words for my madness lick me in the ear
I am nothing but the truth in plain binding
I burn a match to be merry at the temple of no way
Erasure poems derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 8 February 1668.
The speaker of "Pilgrim" seems to be someone stripped down to almost nothing, and strangely cheerful about it. The opening image is odd and intimate: words that suit the speaker's "madness" lick them in the ear, as if language itself were an animal or a lover whispering something half-wild.
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