Year: 2014

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Tracks

This entry is part 26 of 27 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Autumn 2014

You say you do not remember
the things we used to do
together— We counted the hundred
and some steps that led to the cathedral,
holding our breath from near vertigo
on descent. The boys that sold
lottery tickets loitered along the edge
of the overlook, tempting fate
at the same time that they sold dreams
cheap, if by the dozen. I was ashamed
one summer to wear the shoes
made to correct the uncanny
curvature of my back. And so I believed
you then when you said I should find
the filament in the center
of the spider’s web, roll it
between my thumb and forefinger,
swallow it like a pill. We circled
the neighborhood streets like strays
intent on finding the map to places
where wildness was still spoken,
a language not yet extinct.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Abed

All the morning at home lying in bed with my wife till 11 o’clock. Such a habit we have got this winter of lying long abed. Dined at home, and in the afternoon to the office. There sat late, and so home and to bed.

lying in bed
with my wife—
winter afternoon


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 14 December 1661. Two other possibilities I didn’t like quite as much:

11 o’clock
this winter bed
no bed

all morning with my clock—
such a winter of lying
to the office

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Red hornbill earring

In a dog-eared journal from many years ago, I find
a pencil drawing and notes from a lecture given
by a cultural anthropologist:

red hornbill earring,
beautiful carved badge, sign
that the wearer has taken a human head.

So much of his life
was devoted to the detailed study
of this ritual among a certain tribe—

how the ritual began
when the fire-trees blossomed,
red bunting that bordered narrow

mountain trails with risk as prelude
to desire. My notes read: It is the practice
of Ilongot men to present a severed head

or other body part
to a prospective wife. I did not know
him then, nor his wife, though they came

to work among us in our campus
village, where we kept our own rituals
as arbitrary and elaborate as any other

brought under a scholar’s scrutiny.
What was it we heard? Fog-wrapped
ravines, his wife’s mis-step

in the treacherous dark—
Every anthropology houses
a poetry of grief. We all spend

lifetimes searching for meanings
that elude our grasp, whose starkness will shine
with a clarity we do not even need to give them.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Fear of a white planet.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Morning after

At home all the morning, being by the cold weather, which for these two days has been frost, in some pain in my bladder. Dined at home and then with my wife to the Paynter’s, and there she sat the first time to be drawn, while I all the while stood looking on a pretty lady’s picture, whose face did please me extremely. At last, he having done, I found that the dead colour of my wife is good, above what I expected, which pleased me exceedingly. So home and to the office about some special business, where Sir Williams both were, and from thence with them to the Steelyard, where my Lady Batten and others came to us, and there we drank and had musique and Captain Cox’s company, and he paid all, and so late back again home by coach, and so to bed.

morning frost
pain in my bladder and the drawn
face of my wife


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 13 December 1661.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Fear of a white planet

We lay long in bed, then up and made me ready, and by and by come Will Bowyer and Mr. Gregory, my old Exchequer friend, to see me, and I took them to the Dolphin and there did give them a good morning draft, and so parted, and invited them and all my old Exchequer acquaintance to come and dine with me there on Wednesday next.
From thence to the Wardrobe and dined with my Lady, where her brother, Mr. John Crew, dined also, and a strange gentlewoman dined at the table as a servant of my Lady’s; but I knew her not, and so I am afeard that poor Madamoiselle was gone, but I since understand that she is come as housekeeper to my Lady, and is a married woman. From thence to Westminster to my Lord’s house to meet my Lord Privy Seal, who appointed to seal there this afternoon, but by and by word is brought that he is come to Whitehall, and so we are fain to go thither to him, and there we staid to seal till it was so late that though I got leave to go away before he had done, yet the office was done before I could get thither, and so to Sir W. Pen’s, and there sat and talked and drank with him, and so home.

my old friend
my old acquaintance
my strange table
the sea
is white as ice


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 12 December 1661.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

First day of spring

My brother Tom and then Mr. Moore came to me this morning, and staid a while with me, and then I went out, and in my way met with Mr. Howell the Turner, who invited me to dine this day at Mr. Rawlinson’s with some friends of his, officers of the Towre, at a venison pasty, which I promised him, and so I went to the Old Bayly, and there staid and drank with him, who told me the whole story how Pegg Kite has married herself to a weaver, an ugly fellow, to her undoing, of which I am glad that I have nothing to do in it. From thence home and put on my velvet coat, and so to the Mitre to dinner according to my promise this morning, but going up into the room I found at least 12 or more persons, and knew not the face of any of them, so I went down again, and though I met Mr. Yong the upholster yet I would not be persuaded to stay, but went away and walked to the Exchequer, and up and down, and was very hungry, and from thence home, when I understand Mr. Howell was come for me to go thither, but I am glad I was not at home, and my wife was gone out by coach to Clerkenwell to see Mrs. Margaret Pen, who is at school there. So I went to see Sir W. Pen, who for this two or three days has not been well, and he and I after some talk took a coach and went to Moorfields, and there walked, though it was very cold, an hour or two, and went into an alehouse, and there I drank some ale and eat some bread and cheese, but he would not eat a bit, and so being very merry we went home again. He to his lodgings and I by promise to Sir W. Batten’s, where he and my lady have gone out of town, and so Mrs. Martha was at home alone, and Mrs. Moore and there I supped upon some good things left of yesterday’s dinner there, where dined a great deal of company — Sir R. Browne and others — and by and by comes in Captain Cox who promised to be here with me, but he staid very late, and had been drinking somewhere and was very drunk, and so very capricious, which I was troubled to see in a man that I took for a very wise and wary man. So I home and left him there, and so to bed.

my son’s old kite
I put on my velvet coat
to go to town


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 11 December 1661.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Indelible

I wanted to write letters
on pieces of bark and burn them down to ash.

I wanted to scrape
the inside of each memory where it lies

closest to the membrane.
I wanted to send you a telegram in hieroglyphs

that the future is still inventing,
but whose encryption is locked

in a simple key: which is to say,
the mind tends to track shapes that may not bear

any likeness to their original outline.
Inky with light or cross hatched with shadow

is all that matters: whether the snow was falling
or if salt crystals etched the window glass.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Correspondence

To Whitehall, and there finding Mons. Eschar to be gone, I sent my letters by a porter to the posthouse in Southwark to be sent by despatch to the Downs. So to dinner to my Lord Crew’s by coach, and in my way had a stop of above an hour and a half, which is a great trouble this Parliament time, but it cannot be helped. However I got thither before my Lord come from the House, and so dined with him, and dinner done, home to the office, and there sat late and so home.

White and char
go letters in war
to stop time.
But we dine
on ice.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 10 December 1661.