Month: September 2015

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Colonized

At my office betimes, and by and by we sat, and at noon Mr. Coventry, Sir J. Minnes, Mr. Pett, and myself by water to Deptford, where we met Sir G. C., Sir W. B., and Sir W. P. at the pay of a ship, and we dined together on a haunch of good venison boiled, and after dinner returned again to the office, and there met several tradesmen by our appointment to know of them their lowest rates that they will take for their several provisions that they sell to us, for I do resolve to know that, and to buy no dearer, that so when we know the lowest rate, it shall be the Treasurer’s fault, and not ours, that we pay dearer.
This afternoon Sir John Minnes, Mr. Coventry, and I went into Sir John’s lodgings, where he showed us how I have blinded all his lights, and stopped up his garden door, and other things he takes notice of that he resolves to abridge me of, which do vex me so much that for all this evening and all night in my bed, so great a fool I am, and little master of my passion, that I could not sleep for the thoughts of my losing the privilege of the leads, and other things which in themselves are small and not worth half the trouble. The more fool am I, and must labour against it for shame, especially I that used to preach up Epictetus’s rule: τὰ ἐφ ἡμῖν κἰ τἀ οὐχ ἐφ ἡμῖν.
Late at my office, troubled in mind, and then to bed, but could hardly sleep at night.

we pay in good oil
for the visions they sell to us:

I now know
how blind I am

my thoughts are small and labor
against the night


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 9 September 1662.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Suddenly

This entry is part 14 of 19 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2015

the phone call comes, the morning’s skin is pierced,
the holiday ruined before it even begins. Suddenly
the months of the years rearrange themselves. Suddenly
routine surrenders and substitutes must be found.
Suddenly you clutch at straws so hard you make each
one another kind of breaking. Suddenly the surf pounds
in your ear and nothing you say or do can console the one
who’s come in, tired from swimming, from walking. Suddenly
it’s evening, filled with the wings of moths that converge
in rooms where we’ve covered the furniture with drop cloths.
Suddenly the night unreels and the halls lead us round
and round these rooms that we thought were locked
but which give at the push of a fingertip. Suddenly a bird
calls out and a mirror drops from its frame. Suddenly
a shadow melts in the shape of a cage and the wall
is lit as if from within. Suddenly it’s raining.
And just like that, suddenly it isn’t.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Swan’s way

Up betimes and to my office preparing an account to give the Duke this morning of what we have of late done at the office. About 7 o’clock I went forth thinking to go along with Sir John Minnes and the rest, and I found them gone, which did vex me, so I went directly to the old Swan and took boat before them to Sir G. Carteret’s lodgings at Whitehall, and there staying till he was dressed talking with him, he and I to St. James’s, where Sir Williams both and Sir John were come, and so up with Mr. Coventry to the Duke; who, after he was out of his bed, did send for us in; and, when he was quite ready, took us into his closet, and there told us that he do intend to renew the old custom for the Admirals to have their principal officers to meet them once a-week, to give them an account what they have done that week; which I am glad of: and so the rest did tell his Royal Highness that I could do it best for the time past. And so I produced my short notes, and did give him an account of all that we have of late done; and proposed to him several things for his commands, which he did give us, and so dismissed us. The rest to Deptford, I to the Exchequer to meet Mr. Townsend, where I hear he is gone to the Sun tavern, and there found him with some friends at breakfast, which I eat with him, and so we crossed the water together, and in walking I told him my brother Tom’s intentions for a wife, which he would do me all favour in to Mr. Young, whose kinswoman he do look after. We took boat again at the Falcon, and there parted, and I to the old Swan, and so to the Change, and there meeting Sir W. Warren did step to a tavern, and there sat and talked about price of masts and other things, and so broke up and to my office to see what business, and so we took water again at the Tower.
I over to Redriffe, and there left him in the boat and walked to Deptford, and there up and down the yard speaking with people, and so Sir W. Pen coming out of the payhouse did single me out to tell me Sir J. Minnes’ dislike of my blinding his lights over his stairs (which indeed is very bad) and blocking up the house of office on the leads. Which did trouble me. So I went into the payhouse and took an occasion of speaking with him alone, and did give him good satisfaction therein, so as that I am well pleased and do hope now to have my closet on the leads without any more trouble, for he do not object against my having a door upon the leads, but that all my family should not make it a thoroughfare, which I am contented with.
So to the pay, and in the evening home in the barge, and so to my office, and after doing some business there to my lodgings, and so to bed.

For the old swan,
staying in bed is
the custom; best
to rest where the sun
crossed the water.
To the old swan,
we tower and boat
like blind
stairs of lead.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 8 September 1662.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Reek

Where dump trucks take
our trash, most of us

don’t know: an open pit,
a landfill, flotilla

of dark wings waiting
to tear into the reek.

Salt spray from the sea
cannot temper the stench

of human waste: the wind
slashes each plastic bag

and its contents, bursts
inner tubes and remnants

of coats. Everything has
a hidden seam— The children

who live there find five
mangled spoons, short of

a set; the carcass of a dented
thimble, an animal that once

was turned on a spit—
green, with lunar cast.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Gentrification.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Gentrification

(Lord’s day). Up betimes and round about by the streets to my office, and walked in the garden and in my office till my man Will rose, and then sent to tell Sir J. Minnes that I would go with him to Whitehall, which anon we did, in his coach, and to the Chapell, where I heard a good sermon of the Dean of Ely’s, upon returning to the old ways, and a most excellent anthem, with symphonys between, sung by Captain Cooke. Then home with Mr. Fox and his lady; and there dined with them, where much company come to them. Most of our discourse was what ministers are flung out that will not conform: and the care of the Bishop of London that we are here supplied with very good men.
Thence to my Lord’s, where nobody at home but a woman that let me in, and Sarah above, whither I went up to her and played and talked with her and, God forgive me, did feel her; which I am much ashamed of, but I did no more, though I had so much a mind to it that I spent in my breeches. After I had talked an hour or two with her I went and gave Mr. Hunt a short visit, he being at home alone, and thence walked homewards, and meeting Mr. Pierce, the chyrurgeon, he took me into Somersett House; and there carried me into the Queen-Mother’s presence-chamber, where she was with our own Queen sitting on her left hand (whom I did never see before); and though she be not very charming, yet she hath a good, modest, and innocent look, which is pleasing. Here I also saw Madam Castlemaine, and, which pleased me most, Mr. Crofts, the King’s bastard, a most pretty spark of about 15 years old, who, I perceive, do hang much upon my Lady Castlemaine, and is always with her; and, I hear, the Queens both of them are mighty kind to him. By and by in comes the King, and anon the Duke and his Duchess; so that, they being all together, was such a sight as I never could almost have happened to see with so much ease and leisure. They staid till it was dark, and then went away; the King and his Queen, and my Lady Castlemaine and young Crofts, in one coach and the rest in other, coaches. Here were great store of great ladies, but very few handsome.
The King and Queen were very merry; and he would have made the Queen-Mother believe that his Queen was with child, and said that she said so. And the young Queen answered, “You lye;” which was the first English word that I ever heard her say which made the King good sport; and he would have taught her to say in English, “Confess and be hanged.”
The company being gone I walked home with great content as I can be in for seeing the greatest rarity, and yet a little troubled that I should see them before my wife’s coming home, I having made a promise that I would not, nor did I do it industriously and by design, but by chance only. To my office, to fit myself for waiting on the Duke to-morrow morning with the rest of our company, and so to my lodgings and to bed.

The streets returning to symphonies,
we are nobody but
we feel more at home

in the presence of a pretty child
taught to say confess
and be hanged.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 7 September 1662.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Forgotten

(translated from poet Rebecca T. Añonuevo’s “NALIPATÁN,” 7 September 2015)

What humanity forgot,
the sea remembered.
It cradled the young,
delivered them to dreams.
Sky beneath the water,
playmates of prismed fish.
Coral that rippled
as if with laughter.
Dimpled calves in the gaps
that may have tickled the soles of their feet.
All creatures large and small,
living in each other’s midst
released from fear and war.
The waves have rescued the innocent
that they might no longer wake
to the cold stones, the earth’s
indifferent kiss at the edge
of the shore.

*

NALIPATÁN
Rebecca T. Añonuevo

Ang nalipatán ng tao,
Naalala ng dagat.
Idinuyan ang musmos,
Ihinatid sa panaginip.
Langit sa ilalim ng tubig,
Mga kalarong isda, sarikulay,
Mga korales na umiindak
At naghahalakhakan,
Mga binti ng pugitang
Nangingiliti ng talampakan.
Malalaki’t maliliit na nilalang,
Na nabubuhay sa isa’t isa,
Malaya sa pangamba at digmaan.
Iniligtas ng alon ang walang muwang,
Nang hindi na magising
Sa malamig at mabato, malayong-loob
Na paghalik ng lupa sa dalampasigan.

7 Setyembre 2015

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Biz

I don’t go to many parties, where glass after luminous glass
is long-stemmed, and the poor little olive bumps by itself

in a hollow. Perhaps as a consequence I don’t know many
pretty people in ways I’m told might matter. I’ve seen

first hand how swiftly transactions can take place and change.
One moment a famous writer plucks an acolyte out of the lunch line,

addressing him by his pet names; the next, she’s regaling everyone
with tales of how the mediocre borrow, and the great ones steal.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Bump in the night.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

In the past

Lay long, that is, till 6 and past before I rose, in order to sweat a little away the cold which I was afraid I might have got yesterday, but I bless God I am well. So up and to my office, and then we met and sat till noon, very full of business. Then Sir John Minnes, both Sir Williams and I to the Trinity House, where we had at dinner a couple of venison pasties, of which I eat but little, being almost cloyed, having been at five pasties in three days, namely, two at our own feast, and one yesterday, and two to-day. So home and at the office all the afternoon, busy till nine at night, and so to my lodging and to bed.
This afternoon I had my new key and the lock of my office door altered, having lost my key the other day, which vexed me.

Long past:
cold as a god of business.

Past of which I eat,
almost cloyed.

Past in our own feast,
the lock altered.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 6 September 1662.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Uncle Frank warned my father

This entry is part 13 of 19 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2015

He’d stand in the yard, puffing away
at a fat cigar, signet ring with an opal
winking on his pinky finger. The first time

I met my father’s mestizo cousin Frank,
he’d just come from abroad, somewhere warm
like Mexico or Florida. He towered

over us, hair tawny, blood thickened
after all by someone who’d given him
a name to match blue eyes.

And in those days, he had money—
enough to rent a two storey house
they occupied only a few

weeks a year, enough to educate
his brood of seven or was it eight
in schools abroad (not public).

Every summer he asked the same two questions
of me— how old I was, how far along in school.
The answers never seemed to really matter—

he’d launch immediately into a speech about the young,
how in America they raised them to prize this thing
called independence; how, once they turned sixteen,

they’d want to bust out from under your roof
and hit the road, make their way in the world on their
own terms. Nodding his head in my direction, the corners

of his mouth making the shape of either a smile
or a smirk, he’d say to my father: Mark my words, that’s
how they do it. One day that’s what she’ll do to you.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Bump in the night

Up by break of day at 5 o’clock, and down by water to Woolwich: in my way saw the yacht lately built by our virtuosoes (my Lord Brunkard and others, with the help of Commissioner Pett also) set out from Greenwich with the little Dutch bezan, to try for mastery; and before they got to Woolwich the Dutch beat them half-a-mile (and I hear this afternoon, that, in coming home, it got above three miles); which all our people are glad of.
Here I staid and mustered the yard and looked into the storehouses; and so walked all alone to Greenwich, and thence by water to Deptford, and there examined some stores, and did some of my own business in hastening my work there, and so walked to Redriffe, being by this time pretty weary and all in a sweat; took boat there for the Tower, which made me a little fearful, it being a cold, windy morning.
So to my lodgings and there rubbed myself clean, and so to Mr. Bland’s, the merchant, by invitation, I alone of all our company of this office; where I found all the officers of the Customs, very grave fine gentlemen, and I am very glad to know them; viz. — Sir Job Harvy, Sir John Wolstenholme, Sir John Jacob, Sir Nicholas Crisp, Sir John Harrison, and Sir John Shaw: very good company. And among other pretty discourse, some was of Sir Jerom Bowes, Embassador from Queene Elizabeth to the Emperor of Russia; who, because some of the noblemen there would go up the stairs to the Emperor before him, he would not go up till the Emperor had ordered those two men to be dragged down stairs, with their heads knocking upon every stair till they were killed. And when he was come up, they demanded his sword of him before he entered the room. He told them, if they would have his sword, they should have his boots too. And so caused his boots to be pulled off, and his night-gown and night-cap and slippers to be sent for; and made the Emperor stay till he could go in his night-dress, since he might not go as a soldier. And lastly, when the Emperor in contempt, to show his command of his subjects, did command one to leap from the window down and broke his neck in the sight of our Embassador, he replied that his mistress did set more by, and did make better use of the necks of her subjects but said that, to show what her subjects would do for her, he would, and did, fling down his gantlett before the Emperor; and challenged all the nobility there to take it up, in defence of the Emperor against his Queen: for which, at this very day, the name of Sir Jerom Bowes is famous and honoured there.
After dinner I came home and found Sir John Minnes come this day, and I went to him to Sir W. Batten’s, where it pleased me to see how jealous Sir Williams both are of my going down to Woolwich, &c., and doing my duty as I nowadays do, and of my dining with the Commission of the Customs.
So to my office, and there till 9 at night, and so to my lodgings to bed. I this day heard that Mr. Martin Noell is knighted by the King, which I much wonder at; but yet he is certainly a very useful man.

fear is an ambassador
knocking on every stair

nightgown and slippers
go as a soldier of the wind

up against this ill
wool of a night


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 5 September 1662.