April 2022 – Page 4 – Via Negativa

April 21, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Writer

Up, and to the office, and thence before the office sat to the Excise Office with W. Hewer, but found some occasion to go another way to the Temple upon business, and I by Deb.’s direction did know whither in Jewen Street to direct my hackney coachman, while I staid in the coach in Aldgate Street, to go thither just to enquire whether Mrs. Hunt, her aunt, was in town, who brought me word she was not; thought this was as much as I could do at once, and therefore went away troubled through that I could do no more but to the office I must go and did, and there all the morning, but coming thither I find Bagwell’s wife, who did give me a little note into my hand, wherein I find her para invite me para meet her in Moorfields this noon, where I might speak with her, and so after the office was up, my wife being gone before by invitation to my cozen Turner’s to dine, I to the place, and there, after walking up and down by the windmills, I did find her and talk with her, but it being holiday and the place full of people, we parted, leaving further discourse and doing to another time. Thence I away, and through Jewen Street, my mind, God knows, running that way, but stopped not, but going down Holborne hill, by the Conduit, I did see Deb. on foot going up the hill. I saw her, and she me, but she made no stop, but seemed unwilling to speak to me; so I away on, but then stopped and ’light, and after her and overtook her at the end of Hosier lane in Smithfield, and without standing in the street desired her to follow me, and I led her into a little blind alehouse within the walls, and there she and I alone fell to talk and baiser la and toker su mammailles, but she mighty coy, and I hope modest; but however, though with great force, did hazer ella par su hand para tocar mi thing, but ella was in great pain para be brought para it. I did give her in a paper 20s., and we did agree para meet again in the Hall at Westminster on Monday next; and so giving me great hopes by her carriage that she continues modest and honest, we did there part, she going home and I to Mrs. Turner’s, but when I come back to the place where I left my coach it was gone, I having staid too long, which did trouble me to abuse the poor fellow, so that taking another coach I did direct him to find out the fellow and send him to me. At my cozen Turner’s I find they are gone all to dinner to Povy’s, and thither I, and there they were all, and W. Batelier and his sister, and had dined; but I had good things brought me, and then all up and down the house, and mightily pleased to see the fine rooms: but, the truth is, there are so many bad pictures, that to me make the good ones lose much of the pleasure in seeing them. The. and Betty Turner in new flowered tabby gowns, and so we were pretty merry, only my fear upon me for what I had newly done, do keep my content in. So, about five or six o’clock, away, and I took my wife and the two Bateliers, and carried them homeward, and W. Batelier ’lighting, I carried the women round by Islington, and so down Bishopsgate Street home, and there to talk and sup, and then to bed.

I hunt a word
through fields
where the wind is born

up the hill
to the stoplight
red and blind

all alone
to talk and toke
in a paper nest

back to the place
where I flowered
my fear away

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 15 April 1669.

April 20, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Mountain

Up, and with W. Hewer to White Hall, and there I did speak with the Duke of York, the Council sitting in the morning, and it was to direct me to have my business ready of the Administration of the Office against Saturday next, when the King would have a hearing of it. Thence home, W. Hewer with me, and then out with my own coach to the Duke of York’s play-house, and there saw “The Impertinents,” a play which pleases me well still; but it is with great trouble that I now see a play, because of my eyes, the light of the candles making it very troublesome to me. After the play my wife and I towards the Park, but it being too late we to Creed’s, and there find him and her [his wife] together alone, in their new house, where I never was before, they lodging before at the next door, and a pretty house it is; but I do not see that they intend to keep any coach. Here they treat us like strangers, quite according to the fashion — nothing to drink or eat, which is a thing that will spoil our ever having any acquaintance with them; for we do continue the old freedom and kindness of England to all our friends. But they do here talk mightily of my Lady Paulina making a very good end, and being mighty religious in her lifetime; and hath left many good notes of sermons and religion; wrote with her own hand, which nobody ever knew of; which I am glad of: but she was always a peevish lady. Thence home, and there to talk and to supper and to bed, all being very safe as to my seeing of poor Deb. yesterday.

the peak sitting
in the morning light

new like a fashion
to continue the old

making a religion
with her own body

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 14 April 1669.

April 20, 2022April 21, 2022 by Dave Bonta

April Diary 21: Where are the snows of yesterday?

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

This entry is part 21 of 31 in the series April Diary

Dear April does photography lead to better seeing or just different seeing? while making breakfast, the garlic heads on the windowsill catch my eye: patterns of sunlight and screen shadow

it’s only after i’m done processing the photos on my phone that i look more closely and see the tip of a sprout poking up. how could i have missed that?

spring kitchen
one garlic head’s
green tongue

it occurs to me later that the resulting photo haiga is more than illustration, since the view of snow through the window adds an extra element for reverie that otherwise would’ve required a couple of additional lines. a tanka in other words

driving to State College for our biweekly grocery shopping, i’m a little shocked by how little snow there is in the valley

but by the time i get back two hours later south-facing slopes are already bare up here as well with temperatures climbing into the low 50s by early afternoon. sic transit gloria nivis

as i drove past the bottom corner of our old field a large white bird flew up from a patch of snow and circled low, its barn-red tail giving away its identity but it took a few moments to shake the initial startling impression that the snow itself was taking flight

on the way up i had the unusual experience of following a car that happened to be driving the exact same speed as me for the entire distance from Tyrone — got on the interstate ramp just ahead of me — and when they took the same three turns i take going to Wegman’s i actually wondered whether they were somehow following me even though clearly i was following them without meaning to

fortunately they weren’t actually going to the same store

and this is exactly the sort of extremely minor incident that can make diaries such a snooze, is it not

down hollow at mid afternoon to inspect the wildflowers. some hepaticas have lost petals but the majority seem ok. the black cohosh sprouts seem unfazed as do the wake-robins which the snow happened to catch in mid-unfurl

it was tempting to hang out beside the trillium patch and watch as they ever so slowly straighten up — something i identify with, though my own winter isn’t so easily left behind

i love folk holidays like 4/20. pity there isn’t a folk saint to go along with it (yet) but the story of how it got started by some high school students who would meet after school to get stoned reminds me of the stoners i went to school with—super-friendly working-class kids for the most part, and just about the only group that wasn’t a clique judging by their occasional overtures to someone like me, a total weirdo bookworm

i guess it’s good i didn’t let my loneliness get the better of me. then again i rarely do

climbing the ridge i keep stopping to nosh on garlic mustard leaves fresh from under the snow and still slightly damp like supermarket produce. not quite as tasty as rocket/arugula but in the same ballpark, spicy-bitter. a handful of snow to melt in my mouth and wash it down.

poetry as revelation, revelation as poetry: that’s what i’m ruminating on as i walk. charismatic creator figures who are somehow not female. faith as a willing suspension of disbelief no matter how its proponents like to dress it up as something more. and i remind myself that that not all creators are jealous, and most revelations from a professional diviner are going to be exactly as minor and personal as the subjects of most poems. prophets are basically griots who have gone rogue

or something like that

this morning in the bedroom i surprised myself by killing a spider i’d been watching, just crushing it with the heel of my palm. i started bawling out my hand like that was its fault—what did you do that for?!

it reminded me of a Lucille Clifton poem:

cruelty. don’t talk to me about cruelty
or what i am capable of.
when i wanted the roaches dead i wanted them dead
and i killed them. i took a broom to their country
and smashed and sliced without warning
without stopping and i smiled all the time i was doing it.
it was a holocaust of roaches, bodies,
parts of bodies, red all over the ground.
i didn’t ask their names.
they had no names worth knowing.
now i watch myself whenever i enter a room.
i never know what i might do.

April 20, 2022April 19, 2022 by Luisa A. Igloria

Portrait at 60*

Smoothed stone, round
hard knob of a bunion. Feet
encased in their own slippers
of flesh. The faded star of a mole 
high up on my thigh, a smaller one 
adrift at the outer corner of my left 
eye. Once, a fortune teller counted 
lines on the edge of my palm 
to call forth daughters. Once, 
I doubled over in the shower 
to mourn the one who didn’t stay. 
Those that folded their wings
when they came into this world 
make their own constellations now;
they still remember me. Early
mornings and late nights, 
I practice rolling the gathered 
weight in my belly into an orb—  
the hardest lesson: letting it down 
to rest in knee-deep grass. 


 
* In March I'd sent this in to a call for "poems about age"
but it didn't make the cut...

April 19, 2022April 20, 2022 by Dave Bonta

April Diary 20: balancing on one foot, waiting for Armageddon

This entry is part 20 of 31 in the series April Diary

Dear April the headline in the local paper reads WINTER SPRINGS A SURPRISE and i wonder whether there’s a course they all take in journalism school, Bad Puns 101

we got a LOT of snow. Mom measured nine inches at one spot in the field. but as wet as it was and as quickly as it began to subside it was hard to tell

last night it occurred to me that after i lost my pot belly and before i got bifocals there was like a six month period when i actually had a clear view of my junk while taking a leak

thank you for coming to my Netflix comedy special

this morning for some reason i was remembering how i used to advertise poetry readings in the late 80s and early 90s by putting flyers in unexpected places all around Penn State’s main campus, and how a grad student in mathematics once showed up out of sheer curiosity — “I’d never heard of such a thing!”

people from the sciences generally seemed like a more attentive audience than the literature people for some reason

back when blogging was still new and exciting, for a few years poetry bloggers like me regularly attracted such non-traditional audiences as well. but relatively few poets took advantage of that. most assume that the only people who want to read poetry are other poets and act accordingly. i remember how surprised i was the first time i heard someone refer to other poets as her tribe. i dunno, i’ve just never felt that way. i used to belong to a pretty convivial group of bloggers all of whom liked poetry i think but most were more readers than writers of it. it was only after that group went quiet that i started the poetry blog digest. i had resisted turning Via Negativa into just a poetry blog for years, but in the end i felt that if i didn’t specialize i wouldn’t be able to retain even the small audience the site had

this April Diary exercise feels like a throwback to those early years of writing whatever pops into my head. and it may well be the sort of blogging i’ll go back to when i’m done with Pepys

losing weight and getting in better shape has had a few unexpected consequences. my favorite is that i am much better at balancing on one foot. i revel in that every morning when i put on my socks

a snowflake insinuating itself under my umbrella lands on the page of my open book: that brief moment before its star vanishes into a wet spot

snow squall erasing my own tracks as i sit watching

now i know how Pepys’ Diary feels

walking back along the ridgetop i’m impressed by the way the storm plastered snow on both sides of tree trunks giving them a distinctly calligraphic appearance

the world feels really precarious these days. global weirding is in full effect and i wonder just how bad and widespread famine will become as more and more crops fail around the world on top of the situation with grain exports from Russia and Ukraine

meanwhile the drumbeat for direct military action against Russia grows deafening as Taibbi’s latest essay on Substack makes clear. anyone attempting to challenge the dominant narrative gets shut out of mainstream commentary altogether, even more thoroughly than in the run-up to our invasion of Iraq in 2003. for the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall nuclear annihilation seems like a real possibility

it’s essential for any working poet to understand how propaganda works, how dominant narratives are crafted and how they become dominant, in part by ridiculing or simply ignoring or deplatforming anyone who challenges them

the invisibility of dissidents in this society parallels the invisibility of poets and i would argue both derive from a common source: our very but not exclusively American intolerance of any nuance plus a general discomfort with hard truths e.g. about death and suffering

finished Cicada. here’s a stanza i liked:

Our dream gathered
and spit us out polished
in the night
without tears
without the depth of touch
the morning couldn’t find space
to bring its light
across to the other side
on the riverbank stones
one by one
open their eyes
Phoebe Giannisi translated by Brian Sneeden

April 19, 2022April 19, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Congregant

Up, and at the Office a good while, and then, my wife going down the River to spend the day with her mother at Deptford, I abroad, and first to the milliner’s in Fenchurch Street, over against Rawlinson’s, and there, meeting both him and her in the shop, I bought a pair of gloves, and fell to talk, and found so much freedom that I stayed there the best part of the morning till towards noon, with great pleasure, it being a holiday, and then against my will away and to the ’Change, where I left W. Hewer, and I by hackney-coach to the Spittle, and heard a piece of a dull sermon to my Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and thence saw them all take horse and ride away, which I have not seen together many a-day; their wives also went in their coaches; and, indeed, the sight was mighty pleasing. Thence took occasion to go back to this milliner’s, whose name I now understand to be Clerke; and there, her husband inviting me up to the balcony, to see the sight go by to dine at Clothworker’s-Hall, I did go up and there saw it go by: and then; there being a good piece of cold roast beef upon the tables and one Margetts, a young merchant that lodges there, and is likely to marry a sister of hers, I staid and eat, and had much good conversation with her, who hath the vanity to talk of her great friends and father, one Wingate, near Welling;, that hath been a Parliament-man. Here also was Stapely: the rope-merchant, and dined with us; and, after spending most of the afternoon also, I away home, and there sent for W. Hewer, and he and I by water to White Hall to look among other things, for Mr. May, to unbespeak his dining with me to-morrow. But here being in the court-yard, God would have it, I spied Deb., which made my heart and head to work, and I presently could not refrain, but sent W. Hewer away to look for Mr. Wren (W. Hewer, I perceive, did see her, but whether he did see me see her I know not, or suspect my sending him away I know not, but my heart could not hinder me), and I run after her and two women and a man, more ordinary people, and she in her old clothes, and after hunting a little, find them in the lobby of the chapel below stairs, and there I observed she endeavoured to avoid me, but I did speak to her and she to me, and did get her pour dire me ou she demeurs now, and did charge her para say nothing of me that I had vu elle, which she did promise, and so with my heart full of surprize and disorder I away, and meeting with Sir H. Cholmley walked into the Park with him and back again, looking to see if I could spy her again in the Park, but I could not. And so back to White Hall, and then back to the Park with Mr. May, but could see her, no more, and so with W. Hewer, who I doubt by my countenance might see some disorder in me, we home by water, and there I find Talbot Pepys, and Mrs. Turner, and Betty, come to invite us to dinner on Thursday; and, after drinking, I saw them to the water-side, and so back home through Crutched Friars, and there saw Mary Mercer, and put off my hat to her, on the other side of the way, but it being a little darkish she did not, I think, know me well, and so to my office to put my papers in order, they having been removed for my closet to be made clean, and so home to my wife, who is come home from Deptford. But, God forgive me, I hardly know how to put on confidence enough to speak as innocent, having had this passage to-day with Deb., though only, God knows, by accident. But my great pain is lest God Almighty shall suffer me to find out this girl, whom indeed I love, and with a bad amour, but I will pray to God to give me grace to forbear it.
So home to supper, where very sparing in my discourse, not giving occasion of any enquiry where I have been to-day, or what I have done, and so without any trouble to-night more than my fear, we to bed.

at church the meeting
of love and spittle

sermon like a conversation
with water

the ear in my heart
so full of dark papers

I move from God
to innocent accident

and pray for sparing discourse
on what I have done

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 13 April 1669.

April 19, 2022April 17, 2022 by Luisa A. Igloria

From a User’s Manual: Blood

The women in my family believed a lifetime
of clear, unblemished skin was guaranteed,

but only if you took a bit of your first 
period blood and daubed it on the spots

most prone to acne on your face— I didn't
do it. And I didn't know then what I learned 

recently: that some people feed "blood
meal" as fertilizer for their plants

because of its rich nutrients of potassium,   
phosphorus, and nitrogen. Today, the old 

taboos about even speaking of menstrual 
periods don't seem as inflexible as before.

I remember the day in my middle school 
science class when I stood up in dismay 

from the red-stained chair, thinking 
I must have hurt myself during

recess.  I'm sure today there'd be 
at least a serious reprimand for what 

my teacher then decided to do: turn me
into an impromptu lesson on the female

reproductive system and its mysterious
workings—what will slough off the uterine 

walls every year for the next 40 years or so,
unless the egg gets fertilized.  Perhaps

the female is a creature shunned or exiled to 
the outdoors or partitioned from others 

because of this mysterious power—an unseen 
wound bleeds yet heals itself;  a hidden chamber  

stretches, soft sweater making room when 
the body decides it's ready to welcome new life.

April 18, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Unseasonable

Up, and by water to White Hall, where I of the whole Office attended the Duke of York at his meeting with Sir Thomas Allen and several flag-officers, to consider of the manner of managing the war with Algiers; and, it being a thing I was wholly silent in, I did only observe; and find that; their manner of discourse on this weighty affair was very mean and disorderly, the Duke of York himself being the man that I thought spoke most to the purpose. Having done here, I up and down the house, talking with this man and that, and: then meeting Mr. Sheres, took him to see the fine flower-pot I saw yesterday, and did again offer 20l. for it; but he [Verelst] insists upon 50l.. Thence I took him to St. James’s, but there was no musique, but so walked to White Hall, and, by and by to my wife at Unthanke’s, and with her was Jane, and so to the Cocke, where they, and I, and Sheres, and Tom dined, my wife having a great desire to eat of their soup made of pease, and dined very well, and thence by water to the Bear-Garden, and there happened to sit by Sir Fretcheville Hollis, who is still full of his vain-glorious and prophane talk. Here we saw a prize fought between a soldier and country fellow, one Warrell, who promised the least in his looks, and performed the most of valour in his boldness and evenness of mind, and smiles in all he did, that ever I saw and we were all both deceived and infinitely taken with him. He did soundly beat the soldier, and cut him over the head. Thence back to White Hall, mightily pleased, all of us, with this sight, and particularly this fellow, as a most extraordinary man for his temper and evenness in fighting. And there leaving Sheres, we by our own coach home, and after sitting an hour, thrumming upon my viall, and singing, I to bed, and left my wife to do something to a waistcoat and petticoat she is to wear to-morrow.
This evening, coming home, we overtook Alderman Backewell’s coach and his lady, and followed them to their house, and there made them the first visit, where they received us with extraordinary civility, and owning the obligation. But I do, contrary to my expectation, find her something a proud and vain-glorious woman, in telling the number of her servants and family and expences: he is also so, but he was ever of that strain. But here he showed me the model of his houses that he is going to build in Cornhill and Lumbard Street; but he hath purchased so much there, that it looks like a little town, and must have cost him a great deal of money.

white flag
silent as a flower

a soup made of water
and the infinite

all this thrumming
in the corn

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 12 April 1669.

April 18, 2022April 19, 2022 by Dave Bonta

April Diary 19: onion snow

This entry is part 19 of 31 in the series April Diary

Dear April forget drunken sailors, what shall we do with a poet who can barely use a pen?

trying to write bananas on a shopping list my hand gets lost in some kind of 70s folk-rock song going na na, na na na na. i add an s and squint at the result: it might be right. fortunately it’s a nearly illegible scrawl so who can tell

weird to lose that muscle memory though

(again with the muscle memory)

(i do keep a pocket notebook in my pack for when my phone poops out)

an email from Black Lawrence Press with the subject line 50% Off All Poetry Titles! got my attention pretty quick. i wish more publishers would put their money where their mouth is about poetry month. shared the good news on Twitter and ordered three books including two i’d been meaning to get for a while, Shanna Compton’s Creature Sounds Fade and Kristy Bowen’s sex & violence, plus [ G A T E S ] by Sahir Muradi

got a notice that a book i was really excited about had arrived at the post office box (no we don’t get delivery up here) so i thought i’d walk in town for it. it was sleeting but the forecast said snow. i can dress for snow i thought

don’t know why i don’t walk into town more often, it’s a little over two miles away and Tyrone is nothing if not photogenic. i don’t even mean that ironically

the I-99 overpasses are something of a feature. LIFE’S A BLUR says the graffiti. especially from the interstate, yes

i don’t have to go to the big city for a dose of urban bleakness

i was a bit shocked to see some graffiti promoting a website that preaches violent fascist revolution. a sign of the times?

i don’t know what they did to the surface of the sidewalk on the 10th Street bridge but i think i got a contact high

it started snowing pretty hard while i was in the post office

you might think given my usual snobbishness about cliched images that i would resist the temptation to take lots of photos of blossoming trees in the snow

you’d be wrong

snow on cherry blossoms beside Reliance Bank

but the snow wasn’t the only thing making the town seem a bit surreal…

as long as we have public librarians who do quietly subversive things like commission a painting of the Lorax on the sidewalk, i tend to think we’ll be OK as a society

the new country core shop at the end of the street has slightly terrifying window displays

then there’s the salvage yard…

honesty compels me to admit that i removed some racist graffiti from this image in processing — not to try to whitewash the town’s image but because if i left an n-word in, that’s all the photo would be about, inevitably, and i just wanted to focus on the aesthetic contrast here. that said i did keep a version of the photo with the hateful word intact for documentary purposes. like, this is America. Childish Gambino got it right

BUT a single (? let’s hope) hate-filled individual not only doesn’t represent Tyrone, s/he doesn’t even represent local street artists as the adjacent overpass demonstrates. shout out to these kids whoever they are

one appears to be a fan of Gardner’s ice cream parlor

a freight came along

the advice to be sic [sic] is certainly intriguing. are there pro-Covid radicals or is this just an old-school Satanist i wonder

the fun thing about walking up the mountain while it’s snowing hard is that it gets prettier as you climb. which does kind of seem like what should happen when you climb a mountain doesn’t it

i do worry about all the wildflowers and especially the flowering fruit trees of course. above is part of our trillium patch

these are not supposed to be white trilliums, they’re wake-robins. who probably wish they could go back to sleep

i never get tired of looking at snow on hemlocks though

there was one hepatica blossom still just visible, one exposed purple petal like an outstretched tongue

some black cohosh sprouts weren’t looking too happy

but damn the hollow was purty

the witch hazels are probably feeling pretty smug about their whole blooming-in-November deal

i tried drinking my tea on the one bench along the hollow road but my umbrella wasn’t really up to the task and my primary mission was to get the mail home dry and in one piece

as long a winter as we had, there weren’t more than half a dozen snows this pretty

so i’m not entirely crazy to celebrate the beauty of it, destructive as it is

a hen turkey trotted across the road in front of me and all i got was this lousy photo

i tend to forget this forsythia is here even though it’s right across from my house—when not in bloom it just kind of blends into the woods’ edge

a photo so obligatory i sighed as i took it. poor downcast daffodils

all in all a classic onion snow. and not a surprise because the poetry bloggers i follow who live out west got it last week. looks as if we’ve gotten about five inches now

if i’d brought a larger umbrella and worn my snow boots i could’ve stayed out longer but i was happy to get home and start the book i’d hiked in town for

Italian poet Elisa Biagini’s first collection translated in full

it’s a trip

at around four in the afternoon i sometimes feel a rush of happiness and i think that’s because four o’clock was when we got home from school after walking up the mountain

today i was happy like that so i made some decaf coffee and processed all these photos because why waste a good mood on just feeling good and i admit i’m not as free of the American obsession with productivity as i might like to think

after supper i finished the erasure poem i’d been working on. the second stanza is distinctly Simic-esque. wasn’t quite sure what tied the three stanzas together until i hit on the post title: Unseasonable

my Moving Poems co-blogger Marie Craven just reminded me of this video featuring the wonderful Australian spoken-word poet Caroline Reid

Reid calls it

A playful fusion of poetry, visual art and film in which a reflective middle-aged poet discovers that life’s interruptions to writing poetry are the very substance from which poems emerge.

exactly.

(Marie is planning to share more of Reid’s work on Moving Poems so keep an eye out for that)

April 18, 2022April 17, 2022 by Luisa A. Igloria

Dream of the Body as Strandbeest

The ears, two snails stuck out of habit
on either side of the head. The nose,

windbreak in a field no longer at war with
itself. Declension of the chin that in the past

rested too long in the bowl offered by the hand.
Citadel of shoulders from which no doves 

cry at twilight. The knobs on the back
which at night still flutter toward the idea 

of wings. The stomach's small vessel:
wide-lipped, eternally open-mouthed,

purple as eggplant and stitched with 
a hundred and more ways to say I want.

Hinge of the hips complaining in the wind
at weather's approach. The knees, two 

slightly dented potatoes lifted from 
the dusty floor. The ankles' twin 

mounds of prayer, quiet before the feet
make contact with currents in the earth. 

The eel suspended in the middle furrow 
folding forward or back: sometimes it

flattens into a pasture of sleep; or curls,
uncertain light of an unborn child.