Ode to the Unsentimental

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
By which you do not mean the heart,
       unfeeling; nor the heart, encased
in an icy spell for its own unmaking.
       The seasons instruct in change:
even as the languid heat undresses,
       a speedier hand undoes the catch.
No time for lingering, except to linger
       in a room filled with simple light; no
call to pilfer coins it scatters freely
       at your feet. Bowl, water glass, figs 
softening on a tray—enough of need.
       Clear-eyed, unclouded: even as 
sweetness falls away, you want 
      the making of things that last.

Postlapsarian

Sam Pepys and me

(Lord’s day). With Sir W. Pen to the parish church, where we are placed in the highest pew of all, where a stranger preached a dry and tedious long sermon. Dined at home. To church again in the afternoon with my wife; in the garden and on the leads at night, and so to supper and to bed.

it is church here
we are in the highest fall

a strange ache
dry and long

to gain a garden
at supper


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 26 August 1660.

Long Dying

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
Refusal of food and water, the faltering of tone. Cold hands.
A waxing and waning pulse; long days of uninterrupted sleeping.

Throughout summer, we thought: any day now. The clock on the wall
would fix the hour. Then, inexplicably, a flicker would interrupt the sleeping.

Her face is tiny and the pink sheets voluminous. Horses sleep standing
in their stalls. For two days straight she keeps her eyes open, not sleeping.

Her hands are encased in cotton socks. The nails she used to buff, file
to points, and polish now only want to scratch. The body is never sleeping.

Capricorn knees, Capricorn joints. Once, her feet were never shod in flats.
Shapely calves, impeccable seams. Afternoons were not for sleeping.

It is fall again, and we think: any day now. The leaves of the fig 
are curling inward. She makes a shape like an S when sleeping. 
 

Miracle worker

Sam Pepys and me

This morning Mr. Turner and I by coach from our office to Whitehall (in our way I calling on Dr. Walker for the papers I did give him the other day, which he had perused and found that the Duke’s counsel had abated something of the former draught which Dr. Walker drew for my Lord) to Sir G. Carteret, where we there made up an estimate of the debts of the Navy for the Council.
At noon I took Mr. Turner and Mr. Moore to the Leg in King Street, and did give them a dinner, and afterward to the Sun Tavern, and did give Mr. Turner a glass of wine, there coming to us Mr. Fowler the apothecary (the judge’s son) with a book of lute lessons which his father had left there for me, such as he formerly did use to play when a young man, and had the use of his hand.
To the Privy Seal, and found some business now again to do there.
To Westminster Hall for a new half-shirt of Mrs. Lane, and so home by water. Wrote letters by the post to my Lord and to sea. This night W. Hewer brought me home from Mr. Pim’s my velvet coat and cap, the first that ever I had. So to bed.

paper-thin
for my art
made of debt

at noon I turn
a glass of wine
into water


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 25 August 1660.

Dreams and Legends

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
In some legends, the earth
is supported by four elephants

balancing on a turtle's back.
Do they ever get the urge

to flick their tails at mosquitoes,
fold their legs, fall asleep 

in their precarious duty?
And when they dream 

do they twitch  so dangerous 
fissures open in the earth? 

I was told that dreams 
work by opposites— 

If you dream of catastrophe,
a windfall instead. Or a love rekindled, 

a quarrel healed. If at dawn 
the rooster crows with orange blades, 

the day might be more forgiving
after a night when houses shrivelled

to nothing in the mouth of fire. I suspect 
this is one way of softening whatever 

the sky lobs at you the first thing 
in the morning, the last thing at night.

Street walker (2)

Sam Pepys and me

Office, and thence with Sir William Batten and Sir William Pen to the parish church to find out a place where to build a seat or a gallery to sit in, and did find one which is to be done speedily. Hence with them to dinner at a tavern in Thames Street, where they were invited to a roasted haunch of venison and other very good victuals and company.
Hence to Whitehall to the Privy Seal, but nothing to do. At night by land to my father’s, where I found my mother not very well. I did give her a pint of sack. My father came in, and Dr. T. Pepys, who talked with me in French about looking out for a place for him. But I found him a weak man, and speaks the worst French that ever I heard of one that had been so long beyond sea. Hence into Paul’s Churchyard and bought Barkley’s Argenis in Latin, and so home and to bed. I found at home that Captain Bun had sent me 4 dozen bottles of wine today. The King came back to Whitehall to-night.

where to go
white moth
out in the bark of night


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 24 August 1660.

The Day Nurse

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
She is so young, 23 or 24, her cheeks
ruddy with the pink only high mountain air
can provide. She has a toddler, left behind
in another highland town, in the care of others. 
Her name is a variation of gazelle, though in those 
parts there have only been sambar and spotted 
brown deer. She is one of three caregivers 
who feed and change my mother, who turn 
her in the hospital bed to slide clean sheets 
or adult diapers under her. They are more
patient than daylight, more hopeful than warm
washcloths, the thick puree of blended food, neon
signs blinking in the street below. They sing and coo, 
console. Now she is their child, though never chided. 
 

Street walker

Sam Pepys and me

By water to Doctors’ Commons to Dr. Walker, to give him my Lord’s papers to view over concerning his being empowered to be Vice-Admiral under the Duke of York. There meeting with Mr. Pinkney, he and I to a morning draft, and thence by water to White Hall, to the Parliament House, where I spoke with Colonel Birch, and so to the Admiralty chamber, where we and Mr. Coventry had a meeting about several businesses. Amongst others, it was moved that Phineas Pett (kinsman to the Commissioner) of Chatham, should be suspended his employment till he had answered some articles put in against him, as that he should formerly say that the King was a bastard and his mother a whore.
Hence to Westminster Hall, where I met with my father Bowyer, and Mr. Spicer, and them I took to the Leg in King Street, and did give them a dish or two of meat, and so away to the Privy Seal, where, the King being out of town, we have had nothing to do these two days. To Westminster Hall, where I met with W. Symons, T. Doling, and Mr. Booth, and with them to the Dogg, where we eat a musk melon (the first that I have eat this year), and were very merry with W. Symons, calling him Mr. Dean, because of the Dean’s lands that his uncle had left him, which are like to be lost all.
Hence home by water, and very late at night writing letters to my Lord to Hinchinbroke, and also to the Vice-Admiral in the Downs, and so to bed.

common as a whore
I took to the street

give me a town
with the musk of lost water

and a night in my broke-
down bed


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 23 August 1660.

Re/treat

Sam Pepys and me

Office, which done, Sir W. Pen took me into the garden, and there told me how Mr. Turner do intend to petition the Duke for an allowance extra as one of the Clerks of the Navy, which he desired me to join with him in the furthering of, which I promised to do so that it did not reflect upon me or to my damage to have any other added, as if I was not able to perform my place; which he did wholly disown to be any of his intention, but far from it.
I took Mr. Hater home with me to dinner, with whom I did advise, who did give me the same counsel.
After dinner he and I to the office about doing something more as to the debts of the Navy than I had done yesterday, and so to Whitehall to the Privy Seal, and having done there, with my father (who came to see me) to Westminster Hall and the Parliament House to look for Col. Birch, but found him not. In the House, after the Committee was up, I met with Mr. G. Montagu, and joyed him in his entrance (this being his 3d day) for Dover. Here he made me sit all alone in the House, none but he and I, half an hour, discoursing how things stand, and in short he told me how there was like to be many factions at Court between Marquis Ormond, General Monk, and the Lord Roberts, about the business of Ireland; as there is already between the two Houses about the Act of Indemnity; and in the House of Commons, between the Episcopalian and Presbyterian men.
Hence to my father’s (walking with Mr. Herring, the minister of St. Bride’s), and took them to the Sun Tavern, where I found George, my old drawer, come again. From thence by water, landed them at Blackfriars, and so home and to bed.

I took to the garden
in the fur of age

as if sown
far from sea

to look for joy all alone
like a monk in the herring sun


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 22 August 1660.

Sibling Rivalries

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
One is slain in hand-to-hand 
combat; one crushes the other's 
skull with a rock only as large 
and glittery as his pain. Then 
there's the one who tricks
the nearly blind patriarch 
into handing over something 
called a birthright—all for a bit 
of stew, a coat of fur, some proof
that they, in their one-eyed misery,
believe equates to love. And in those 
dark tales we like to think of as part 
of a happy childhood, stepsisters 
tear the clothes off the youngest
daughter, push a broom and pail 
into her hands. Haven't you wept
alone in the garden under a tree
whose wind-burnished voice 
reminds you of the one who never 
stopped caring? Hiding in the leaves, 
all day the birds call and answer, answer
and call. Though each has their own 
song, they resemble one another.