument and tribute to wondrous architectures. Now, we seek places where it might still be possible to commune with the dark—open stretch of beach far away from tourist boardwalks, mountaintops where the sky at night still looks like an inverted cup pouring indigo into the throats of valleys. In some cultures, the newly dead are given sky burials. Birds of the air break down the flesh of the body before the bones are ground to dust. In the hill country of my birth, on shelves of limestone the dead are wrapped in gauze and seated in a row so in their passage between worlds, they have a view of both earth and sky.
Bitter end
(Office day). I put on my mourning and went to the office. At noon thinking to have found my wife in hers, I found that the tailor had failed her, at which I was vexed because of an invitation that we have to a dinner this day, but after having waited till past one o’clock I went, and left her to put on some other clothes and come after me to the Mitre tavern in Wood–street (a house of the greatest note in London), where I met W. Symons, and D. Scobell, and their wives, Mr. Samford, Luellin, Chetwind, one Mr. Vivion, and Mr. White, formerly chaplin to the Lady Protectresse (and still so, and one they say that is likely to get my Lady Francess for his wife).
Here we were very merry and had a very good dinner, my wife coming after me hither to us. Among other pleasures some of us fell to handycapp, a sport that I never knew before, which was very good. We staid till it was very late; it rained sadly, but we made shift to get coaches. So home and to bed.
office to office on my tail
a failed invitation
a stone we left
to the woods
a note on the wind
that fell to rain
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 19 September 1660.