Via Negativa

February 17, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Businessman’s prayer

To my Lord in the morning, who looked over my accounts and agreed to them. I did also get him to sign a bill (which do make my heart merry) for 60l. to me, in consideration of my work extraordinary at sea this last voyage, which I hope to get paid.
I dined with my Lord and then to the Theatre, where I saw “The Virgin Martyr,” a good but too sober a play for the company. Then home.

Lord, look over my greed.
Make my heart err
for my work,
a martyr to the company.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 16 February 1660/61.

February 17, 2014February 23, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Head cold

This entry is part 24 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

The house is pinned
under heavy snow.
My head fills with mucus.

Icy limbs strain
to reach the ground,
alternately melting and freezing.

I drip in the noon-time glare.
Let me be replenished
in nightly increments.

February 16, 2014 by Luisa A. Igloria

from Ghost Blueprints

This entry is part 20 of 23 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2013-14

The sycamore drops
brittle grenades in the driveway.

Where there were snow
angels in the yard, now

there are sticky fingers
of mud—

But other emissaries
are on the way:

over the harbor,
winds pungent with salt;

the moon’s coppered
edge a sharper argument.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

February 16, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Clarity

At the office all the morning, and in the afternoon at making up my accounts for my Lord to-morrow; and that being done I found myself to be clear (as I think) 350l. in the world, besides my goods in my house and all things paid for.

ice all morning
making a clear world

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 15 February 1660/61.

February 16, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Deep snow

This entry is part 23 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

In all this blankness,
a squirrel finds the precise spot
it buried a nut.

Breaking trail with snowshoes,
I choose to believe
I’m half-floating, not half-sinking.

Clumps of snow sail off the trees,
making a random scatter
of oblong prints.

February 15, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Rosebush

(Valentine’s day). Up early and to Sir W. Batten’s, but would not go in till I asked whether they that opened the door was a man or a woman, and Mingo, who was there, answered a woman, which, with his tone, made me laugh.
So up I went and took Mrs. Martha for my Valentine (which I do only for complacency), and Sir W. Batten he go in the same manner to my wife, and so we were very merry.
About 10 o’clock we, with a great deal of company, went down by our barge to Deptford, and there only went to see how forward Mr. Pett’s yacht is; and so all into the barge again, and so to Woolwich, on board the Rose-bush, Captain Brown’s ship, that is brother-in-law to Sir W. Batten, where we had a very fine dinner, dressed on shore, and great mirth and all things successfull; the first time I ever carried my wife a-ship-board, as also my boy Wayneman, who hath all this day been called young Pepys, as Sir W. Pen’s boy young Pen.
So home by barge again; good weather, but pretty cold. I to my study, and began to make up my accounts for my Lord, which I intend to end tomorrow.
To bed.
The talk of the town now is, who the King is like to have for his Queen: and whether Lent shall be kept with the strictness of the King’s proclamation; which it is thought cannot be, because of the poor, who cannot buy fish. And also the great preparation for the King’s crowning is now much thought upon and talked of.

Great company
is the rosebush,
hip to fine-dressed hip
like a queen, with
the strictness of the poor
who cannot buy a crown.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 14 February 1660/61.

February 15, 2014 by Luisa A. Igloria

Umami

Behind this mesh of rain,
this leaden sky, I know
tonight the moon is full.

After the story read
from pages of a book, the one
whispered in the ear, made up,

stumblingly, is the one
that you’ll remember.
Though it is also true:

what the mouth
will testify, the body
will not always do.

In response to Via Negativa: Snowfall.

February 15, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Rabbit

This entry is part 22 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

A rabbit has squeezed
into a ring of fencing
to browse on dogwood sprouts

and can’t get out.
The snow crunches under
my boots as I loom up,

the small animal
beating against its cage
like a panicked heart.

February 14, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

February romance

At the office all the morning; dined at home, and poor Mr. Wood with me, who after dinner would have borrowed money of me, but I would lend none. Then to Whitehall by coach with Sir W. Pen, where we did very little business, and so back to Mr. Rawlinson’s, where I took him and gave him a cup of wine, he having formerly known Mr. Rawlinson, and here I met my uncle Wight, and he drank with us, and with him to Sir W. Batten’s, whither I sent for my wife, and we chose Valentines against to-morrow. My wife chose me, which did much please me; my Lady Batten Sir W. Pen, &c. Here we sat late, and so home to bed, having got my Lady Batten to give me a spoonful of honey for my cold.

Dine me, wine me,
know me and Valentine me,
please me, give me
a spoonful of honey
for my cold.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 13 February 1660/61.

February 14, 2014February 15, 2014 by Luisa A. Igloria

Yield

There’s the man with the limp we see in church, walking with his old lady to the corner market. Why are people wandering about clutching red mylar balloons in their clumsy hands? The busboy is cleaning the menu boards on the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop. College students are smoking on the steps, talking like philosophers, trying to impress their girlfriends. The cops are cruising in their cars with the windows cracked, their elbows jutting out in obtuse angles. Don’t blow me a kiss, give me a real one. Yield, says the traffic sign. Two little girls with unruly braids turn their brown paper goody bags upside down the faster to get to the strawberry pink lollies and chocolate hearts. May all beings be happy, the Buddha said; may all beings be free from suffering. Those girls don’t need to be told that, even if the gold foil doily hearts are stuck on upside down.

In response to Via Negativa: On the Way to Santiago, 1978.