Via Negativa

December 9, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Song

(Lord’s day). Being called up early by Sir W. Batten I rose and went to his house and he told me the ill news that he had this morning from Woolwich, that the Assurance (formerly Captain Holland’s ship, and now Captain Stoakes’s, designed for Guiny and manned and victualled), was by a gust of wind sunk down to the bottom. Twenty men drowned. Sir Williams both went by barge thither to see how things are, and I am sent to the Duke of York to tell him, and by boat with some other company going to Whitehall from the Old Swan. I went to the Duke. And first calling upon Mr. Coventry at his chamber, I went to the Duke’s bed-side, who had sat up late last night, and lay long this morning, who was much surprised, therewith.
This being done I went to chappell, and sat in Mr. Blagrave’s pew, and there did sing my part along with another before the King, and with much ease.
From thence going to my Lady I met with a letter from my Lord (which Andrew had been at my house to bring me and missed me), commanding me to go to Mr. Denham, to get a man to go to him to-morrow to Hinchinbroke, to contrive with him about some alterations in his house, which I did and got Mr. Kennard.
Dined with my Lady and staid all the afternoon with her, and had infinite of talk of all kind of things, especially of beauty of men and women, with which she seems to be much pleased to talk of.
From thence at night to Mr. Kennard and took him to Mr. Denham, the Surveyor’s. Where, while we could not speak with him, his chief man (Mr. Cooper) did give us a cup of good sack. From thence with Mr. Kennard to my Lady who is much pleased with him, and after a glass of sack there; we parted, having taken order for a horse or two for him and his servant to be gone to-morrow.
So to my father’s, where I sat while they were at supper, and I found my mother below stairs and pretty well.
Thence home, where I hear that the Comptroller had some business with me, and (with Giffin’s lanthorn) I went to him and there staid in discourse an hour ‘till late, and among other things he showed me a design of his, by the King’s making an Order of Knights of the Seal to give an encouragement for persons of honour to undertake the service of the sea, and he had done it with great pains and very ingeniously.
So home and to prayers and to bed.

oaks in a gust of wind
sing along with the infinite

while we take the stairs
making pain into prayers

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 9 December 1660.

December 8, 2023December 8, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Aftermath

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

Though the gate still stands, 
the home of our childhood is gone. 

Once, a cage of raucous birds 
held brilliant court in the yard. 
The hulls of rowboats stood 

among the hollyhocks, waiting 
for their turn at repair. We slept 

for a week on the stone porch, grateful
we were not among those blanketed 
in rubble. I walked all morning in search 

of water and bread, grateful for
the kindness of strangers.

December 8, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Procedure

To Whitehall to the Privy Seal, and thence to Mr. Pierces the Surgeon to tell them that I would call by and by to go to dinner. But I going into Westminster Hall met with Sir G. Carteret and Sir W. Pen (who were in a great fear that we had committed a great error of 100,000l. in our late account gone into the Parliament in making it too little), and so I was fain to send order to Mr. Pierces to come to my house; and also to leave the key of the chest with Mr. Spicer; wherein my Lord’s money is, and went along with Sir W. Pen by water to the office, and there with Mr. Huchinson we did find that we were in no mistake. And so I went to dinner with my wife and Mr. and Mrs. Pierce the Surgeon to Mr. Pierce, the Purser (the first time that ever I was at his house) who does live very plentifully and finely. We had a lovely chine of beef and other good things very complete and drank a great deal of wine, and her daughter played after dinner upon the virginals, and at night by lanthorn home again, and Mr. Pierce and his wife being gone home I went to bed, having drunk so much wine that my head was troubled and was not very well all night, and the wind I observed was rose exceedingly before I went to bed.

surgeon going
into my chest

to find mist
and a thin thorn

I went to bed
my head bled a rose

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 8 December 1660.

December 7, 2023December 7, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

December

Pots of poinsettia on the front porch,
mint stragglers by the steps. A sky

like the rim of a cup edged with a line
of pines. And we, looking up from 

the well where days swirled one 
into the other, waited for the first 

flint of light from a star or the points 
of a crescent to steer by. Despite 

the fixedness of our position, time felt 
like a pitcher we would never finish 

pouring. It glowed like stained glass 
in morning light, like an augur at night.

December 7, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Snowy

This morning the judge Advocate Fowler came to see me, and he and I sat talking till it was time to go to the office. To the office and there staid till past 12 o’clock, and so I left the Comptroller and Surveyor and went to Whitehall to my Lord’s, where I found my Lord gone this morning to Huntingdon, as he told me yesterday he would. I staid and dined with my Lady, there being Laud the page’s mother there, and dined also with us, and seemed to have been a very pretty woman and of good discourse.
Before dinner I examined Laud in his Latin and found him a very pretty boy and gone a great way in Latin.
After dinner I took a box of some things of value that my Lord had left for me to carry to the Exchequer, which I did, and left them with my Brother Spicer, who also had this morning paid 1000l. for me by appointment to Sir R. Parkhurst. So to the Privy Seal, where I signed a deadly number of pardons, which do trouble me to get nothing by. Home by water, and there was much pleased to see that my little room is likely to come to be finished soon.
I fell a-reading Fuller’s History of Abbys, and my wife in Great Cyrus till twelve at night, and so to bed.

owl as white
as a moth in a mine

a pretty thing
with the dead in it

like a full history
of night

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 7 December 1660.

December 6, 2023December 6, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Poem with Dream and Unpicked Persimmons

How do I explain? After years of feeling 
so tightly bound to others, one day 

some of the sharpness dissipates. Not
dissolves completely: just gradually quiets. 

Which still makes me sad—it's as if what I know 
I've carried so close and for so long as my duty 

has given up on me. My friend says, perhaps you 
haven't cried enough; watch sad movies and 

let yourself go. I taste metallic earth in my throat 
at night, and dream of walking through rooms 

whose  windows all open to the sea. The neighbor's 
yard is studded with the gold of persimmons. Each 

branch bows from their weight at various stages: 
ripe, unripe, swollen with impossible desire.

December 6, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Rave

This morning some of the Commissioners of Parliament and Sir W. Batten went to Sir G. Carteret’s office here in town, and paid off the Chesnut. I carried my wife to White Friars and landed her there, and myself to Whitehall to the Privy Seal, where abundance of pardons to seal, but I was much troubled for it because that there are no fees now coming for them to me. Thence Mr. Moore and I alone to the Leg in King Street, and dined together on a neat’s tongue and udder.
From thence by coach to Mr. Crew’s to my Lord, who told me of his going out of town to-morrow to settle the militia in Huntingdonshire, and did desire me to lay up a box of some rich jewels and things that there are in it, which I promised to do. After much free discourse with my Lord, who tells me his mind as to his enlarging his family, &c., and desiring me to look him out a Master of the Horse and other servants, we parted. From thence I walked to Greatorex (he was not within), but there I met with Mr. Jonas Moore, and took him to the Five Bells, and drank a glass of wine and left him. To the Temple, when Sir R. Parkhurst (as was intended the last night) did seal the writings, and is to have the 2000l. told to-morrow.
From, thence by water to Parliament Stairs, and there at an alehouse to Doling (who is suddenly to go into Ireland to venture his fortune); Simonds (who is at a great loss for 200l. present money, which I was loth to let him have, though I could now do it, and do love him and think him honest and sufficient, yet lothness to part with money did dissuade me from it); Luellin (who was very drowsy from a dose that he had got the last night), Mr. Mount and several others, among the rest one Mr. Pierce, an army man, who did make us the best sport for songs and stories in a Scotch tone (which he do very well) that ever I heard in my life. I never knew so good a companion in all my observation.
From thence to the bridge by water, it being a most pleasant moonshine night, with a waterman who did tell such a company of bawdy stories, how once he carried a lady from Putney in such a night as this, and she bade him lie down by her, which he did, and did give her content, and a great deal more roguery.
Home and found my girl knocking at the door (it being 11 o’clock at night), her mistress having sent her out for some trivial business, which did vex me when I came in, and so I took occasion to go up and to bed in a pet.
Before I went forth this morning, one came to me to give me notice that the justices of Middlesex do meet to-morrow at Hicks Hall, and that I as one am desired to be there, but I fear I cannot be there though I much desire it.

we dance on one leg
dine together on a tongue

who is our master
with a glass of night

stairs go to a great nest
the man on the moon

knocking at the door
to morning

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 6 December 1660.

December 6, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Daoist Santa

This morning the Proposal which I wrote the last night I showed to the officers this morning, and was well liked of, and I wrote it fair for Sir. G. Carteret to show to the King, and so it is to go to the Parliament.
I dined at home, and after dinner I went to the new Theatre and there I saw “The Merry Wives of Windsor” acted, the humours of the country gentleman and the French doctor very well done, but the rest but very poorly, and Sir J. Falstaffe as bad as any.
From thence to Mr. Will. Montagu’s chamber to have sealed some writings tonight between Sir R. Parkhurst and myself about my Lord’s 2000l., but he not coming, I went to my father’s and there found my mother still ill of the stone, and had just newly voided one, which she hath let drop into the chimney, and could not find it to show it me. From thence home and to bed.

like air in a theater of winds
soft as the night

I park myself
out in the void

drop
into the chimney

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 5 December 1660.

December 5, 2023December 5, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Self Portrait, after the Exterminator

Today's appointment was for the annual home inspection.
The pest control tech needed to go around to the backyard,
and from there access the crawl space to check for signs
of moisture or rot: perforations in beams, debris shaped like
sawdust pellets but are actually termite feces. Earth smells

are sharp there, especally after humid rain, though the flap
of one gridded vent allows the cross-flow of air. Thankfully,
there was nothing to warrant treatment. O home ownership,
questionable linchpin of the American Dream: ideal of domestic
space, 3BR /2BT plus driveway or garage. Jacaranda spills over

the privacy fence for a picture-perfect kitchen view (though apron
-sized). The realtor matched his language to your desire, then
all made alterations for some happy medium. A decade later, your 1500
square feet is a nest packed full of matter—perhaps a natural tendency
to optimize, to shore up for the years that march in, wearing the shape

of emaciated cows. Your heart yearns sometimes for the pre-inhabited
look of these rooms. Bare floors, unadorned walls, the quirky, sloped
ceiling over the reading nook before every corner spilled over with books.
But small is mostly a state of mind and any idea of your deprivation
unfounded, when so many walk threadbare through the world. Upstairs,

you sort socks and underwear neatly into drawers. Cupboards
hold various vessels and the weathervane turns, obedient
to the wind. You decide to just heap the fallen leaves around

the base of trees instead of raking, and lounge in an XL sweat-
shirt and yoga pants when all that feels broken wells up
in your chest. When your spirit is zapped, you stop to rest.

December 4, 2023December 4, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Before Her Time

Have you ever felt you were old from a long time ago—
not just after the obvious crossing of a line, the going

through a door in the fourth or fifth decade of your life; 
and you don't recognize the piped-in music playing

in the corridor? Not in the manner of old soul,
a phrase that sometimes people use to describe 

the child who makes profound statements like Today
is yesterday's tomorrow, or I’m afraid I’ve not lived long 

enough to have an opinion on things. Rather, recall 
when you somehow intuited the subtle lesson of light 

fading gradually from the trees while other children 
squealed for one more ride on the swing or the teeter-

totter; or when you felt before you saw the hand 
emerging out of a crush of bodies in a crowd and then 

it was upon your breast. And so at three, you were old;
and again at five, at seven, at eight. You didn't tell, not 

until the physical years did actually catch up to you. 
Then you shone a different light to gentle her face.