2014 – Page 86 – Via Negativa

January 8, 2014January 7, 2014 by Luisa A. Igloria

Mouth Song

In the mountain city,
twelve cats gathered
in the alley behind the dim
sum restaurant with my name.

I do not believe
the urban legends—
I like my steamed meat bun
best with Chinese sausages;

I’ve had a few with salty
duck egg. The puckered,
fluted edges are stamped
with the end of a chopstick

dipped in red food dye so you
can tell which one is which.
So long since we beheld
the glory of a whole

suckling pig, lechon
de leche. How many of them
could you fit lengthwise
like a ship in a clear

glass bottle? Do you want
to know how many heirloom beads
were given for my hand at my
first marriage? (None.

That was just a joke.)
My father, when he was still
alive, tore off the crackling
ear, the whole savory tongue

to put into my babies’
mouths. We do not have
Rosetta stones, but o
we have taste buds.

Desire was our first
teacher: blood, guts,
marrow, mineral tang;
gristle, and then the long

sweet shank that simmered
until the meat fell off
the bone. Taste made us
learn as much as we could

about the world, before
we even saw it. Taste
made us restless: rooting,
sniffing at the door

of all we imagined
we could have.

In response to Via Negativa: Divided loyalties.

January 7, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Cold snap

Yes, it’s cold. Continue reading “Cold snap”

January 7, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

(Lord’s day).
My wife and I to church this morning, and so home to dinner to a boiled leg of mutton all alone.
To church again, where, before sermon, a long Psalm was set that lasted an hour, while the sexton gathered his year’s contribucion through the whole church.
After sermon home, and there I went to my chamber and wrote a letter to send to Mr. Coventry, with a piece of plate along with it, which I do preserve among my other letters.
So to supper, and thence after prayers to bed.

My wife is an oiled leg of church,
a long psalm,
sex the red letter I preserve
among my other prayers.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 6 January 1660/61.

January 7, 2014January 6, 2014 by Luisa A. Igloria

Why Not

This entry is part 8 of 23 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2013-14

There’s that plucked
melody again, the same
but different, space

of a water drop between
two notes then five,
returning but not

to the same stone
rough shod and green
as a lizard’s skin—

pick it up
and turn it over:
yes like that.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

January 6, 2014January 7, 2014 by Dave Bonta

2013 in photos: A week in the Caledonian forest

Less than 1 percent of the ancient Caledonian forest remains, much of it in the Abernethy region, where Rachel and I camped for a week in mid July. She wanted to prove to me that real forests still existed in the British Isles. Our first evening there, I went for a walk and discovered this dead sheep. Continue reading “2013 in photos: A week in the Caledonian forest”

January 6, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Divided loyalties

Home all the morning. Several people came to me about business, among others the great Tom Fuller, who came to desire a kindness for a friend of his, who hath a mind to go to Jamaica with these two ships that are going, which I promised to do.
So to Whitehall to my Lady, whom I found at dinner and dined with her, and staid with her talking all the afternoon, and thence walked to Westminster Hall. So to Will’s, and drank with Spicer, and thence by coach home, staying a little in Paul’s Churchyard, to bespeak Ogilby’s Æsop’s Fables and Tully’s Officys to be bound for me. So home and to bed.

Desire is a mind
with two ships in it.
I stayed with her
and walked—
staying in a fable,
bound for bed.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 5 January 1660/61.

January 6, 2014January 6, 2014 by Luisa A. Igloria

Year of the Horse

“In the daytime also he led them with a cloud,
and all the night with a light of fire….”
~ The Psalms 78

Under that flank
I can touch, a ripple

that grows to my fingers
with a bulge like a fig—

Quicken is the way
night turns, rapid

as the valance
of morning. Sh sh

say the birds
in the tree,

purpling sonnets
and psalms for silence—

No need to drink
that poison. No need

to lie down and cry.
Nothing is wasted,

my dearest love;
nothing is lost.

Come out now and eat
the sugar from the offered

hand; bite of apple,
salt of the bridle

leading again to the gate
and the track beyond.

January 5, 2014 by Dave Bonta

2013 in photos: A visit to Meri Wells’ studio

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned our visit to the studio of the Welsh artist Meri Wells. That was last July, in the course of a weekend with Clive Hicks-Jenkins (pictured above with Meri) and his partner Peter Wakelin. Continue reading “2013 in photos: A visit to Meri Wells’ studio”

January 5, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Twelfth Night

Office all the morning, my wife and Pall being gone to my father’s to dress dinner for Mr. Honiwood, my mother being gone out of town. Dined at home, and Mr. Moore with me, with whom I had been early this morning at White Hall, at the Jewell Office, to choose a piece of gilt plate for my Lord, in return of his offering to the King (which it seems is usual at this time of year, and an Earl gives twenty pieces in gold in a purse to the King). I chose a gilt tankard, weighing 31 ounces and a half, and he is allowed 30; so I paid 12s. for the ounce and half over what he is to have; but strange it was for me to see what a company of small fees I was called upon by a great many to pay there, which, I perceive, is the manner that courtiers do get their estates.
After dinner Mr. Moore and I to the Theatre, where was “The Scornful Lady,” acted very well, it being the first play that ever he saw. Thence with him to drink a cup of ale at Hercules Pillars, and so parted. I called to see my father, who told me by the way how Will and Mary Joyce do live a strange life together, nothing but fighting, &c., so that sometimes her father has a mind to have them divorced. Thence home.

All the wood is white.
An earl gives the king
a gilt tank.
We of small estates
play Hercules
and live a strange life—
nothing but fighting.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 4 January 1660/61.

January 5, 2014January 4, 2014 by Luisa A. Igloria

Time is no old token—

no mere copper

flattened at a poorly
lit rest stop in a town

in the middle of mid-
America— No plush

toy lifted by pincers
from a glassed-in

bin for the price
of a wish for as long

as you have three
quarters to push

into the slot. Go
outside and breathe

the cold air, check
how the dark still

threshes the brightest
stars before you buckle

in for the ride again,
past house after house:

some identical as slats
in a picket fence, some

marked with just the faintest
thumbprint of curry escaping

from a kitchen window, one
whose gutter has been replaced

by cups of linked metal
in a rain chain.

In response to Via Negativa: Belated Christmas letter.