Month: January 2017

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Watch

This is the tone
that lips are supposed to sound
if the safe house is compromised.

In a neighborhood where all houses
have the same rusted roofs and the same
falling-down fences, which one hides

the fugitive? There is a reason
they don’t have house numbers.
The tenor of bullfrogs

undercuts the whine
of the curfew. Do not report
all threats to your tribe.

Light a fire as usual
under the trees. Sweep the dry
leaves together with a long-

handled rake. Sit on your haunches;
tend to their burning and the smoke
rising through the cold air.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Embouchure.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Portage

What do you know
of our lives before this land?
For instance: here are
seventeen years, at least five
moves, boxes of belongings
and books. There were always books
and photographs we could not give up,
donate, throw away. Many printed on thin
paper, poor quality covers that split
at the seams a long time ago;
smell of moth wings crumbled
to a smudge in the middle.
Notebooks with recipes in an old-
fashioned hand. Camisoles sewn by hand,
worn by each child in turn. Small lace
with light brown tea-stains.
But they were worth more
than the aftermath of the first
bankruptcy, the garnishment of wages.
How many bricks in them boxes, lady?
asked one of the Two Men and a Truck team,
heaving them up to the second floor.
We took them out and put them on shelves,
folded them into drawers.
We taped up the windows with plastic sheets
those winters when icy winds knifed their way
in, bent on finding those places where we
kept what we had left of our original hearts.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Sleepwalker

(Lord’s day). Lay in bed with my wife till 10 or 11 o’clock, having been very sleepy all night. So up, and my brother Tom being come to see me, we to dinner, he telling me how Mrs. Turner found herself discontented with her late bad journey, and not well taken by them in the country, they not desiring her coming down, nor the burials of Mr. Edward Pepys’s corpse there. After dinner I to the office, where all the afternoon, and at night my wife and I to my uncle Wight’s, and there eat some of their swan pie, which was good, and I invited them to my house to eat a roasted swan on Tuesday next, which after I was come home did make a quarrels between my wife and I, because she had appointed a wash to-morrow. But, however, we were friends again quickly. So to bed. All our discourse to-night was Mr. Tryan’s late being robbed; and that Collonell Turner (a mad, swearing, confident fellow, well known by all, and by me), one much indebted to this man for his very livelihood, was the man that either did or plotted it; and the money and things are found in his hand, and he and his wife now in Newgate for it; of which we are all glad, so very a known rogue he was.

sleep to me
is a bad journey taken
in the country of a corpse

where night and day
quarrel and point
and turn in at one gate


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 10 January 1663/64.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Embouchure

Up (my underlip being mightily swelled, I know not how but by overrubbing it, it itching) and to the office, where we sat all the morning, and at noon I home to dinner, and by discourse with my wife thought upon inviting my Lord Sandwich to a dinner shortly. It will cost me at least ten or twelve pounds; but, however, some arguments of prudence I have, which however I shall think again upon before I proceed to that expence.
After dinner by coach I carried my wife and Jane to Westminster, leaving her at Mr. Hunt’s, and I to Westminster Hall, and there visited Mrs. Lane, and by appointment went out and met her at the Trumpet, Mrs. Hare’s, but the room being damp we went to the Bell tavern, and there I had her company, but could not do as I used to do (yet nothing but what was honest) for that she told me she had those. So I to talk about her having Hawley, she told me flatly no, she could not love him. I took occasion to enquire of Howlett’s daughter, with whom I have a mind to meet a little to see what mettle the young wench is made of, being very pretty, but she tells me she is already betrothed to Mrs. Michell’s son, and she in discourse tells me more, that Mrs. Michell herself had a daughter before marriage, which is now near thirty years old, a thing I could not have believed.
Thence leading her to the Hall, I took coach and called my wife and her mayd, and so to the New Exchange, where we bought several things of our pretty Mrs. Dorothy Stacy, a pretty woman, and has the modestest look that ever I saw in my life and manner of speech. Thence called at Tom’s and saw him pretty well again, but has not been currant. So homeward, and called at Ludgate, at Ashwell’s uncle’s, but she was not within, to have spoke to her to have come to dress my wife at the time my Lord dines here. So straight home, calling for Walsingham’s Manuals at my bookseller’s to read but not to buy, recommended for a pretty book by Sir W. Warren, whose warrant however I do not much take till I do read it.
So home to supper and to bed, my wife not being very well since she came home, being troubled with a fainting fit, which she never yet had before since she was my wife.

lip swelled by over-rubbing
the trumpet
could do nothing but a flat

could not howl
in the pretty mode recommended
for a fainting fit


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 9 January 1663/64.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Condition: Exile

To this day I am still asked about origins.
I have learned to intuit
when they don’t mean where I first
recognized the way indigo hills
pulled up like fleece to the sky
as it darkened into sleep.

Most days I am able to go about my business
without having to palm my thoughts
back into my pockets.
In truth I am shy as the wild green
plant whose precisely ordered leaves
retract at the merest touch.

I am wary of using the word gesture
though I know this is what most of us
traveling between the furrows rely on
for recognition. The tongue longs
to salve its thirst with salt,
only because this means it will drink again.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Outlook

Up and all the morning at my office and with Sir J. Minnes, directing him and Mr. Turner about keeping of their books according to yesterday’s work, wherein I shall make them work enough. At noon to the ‘Change, and there long, and from thence by appointment took Luellin, Mount, and W. Symons, and Mr. Pierce, the chirurgeon, home to dinner with me and were merry. But, Lord! to hear how W. Symons do commend and look sadly and then talk bawdily and merrily, though his wife was dead but the other day, would make a dogg laugh. After dinner I did go in further part of kindness to Luellin for his kindness about Deering’s 50l. which he procured me the other day of him.
We spent all the afternoon together and then they to cards with my wife, who this day put on her Indian blue gowne which is very pretty, where I left them for an hour, and to my office, and then to them again, and by and by they went away at night, and so I again to my office to perfect a letter to Mr. Coventry about Department Treasurers, wherein I please myself and hope to give him content and do the King service therein.
So having done, I home and to teach my wife a new lesson in the globes, and to supper, and to bed.
We had great pleasure this afternoon; among other things, to talk of our old passages together in Cromwell’s time; and how W. Symons did make me laugh and wonder to-day when he told me how he had made shift to keep in, in good esteem and employment, through eight governments in one year (the year 1659, which were indeed, and he did name them all), and then failed unhappy in the ninth, viz. that of the King’s coming in. He made good to me the story which Luellin did tell me the other day, of his wife upon her death-bed; how she dreamt of her uncle Scobell, and did foretell, from some discourse she had with him, that she should die four days thence, and not sooner, and did all along say so, and did so.
Upon the ‘Change a great talke there was of one Mr. Tryan, an old man, a merchant in Lyme-Streete, robbed last night (his man and mayde being gone out after he was a-bed), and gagged and robbed of 1050l. in money and about 4000l. in jewells, which he had in his house as security for money. It is believed by many circumstances that his man is guilty of confederacy, by their ready going to his secret till in his desk, wherein the key of his cash-chest lay.

work shall make work
a dog after a deer

blue as ice
the globe ages
through eight governments

in the death-bed dream
of a hangman


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 8 January 1663/64.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Poem with window into which a bird has wandered

Not many sleep anymore
with the shutters open.

Sometimes at the grocery store,
near the rafters, there’ll be

an errant bird that wanders in
on some warm draft. It flutters

confused above the ordered glaze
of bell peppers and bumpy lemons,

the curled decline of greens.
I rouse from sleep late at night

and feel my way to the bathroom,
trying to recall what I know

of accidental things— what finds
the one seam in the lock, the loose

partition; the weakness in
the careful armor. And there isn’t

any particular explanation for why
a pigeon should be wandering the hallway

at 4 o’clock, yet there it is,
as the man snores in the guest room

and the woman lies in her own bed,
in sheets soaked with her own urine.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Out walking

Up, putting on my best clothes and to the office, where all the morning we sat busy, among other things upon Mr. Wood’s performance of his contract for masts, wherein I was mightily concerned, but I think was found all along in the right, and shall have my desire in it to the King’s advantage.
At noon, all of us to dinner to Sir W. Pen’s, where a very handsome dinner, Sir J. Lawson among others, and his lady and his daughter, a very pretty lady and of good deportment, with looking upon whom I was greatly pleased, the rest of the company of the women were all of our own house, of no satisfaction or pleasure at all. My wife was not there, being not well enough, nor had any great mind.
But to see how Sir W. Pen imitates me in everything, even in his having his chimney piece in his dining room the same with that in my wife’s closett, and in every thing else I perceive wherein he can. But to see again how he was out in one compliment: he lets alone drinking any of the ladies’ healths that were there, my Lady Batten and Lawson, till he had begun with my Lady Carteret, who was absent, and that was well enough, and then Mr. Coventry’s mistresse, at which he was ashamed, and would not have had him have drunk it, at least before the ladies present, but his policy, as he thought, was such that he would do it.
After dinner by coach with Sir G. Carteret and Sir J. Minnes by appointment to Auditor Beale’s in Salisbury Court, and there we did with great content look over some old ledgers to see in what manner they were kept, and indeed it was in an extraordinary good method, and such as (at least out of design to keep them employed) I do persuade Sir J. Minnes to go upon, which will at least do as much good it may be to keep them for want of something to do from envying those that do something.
Thence calling to see whether Mrs. Turner was returned, which she is, and I spoke one word only to her, and away again by coach home and to my office, where late, and then home to supper and bed.

in the woods I found
good company

everyone was absent as a drunk
present as an old sign

I spoke one word
and away home


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 7 January 1663/64.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Winter Tale

We push the shovel through the snow
to find the walk again, the border

of stubbled grass. On either side,
white banks grow. I can’t help

recalling that winter tale, the one
where the girl was taken under—

some fissure in the earth lined
with moss, lengthening drop

of dark shale. How far and how long
could a handful of red beads fall

before you’d hear their tinkle echo?
Our arms and thighs burn; late light

gilds the mounds we scrape and toss.
A stinging wind pushes the empty swing

back and forth, back and forth— the way
we repeat what we should have learned.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Cutting back.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Once upon a time,

a winged thing carved a hole in my heart.

I didn’t mind, I let it nest there
because it sang a small

defenseless song that lofted

marbles into the air. I wove them
into a tiara I wore on my hair,

not knowing yet how every note

of shimmering blue could drown
eventually in the wood. There is

that moment between two chords,

invisible space between a foreground
and what pounds beneath— and always,

one eternal tear that slides

down the middle of my chest
as the world turns and the sky

fills with the raucous cries of birds.

~ after “Once Upon a Time,” acrylic on canvas, 2016; Ulysses Duterte Jr.