Year: 2017

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Antoinette

Up betimes, and my wife being ready, and her mayd Besse and the girl, I carried them by coach and set them all down in Covent Garden and there left them, and I to my Lord Sandwich’s lodgings, but he not being up, I to the Duke’s chamber, and there by and by to his closett, where since his lady was ill, a little red bed of velvet is brought for him to lie alone, which is a very pretty one. After doing business here, I to my Lord’s again, and there spoke with him, and he seems now almost friends again as he used to be. Here meeting Mr. Pierce, the chyrurgeon, he told me among other Court newes, how the Queene is very well again, and the King lay with her on Saturday night last; and that she speaks now very pretty English, and makes her sense out now and then with pretty phrazes: as among others this is mightily cried up; that, meaning to say that she did not like such a horse so well as the rest, he being too prancing and full of tricks, she said he did make too much vanity. Thence to the Tennis Court, after I had spent a little time in Westminster Hall, thinking to have met with Mrs. Lane, but I could not and am glad of it, and there saw the King play at Tennis and others: but to see how the King’s play was extolled without any cause at all, was a loathsome sight, though sometimes, indeed, he did play very well and deserved to be commended; but such open flattery is beastly. Afterwards to St. James’s Parke, being unwilling to go to spend money at the ordinary, and there spent an hour or two, it being a pleasant day, seeing people play at Pell Mell; where it pleased me mightily to hear a gallant, lately come from France, swear at one of his companions for suffering his man (a spruce blade) to be so saucy as to strike a ball while his master was playing on the Mall. Thence took coach at White Hall and took up my wife, who is mighty sad to think of her father, who is going into Germany against the Turkes; but what will become of her brother I know not. He is so idle, and out of all capacity, I think, to earn his bread.
Home and at my office till 12 at night making my solemn vowes for the next year, which I trust in the Lord I shall keep, but I fear I have a little too severely bound myself in some things and in too many, for I fear I may forget some. But however, I know the worst, and shall by the blessing of God observe to perform or pay my forfeits punctually. So home and to bed with my mind at rest.

her own garden left her
to her red bed of velvet

the queen pretty as a horse
and full of time

the sight of a blade is sad
to the idle bread


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 4 January 1663/64.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Decline

Why does the flesh of this peach
just yesterday so perfumed and perfect
now look like a small purse collapsing
into itself, and beginning to darken

to a shade reminiscent of sepia
on the table? Perhaps the warm
yellow wedge of light falling
so picturesquely on the bowl

of fruit through the half-moon
windowpane set into the kitchen door
has something to do with its too rapid
onset of decline. Perhaps, and this

is likely, it was on its way there anyway,
despite our good intentions now thwarted:
in other words, our intentions to take it
in all its glorious readiness, to slice it

into a bowl at the peak of sugary firmness.
And having ingested all of it, skin and flesh,
down to the pit, don’t we customarily sit back
and say its purpose has been most sweetly

fulfilled? Which is to say,
what it comes down to as the measure
of experience is mostly and still
our own: assortment of little yardsticks

against which the mercurial universe
schools us about accretion… So this slowly
wrinkling globe becomes differently endearing:
how unlike a hard, bright abacus bead

it wants to be; how it seems instead
to want to be cupped in its loosening
garment; to be held and only regarded
as if in remembrance before its dissolve.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Ministry of truth.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Ice Mountain: the videopoem

Belgian artist and musician Marc Neys A.K.A. Swoon is one of the most original makers of videopoetry (AKA poetry film) in the world, and when he offered to make a book trailer for Ice Mountain, I was thrilled. However, I think you’ll agree that the video he produced is much more than a mere trailer — it’s an original creation in its own right. I supplied most of the footage, but the choice of what to use and how to mix it was all his. He asked me to record a montage of lines and stanzas from the book, which he let me pick, then chose additional lines to display as text-on-screen. The music, which he composed first (and asked me to comment on before finalizing) guided the composition of the video.

Ice Mountain: An Elegy is due out on January 25. If you missed my earlier post, here’s the back-story. And if you’d like a further sample of the contents, I’ve posted a section at DaveBonta.com. (I still feel faintly ridiculous typing that URL!)

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Ministry of Truth

(Lord’s day). Lay long in bed, and then rose and with a fire in my chamber staid within all day, looking over and settling my accounts in good order, by examining all my books, and the kitchen books, and I find that though the proper profit of my last year was but 305l., yet I did by other gain make it up 444l., which in every part of it was unforeseen of me, and therefore it was a strange oversight for lack of examining my expenses that I should spend 690l. this year, but for the time to come I have so distinctly settled all my accounts in writing and the particulars of all my several layings out, that I do hope I shall hereafter make a better judgment of my spendings than ever. I dined with my wife in her chamber, she in bed, and then down again and till 11 at night, and broke up and to bed with great content, but could not make an end of writing over my vows as I purposed, but I am agreed in every thing how to order myself for the year to come, which I trust in God will be much for my good. So up to prayers and to bed.
This evening Sir W. Pen came to invite me against next Wednesday, being Twelfth day, to his usual feast, his wedding day.

a fire looking
in all the books

re-writing the endings to make
an end of writing

how to order myself
for the year to come


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 3 January 1663/64.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Self-abnegation

Up and to the office, and there sitting all the morning, and at noon to the ‘Change, in my going met with Luellin and told him how I had received a letter and bill for 50l. from Mr. Deering, and delivered it to him, which he told me he would receive for me. To which I consented, though professed not to desire it if he do not consider himself sufficiently able by the service I have done, and that it is rather my desire to have nothing till he be further sensible of my service. From the ‘Change I brought him home and dined with us, and after dinner I took my wife out, for I do find that I am not able to conquer myself as to going to plays till I come to some new vowe concerning it, and that I am now come, that is to say, that I will not see above one in a month at any of the publique theatres till the sum of 50s. be spent, and then none before New Year’s Day next, unless that I do become worth 1000l. sooner than then, and then am free to come to some other terms, and so leaving him in Lombard Street I took her to the King’s house, and there met Mr. Nicholson, my old colleague, and saw “The Usurper,” which is no good play, though better than what I saw yesterday. However, we rose unsatisfied, and took coach and home, and I to the office late writing letters, and so to supper and to bed.

to live sufficiently
is to have nothing to find
myself in

I will not see in any theater
a play better than what
I let be


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 2 January 1663/64.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Recall

~ “everything changes, nothing is lost,” Katie Griersar (2014)

Look at their faces in the box
of old photographs— how young

and thin, and already with child;
how slender in loose second-hand

flannels, how vaguely sweet
the eyes not filled yet with any

knowledge of great shift or harm.
And here, his arm around her waist,

her neck caught in the moment after
tremor. There was a rainstorm that swept

every tin roof clean. A wind that set
the chimes in someone’s yard to beating;

a rivulet that swelled with water.
Now she can put them back without anger.

She can pass a mirror in a hallway
without turning completely away.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Gifted

Went to bed between 4 and 5 in the morning with my mind in good temper of satisfaction and slept till about 8, that many people came to speak with me. Among others one came with the best New Year’s gift that ever I had, namely from Mr. Deering, with a bill of exchange drawn upon himself for the payment of 50l. to Mr. Luellin. It being for my use with a letter of compliment. I am not resolved what or how to do in this business, but I conclude it is an extraordinary good new year’s gift, though I do not take the whole, or if I do then give some of it to Luellin. By and by comes Captain Allen and his son Jowles and his wife, who continues pretty still. They would have had me set my hand to a certificate for his loyalty, and I know not what his ability for any employment. But I did not think it fit, but did give them a pleasing denial, and after sitting with me an hour they went away. Several others came to me about business, and then being to dine at my uncle Wight’s I went to the Coffee-house, sending my wife by Will, and there staid talking an hour with Coll. Middleton, and others, and among other things about a very rich widow, young and handsome, of one Sir Nicholas Gold’s, a merchant, lately fallen, and of great courtiers that already look after her: her husband not dead a week yet. She is reckoned worth 80,000l.
Thence to my uncle Wight’s, where Dr. of ——, among others, dined, and his wife, a seeming proud conceited woman, I know not what to make of her, but the Dr’s. discourse did please me very well about the disease of the stone, above all things extolling Turpentine, which he told me how it may be taken in pills with great ease. There was brought to table a hot pie made of a swan I sent them yesterday, given me by Mr. Howe, but we did not eat any of it. But my wife and I rose from table, pretending business, and went to the Duke’s house, the first play I have been at these six months, according to my last vowe, and here saw the so much cried-up play of “Henry the Eighth;” which, though I went with resolution to like it, is so simple a thing made up of a great many patches, that, besides the shows and processions in it, there is nothing in the world good or well done. Thence mightily dissatisfied back at night to my uncle Wight’s, and supped with them, but against my stomach out of the offence the sight of my aunt’s hands gives me, and ending supper with a mighty laugh, the greatest I have had these many months, at my uncle’s being out in his grace after meat, we rose and broke up, and my wife and I home and to bed, being sleepy since last night.

people speak of my gift
for sitting with the dead

I know the disease of the stone
the hot pie made of a swan

how a rose cried
at the sight of my hands


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 1 January 1663/64.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Re-introducing Woodrat photoblog

Screenshot of Woodrate photoblog.

Screenshot of Woodrate photoblog.

Back in October I started posting poetic epigrams with my photos at Instagram, and every few weeks since then, I’ve re-posted them here. This past week, the turn of the calendar fast approaching with its promise of new beginnings, I made the decision to broaden the scope of my 9-year-old Woodrat photoblog from just haiku, and to start cross-posting my Instagram stuff there as a matter of course. I’ve also back-posted all the photos since mid-December, when I last shared a compendium on Via Negativa. So please go look, and bookmark or subscribe to the photoblog if you like. (You can also, obviously, follow me on Instagram or on Flickr, where the photos are mirrored, and/or look for the auto-posts at Twitter or Facebook. And I’ve added the link to the Links drop-down menu in the Via Negativa header.)

There are some really good photographers on Instagram, and I like feeling a part of a community there, but I also like owning my own content and being a responsible netizen. Instagram is first and foremost a cellphone app built on proprietary software, part of a movement by software developers to replace the town square of the world-wide web with private shopping malls, essentially. Not only can one not post to Instagram from the web interface, but no live web links are permitted in any caption or comment. It also bothers me that there’s no way to edit a published caption, to add alt text to make images accessible to the visually handicapped, or to export and save one’s content from the site.

So my decision to re-purpose the old photoblog into a home for these posts is in part a political decision. But it’s also a practical one: I’d like to continue the epigrammatic series for a while, and I know myself well enough to realize that if I tie it to the growth of a more aesthetically pleasing space, I’m more likely to keep it up, just as having a dedicated blog for my Morning Porch tweets has kept that microblogging project going for years. And whereas Morning Porch posts are based on my daily porch-sitting, Woodrat photoblog posts emerge from daily walks (though not typically on the same day the photo was taken). There’s a pleasing symmetry to that.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Luces

“…With wings as drifted snow, with eyes as flame.” ~ Basque carol

At midnight we lit six
morning glory firework wands

and watched their dying etch
brief swirls in the dark garden,

their passing light so swift
the movement of our wrists

could not even deal out all
the looped letters of our names—

What could we do with a whole
extra second added to the year’s

last minute? Each orange fizzling stub
dwindled to a stream of ash. In the morning,

not even a trace of their scattering
remained in the stubbled grass.