Month: April 2015

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Catch

It startled me to hear the child say she feels
every feeling when she walks into rooms.

It made me think of a long brown coat I loved to wear:
how I knew every dent in its buttons, how my fingers loved
its capacious pockets.

I have had forebodings too, several times in this life.

Once, a man sat across a blazing bonfire,
combing his long hair with his fingers.

You can imagine something before it comes true.

Once, a man held a child
away from a rushing lorry.

You can close your eyes and still see
the outline of the moon.

All that the will asserts
is the measure of what we can’t know.

 

In response to Via Negativa: The Grays.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Accountant

At the office all the morning. Dined at home. Again at the office in the afternoon to despatch letters and so home, and with my wife, by coach, to the New Exchange, to buy her some things; where we saw some new-fashion pettycoats of sarcenett, with a black broad lace printed round the bottom and before, very handsome, and my wife had a mind to one of them, but we did not then buy one. But thence to Mr. Bowyer’s, thinking to have spoke to them for our Sarah to go to Huntsmore for a while to get away her ague, but we had not opportunity to do it, and so home and to bed.

At the office
in the afternoon
letters change to ash,

a black road
printed round the mind.

But no one
but the ink hunts
for a way home.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 15 April 1662.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Night air

Being weary last night I lay very long in bed to-day, talking with my wife, and persuaded her to go to Brampton, and take Sarah with her, next week, to cure her ague by change of ayre, and we agreed all things therein.
We rose, and at noon dined, and then we to the Paynter’s, and there sat the last time for my little picture, which I hope will please me. Then to Paternoster Row to buy things for my wife against her going.
So home and walked upon the leads with my wife, and whether she suspected anything or no I know not, but she is quite off of her going to Brampton, which something troubles me, and yet all my design was that I might the freer go to Portsmouth when the rest go to pay off the yards there, which will be very shortly. But I will get off if I can.
So to supper and to bed.

night air
in the rose I buy for my wife—
her free mouth


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 14 April 1662.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

The Grays

Where others may have
the blues, I have the grays.
That this lump of a dove
with its idiotic gaze
can make such a bone-
deep moan—it’s humbling.
My own song fumbles
borrowed words, absurd.
At best, I wrest a staccato beat
from the raucous crows,
yelling here, hear and jeering
at some insomniac owl.
I’ve got the grays—but
they make me grimace
from ear to ear
like poor Yorick before
he lost his jaw.
I croon. I caw.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Among spirits

Shimmery ghost
faces bloat the water
and thicken the reeds

Theirs the thin
scritch of a hinge
in an upstairs window

Theirs the old-
fashioned names that match
the heavy silverware

The blinds flutter
like rows of helpless moths
when they pass

For them we fashion cars
made of paper and paste, tiaras
made of dark-eyed seeds

For them fat bankrolls
of Mickey Mouse money, the smoke
unwound from Cuban cigars

A boat in the shallows,
two coppery coins
dropped in the hold

 

In response to Via Negativa: Night barge.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Apocrypha

“Excuse my not/ waiting as others do/ to be.” ~ D. Bonta

Every clock in the house shaves off
too little or too much, but none

arrives at consensus as to the nature
of what winds around and around itself

like a maypole. I walk to the river
to investigate abandoned shells,

dry pods, serifs drawn by the feet
of wading birds: they’re never afraid,

no matter how many times they step
into the river’s text.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Carpe diem.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Mole

(Lord’s day). In the morning to Paul’s, where I heard a pretty good sermon, and thence to dinner with my Lady at the Wardrobe; and after much talk with her after dinner, I went to the Temple to Church, and there heard another: by the same token a boy, being asleep, fell down a high seat to the ground, ready to break his neck, but got no hurt.
Thence to Graye’s Inn walkes; and there met Mr. Pickering and walked with him two hours till 8 o’clock till I was quite weary. His discourse most about the pride of the Duchess of York; and how all the ladies envy my Lady Castlemaine. He intends to go to Portsmouth to meet the Queen this week; which is now the discourse and expectation of the town.
So home, and no sooner come but Sir W. Warren comes to me to bring me a paper of Field’s (with whom we have lately had a great deal of trouble at the office), being a bitter petition to the King against our office for not doing justice upon his complaint to us of embezzlement of the King’s stores by one Turpin. I took Sir William to Sir W. Pen’s (who was newly come from Walthamstow), and there we read it and discoursed, but we do not much fear it, the King referring it to the Duke of York. So we drank a glass or two of wine, and so home and I to bed, my wife being in bed already.

I went to ground, ready to break
the gray clock.
My mouth is a warren.
Bring me a field,
a bitter plain to bezzle in
and fear rank as wine.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 13 April 1662.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Carpe diem

At the office all the morning, where, among other things, being provoked by some impertinence of Sir W. Batten’s, I called him unreasonable man, at which he was very angry and so was I, but I think we shall not much fall out about it.
After dinner to several places about business, and so home and wrote letters at my office, and one to Mr. Coventry about business, and at the close did excuse my not waiting on him myself so often as others do for want of leisure. So home and to bed.

All things call
and all fall and rot.
Excuse my not
waiting as others do
to be.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 12 April 1662.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Politic

This entry is part 9 of 19 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2015

Half a moon in the sky, suspended
as an earring from the tree.

And the mind flies to make a perch
out of meaning—

Meaning choices have been made,
between some idea of ornament

and an idea of loss; between the card
of membership and the polite

rejection. Diplomacy:
the faintly vibrating net

electric in the gap. Or
all that will ever remain unsaid.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Stores

Is that all? asks the sales clerk. These days I want to travel lighter and lighter. It is probably still too much, but I haven’t yet detached from some ideas of comfort— What is it today? a vial of lavender spray, a shampoo bar, a packet of herbal tea. We used to have a small kitchen with an ancient refrigerator. A gas stove with four burners, one of which did not work. We boiled drinking water in a dented kettle. On cold days, we heated water for baths. In a pewter pot, coffee percolated. We bought a local blend from a stall in the market: they ground the beans and poured the grains into oily paper sacks. Oh the luxury then of instant coffee— if not Nescafe, then something mother called Hillsbros. Cleaned out, the bottles held a variety of condiments. Or kept in storage something for that day of gaping lack. Rows of them lined a shelf beneath the counter: dry rattle of mung beans for a rainy night; salt, cloves, bay leaves, pepper. In another, sweetness that would need prodding, hidden in hard curls of cinnamon stick or pods of anise.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Message without bottles.