2014 – Page 53 – Via Negativa

May 6, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Immortals of the Wine Cup

(Lord’s day). Mr. Creed and I went to the red-faced Parson’s church, and heard a good sermon of him, better than I looked for. Then home, and had a good dinner, and after dinner fell in some talk in Divinity with Mr. Stevens that kept us till it was past Church time.
Anon we walked into the garden, and there played the fool a great while, trying who of Mr. Creed or I could go best over the edge of an old fountain wall, and I won a quart of sack of him.
Then to supper in the banquet house, and there my wife and I did talk high, she against and I for Mrs. Pierce (that she was a beauty), till we were both angry.
Then to walk in the fields, and so to our quarters, and to bed.

A red-faced divinity, the fool
who won a quart of sack.
He and I talk beauty
till we’re both angry,
then walk in the fields.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 5 May 1661.

May 6, 2014May 6, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Graffitied beech

This entry is part 88 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

The beech tree has seven eyes
where limbs used to be,
each of them gazing upward.

Down below, the scars
of old, knife-cut graffiti:
Smoke Up. Fly High. Manson Lives.

A warbler in the crown
of a neighboring oak,
its shadow crossing my face.

May 5, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Lay

Up in the morning and took coach, and so to Gilford, where we lay at the Red Lyon, the best Inn, and lay in the room the King lately lay in, where we had time to see the Hospital, built by Archbishop Abbott, and the free school, and were civilly treated by the Mayster.
So to supper, and to bed, being very merry about our discourse with the Drawers concerning the minister of the Town, with a red face and a girdle. So to bed, where we lay and sleep well.

I lay at the Red Lion,
lay in the room
I lately lay in, ill
and to bed with
a red face, I lay well.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 4 May 1661.

May 5, 2014 by Luisa A. Igloria

Nagual

The Buddha listens as her friend G
remembers the day a pair of cops came
to her home, to break the news:

they’d fished out her son’s body
from the Shuylkill river— no marks
of violence, his pockets empty, his feet

unshod. You know in your bones, says G.
Her mother, who opened the door, crumpled
to the floor like a sheet yanked

from the line. In old myths and sacred texts
are passages which describe how, when a child
is born, a life index plant is set in the soil

by the front door, along with his mother’s
afterbirth. Whatever happens to the child
is mirrored in the curling vine, the wild

hibiscus, the golden shower tree. No words
were needed for what shriveled like a leaf
in the heart, constricted the gut:

invisible blow dealt to the base
of the staff, lone bird that held out its
familiar note in the wood, now stilled.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

May 5, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Violet Hill

This entry is part 87 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

The first surveyor—1795—
labeled this mountain Violet Hill.
Did he study it in the blue distance,

or see right at his feet
the crowds of violets fluttering
under the attention of the rain?

A warbler just back from the tropics
sings quietly, as if trying to locate
all the notes.

May 4, 2014 by Luisa A. Igloria

The Buddha is tired

of expectations, of the million and one ways
in which the bread might not rise, the cup

might not run over, the tire might go flat,
the light bulb go out. She is tired of the times
intention is thwarted, detoured, outright taken

over by some other outcome less ideal than what
was originally desired. The Buddha is tired
of going last, eating the crust, saving

the ribbons and the wrapping paper, reheating
the scraps; being the open door, the one they come to,
the shoulder to cry on, the purse that both makes do

and makes it right. She wants to be the one not
singled out by The Boss for turning her Out of Office
message on, while others go away without so much as a by-

your-leave. Who wrote the rules about selflessness and virtue,
about retribution in coin or in kind? All everyone wants
every now and then is to be seen for what they really are.

In response to Via Negativa: No trespassing.

May 4, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Steerage

Early to walk with Mr. Creed up and down the town, and it was in his and some others’ thoughts to have got me made free of the town, but the Mayor, it seems, unwilling, and so they could not do it.
Then to the payhouse, and there paid off the ship, and so to a short dinner, and then took coach, leaving Mrs. Hater there to stay with her husband’s friends, and we to Petersfield, having nothing more of trouble in all my journey, but the exceeding unmannerly and most epicure-like palate of Mr. Creed.
Here my wife and I lay in the room the Queen lately lay at her going into France.

Early to walk
up and down the ship—
here with nothing but the most
epicure-like going.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 3 May 1661.

May 3, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

No Trespassing

Up, and Mr. Creed and I to walk round the town upon the walls. Then to our inn, and there all the officers of the Yard to see me with great respect, and I walked with them to the Dock and saw all the stores, and much pleased with the sight of the place.
Back and brought them all to dinner with me, and treated them handsomely; and so after dinner by water to the Yard, and there we made the sale of the old provisions. Then we and our wives all to see the Montagu, which is a fine ship, and so to the town again by water, and then to see the room where the Duke of Buckingham was killed by Felton.
So to our lodging, and to supper and to bed.
To-night came Mr. Stevens to town to help us to pay off the Fox.