February 2023 – Page 2

February 25, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Big talk

…who we left here the next morning upon his going to Hinchingbroke to speak with my Lord before his going to London, and we two come to Cambridge by eight o’clock in the morning.
To the Falcon, in the Petty Cury, where we found my father and brother very well. After dressing myself, about ten o’clock, my father, brother, and I to Mr. Widdrington, at Christ’s College, who received us very civilly, and caused my brother to be admitted, while my father, he, and I, sat talking. After that done, we take leave. My father and brother went to visit some friends, Pepys’s, scholars in Cambridge, while I went to Magdalene College, to Mr. Hill, with whom I found Mr. Zanchy, Burton, and Hollins, and was exceeding civilly received by them. I took leave on promise to sup with them, and to my Inn again, where I dined with some others that were there at an ordinary. After dinner my brother to the College, and my father and I to my Cozen Angier’s, to see them, where Mr. Fairbrother came to us. Here we sat a while talking. My father he went to look after his things at the carrier’s, and my brother’s chamber, while Mr. Fairbrother, my Cozen Angier, and Mr. Zanchy, whom I met at Mr. Merton’s shop (where I bought ‘Elenchus Motuum’, having given my former to Mr. Downing when he was here), to the Three Tuns, where we drank pretty hard and many healths to the King, &c., till it began to be darkish: then we broke up and I and Mr. Zanchy went to Magdalene College, where a very handsome supper at Mr. Hill’s chambers, I suppose upon a club among them, where in their discourse I could find that there was nothing at all left of the old preciseness in their discourse, specially on Saturday nights. And Mr. Zanchy told me that there was no such thing now-a-days among them at any time. After supper and some discourse then to my Inn, where I found my father in his chamber, and after some discourse, and he well satisfied with this day’s work, we went to bed, my brother lying with me, his things not being come by the carrier that he could not lie in the College.

falcon on the hill
and me at dinner
talking to the air

dark hands in discourse
find the precise night
among my days

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 25 February 1659/60.

February 24, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Diner

I rose very early, and taking horse at Scotland Yard, at Mr. Garthwayt’s stable, I rode to Mr. Pierces, who rose, and in a quarter of an hour, leaving his wife in bed (with whom Mr. Lucy methought was very free as she lay in bed), we both mounted, and so set forth about seven of the clock, the day and the way very foul. About Ware we overtook Mr. Blayton, brother-in-law to Dick Vines, who went thenceforwards with us, and at Puckeridge we baited, where we had a loin of mutton fried, and were very merry, but the way exceeding bad from Ware thither. Then up again and as far as Foulmer, within six miles of Cambridge, my mare being almost tired: here we lay at the Chequer, playing at cards till supper, which was a breast of veal roasted. I lay with Mr. Pierce,…

early at a table
who rose with whom

seven o’clock
over the ridge

the far thin miles
are almost red

laying still
as veal

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 24 February 1659/60.

February 24, 2023February 23, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Pockets: A Haibun

You keep your hands in them to get warm. You slip your hands
into them when you don't know what else to do— a pose 
that supposedly conveys an air of nonchalance. A casual vibe. 
Like, I'm chill. Or Don't mind me, I'm just leaning against the wall 
here, trying to blend into the atmosphere. You've learned to stay 
just like this, especially when you're unsure of how to mix and 
mingle, make small talk; after a while, even the waiters walking 
around the room with little trays of hors d'oeuvres forget 
about you. In 1991, two German tourists came upon a mummified 
corpse frozen halfway to its chest in a pocket of ice, somewhere 
on the border between Austria and Italy. An archaeologist 
determined that this guy, christened Ötzi the Iceman, lived 
around the year 3,300 BCE.  When he was found, he was still 
wearing a cloak of woven grass, shoes and leggings of animal 
skin. His belt had a pouch dangling from it— an outside pocket 
containing a flake of flint, an awl made of bone, some kind 
of scraper and drill, dried fungus. The contents of his stomach 
included partly digested food from at least two meals before 
he was killed: ibex meat, wheat, deer and chamois meat, herbs, 
roots, fruit. Inside the gastric pocket, he'd also harbored 
whipworms. And you could go on and on, exploring the body 
as if it were a bottomless hamper, an envelope of assorted 
curiosities. You feel around coat pockets and find lint balls, 
crumpled receipts, an old piece of gum; quarters, one half 
of a pair of lost earrings. In the early 1900s, there was
something called a beer pocket inside a men's jacket
or vest, expressly for carrying a bottle of alcohol. Women 
used to be able to carry a square of cloth, yarn or thread,
keys and scissors in ample pouch pockets. But now, if women's 
clothes have pockets, they're so much smaller than men's. 

You'd think someone decided 
they'd better not be hiding any secrets, 
better not be given extra space of any kind.

February 23, 2023February 23, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

On Fission

(with lines from Jesse Lee Kercheval)

The sudden weight of skin 
and heart makes me start
to cry—as if I'd spent a whole
afternoon shucking wrappers, 
peeling rind after rind to get  to the seed; 
or needling and needling a cavity in the chest.
And still there was no end to it. I know this 
feeling from its many incarnations: scent-
spilling tree in the night, foghorn whistle, 
shadow of a moth wing before the moth 
itself bangs on the screen. This late 
in life, I am still always trying to resist 
words like forlorn, with their long 
centuries of loss behind them, their 
habit of loosening whatever they 
were attached to or bound. Bound as in
bond, as in a chemistry of atoms, their 
orbitals and shells able to hold only 
so much until the moment of breaking.

February 23, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Birthday card

Thursday, my birthday, now twenty-seven years.
A pretty fair morning, I rose and after writing a while in my study I went forth. To my office, where I told Mr. Hawly of my thoughts to go out of town to-morrow. Hither Mr. Fuller comes to me and my Uncle Thomas too, thence I took them to drink, and so put off my uncle. So with Mr. Fuller home to my house, where he dined with me, and he told my wife and me a great many stories of his adversities, since these troubles, in being forced to travel in the Catholic countries, &c. He shewed me his bills, but I had not money to pay him. We parted, and I to Whitehall, where I was to see my horse which Mr. Garthwayt lends me to-morrow. So home, where Mr. Pierce comes to me about appointing time and place where and when to meet tomorrow. So to Westminster Hall, where, after the House rose, I met with Mr. Crew, who told me that my Lord was chosen by 73 voices, to be one of the Council of State. Mr. Pierpoint had the most, 101, and himself the next, too. He brought me in the coach home. He and Mr. Anslow being in it. I back to the Hall, and at Mrs. Michell’s shop staid talking a great while with her and my Chaplain, Mr. Mumford, and drank a pot or two of ale on a wager that Mr. Prin is not of the Council. Home and wrote to my Lord the news of the choice of the Council by the post, and so to bed.

my birthday comes
on a white horse

comes to appoint me
in all my voices

to be the most himself
in the hell of age

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 23 February 1659/60.

February 22, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Ridgerunner’s Dilemma

far from the monoculture
up in the hills here

and there you can still find
original patterns

new wrinkles in the ridgeline
a rare lichen

a nearly lost recipe
for disaster

the way a chipmunk can race
across a creek

ridge running you rise and fall
on crests and dips
of a sine wave

here an old charcoal hearth
there a borrow pit
returning to woods

you teeter through talus
clamber down cliffs

far from the suburban
absence of fear

where deer without hunters
spell understories without natives

following animal paths
you remember all the ways
to be animal

crawl on your knees
through rhododendron tunnels

to a place where yellow birches
rear up on their roots

and foamflower leaves recline
on sphagnum cushions

maybe you stumble
on a small forgotten stand
of old-growth trees

glowing in the low sun
full of character

like all those who live
long lives out in the weather

and you wonder knowing
how your heart might break
whether to come back

absence can grow anywhere
the ground turns white

February 22, 2023February 22, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Old turnpike

In the morning intended to have gone to Mr. Crew’s to borrow some money, but it raining I forbore, and went to my Lord’s lodging and look that all things were well there. Then home and sang a song to my viall, so to my office and to Will’s, where Mr. Pierce found me out, and told me that he would go with me to Cambridge, where Colonel Ayre’s regiment, to which he was surgeon, lieth. Walking in the Hall, I saw Major-General Brown, who had a long time been banished by the Rump, but now with his beard overgrown, he comes abroad and sat in the House.
To my father’s to dinner, where nothing but a small dish of powdered beef and dish of carrots; they being all busy to get things ready for my brother John to go to-morrow.
After dinner, my wife staying there, I went to Mr. Crew’s, and got; 5l. of Mr. Andrews, and so to Mrs. Jemimah, who now hath her instrument about her neck, and indeed is infinitely, altered, and holds her head upright. I paid her maid 40s. of the money that I have received of Mr. Andrews.
Hence home to my study, where I only wrote thus much of this day’s passages to this and so out again. To White Hall, where I met with Will. Simons and Mr. Mabbot at Marsh’s, who told me how the House had this day voted that the gates of the City should be set up at the cost of the State. And that Major-General Brown’s being proclaimed a traitor be made void, and several other things of that nature.
Home for my lanthorn and so to my father’s, where I directed John what books to put for Cambridge.
After that to supper, where my Uncle Fenner and my Aunt, The. Turner, and Joyce, at a brave leg of veal roasted, and were very merry against John’s going to Cambridge. I observed this day how abominably Barebone’s windows are broke again last night. At past 9 o’clock my wife and I went home.

the rain and I
out walking
an overgrown road

where nothing is a thing
ready for tomorrow

my hat is infinite
and holds up the void

at home my fat books
turn into bones

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 22 February 1659/60.

February 22, 2023February 22, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Adopted

The word was whispered among relatives
behind the gurgling coffee pot or over beaten

laundry, but tested out in the open 
by schoolmates. Planting doubt, they 

meant to hurt, insinuating I was merely 
changeling or impostor, taken in out of pity. 

For years, I wore my name like a coat 
with a secret pocket, my face a shield

over one I might not ever know. If I
was not made from the same pure

blood, why did the bed I lay in make
a perfect imprint of my shape? Why

was a particular future pressed into
my hands? Evenings, when owls began

their plaintive interrogation, I cracked
open roasted pumpkin seeds until my lips

grew pale from salt, as if one might yield 
an answer. I'm learning to put my faith in what

remains, the way a traveler moves through 
the landscape: leaning into time and gravity 

with no other retinue than this body
taking in the measure of each change.

February 21, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Withdrawn

In the morning going out I saw many soldiers going towards Westminster, and was told that they were going to admit the secluded members again. So I to Westminster Hall, and in Chancery Row I saw about twenty of them who had been at White Hall with General Monk, who came thither this morning, and made a speech to them, and recommended to them a Commonwealth, and against Charles Stuart. They came to the House and went in one after another, and at last the Speaker came. But it is very strange that this could be carried so private, that the other members of the House heard nothing of all this, till they found them in the House, insomuch that the soldiers that stood there to let in the secluded members, they took for such as they had ordered to stand there to hinder their coming in. Mr. Prin came with an old basket-hilt sword on, and had a great many great shouts upon his going into the Hall. They sat till noon, and at their coming out Mr. Crew saw me, and bid me come to his house, which I did, and he would have me dine with him, which I did; and he very joyful told me that the House had made General Monk, General of all the Forces in England, Scotland, and Ireland; and that upon Monk’s desire, for the service that Lawson had lately done in pulling down the Committee of Safety, he had the command of the Sea for the time being. He advised me to send for my Lord forthwith, and told me that there is no question that, if he will, he may now be employed again; and that the House do intend to do nothing more than to issue writs, and to settle a foundation for a free Parliament. After dinner I back to Westminster Hall with him in his coach. Here I met with Mr. Lock and Pursell, Masters of Music, and with them to the Coffee House, into a room next the water, by ourselves, where we spent an hour or two till Captain Taylor came to us, who told us, that the House had voted the gates of the City to be made up again, and the members of the City that are in prison to be set at liberty; and that Sir G. Booth’s case be brought into the House to-morrow.
Here we had variety of brave Italian and Spanish songs, and a canon for eight voices, which Mr. Lock had lately made on these words: “Domine salvum fac Regem,” an admirable thing.
Here also Capt. Taylor began a discourse of something that he had lately writ about Gavelkind in answer to one that had wrote a piece upon the same subject; and indeed discovered a great deal of study in antiquity in his discourse. Here out of the window it was a most pleasant sight to see the City from one end to the other with a glory about it, so high was the light of the bonfires, and so thick round the City, and the bells rang everywhere. Hence home and wrote to my Lord, afterwards came down and found Mr. Hunt (troubled at this change) and Mr. Spong, who staid late with me singing of a song or two, and so parted. My wife not very well, went to bed before.
This morning I met in the Hall with Mr. Fuller, of Christ’s, and told him of my design to go to Cambridge, and whither. He told me very freely the temper of Mr. Widdrington, how he did oppose all the fellows in the College, and that there was a great distance between him and the rest, at which I was very sorry, for that he told me he feared it would be little to my brother’s advantage to be his pupil.

who am I this morning
private as the sea

employed to do nothing
in a room by ourselves

voices of great antiquity
out the window

Christ’s old sign
in the distance

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 21 February 1659/60.

February 21, 2023February 21, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Whole Heart

It isn't nothing
to know even one moment alive—
by which the poet who wrote 
those lines meant there's 
some cost, barter, or exchange.

What she means is, to feel so keenly 
is a blade that can cut both ways: misery
or euphoria, invincible or exposed. 

I think of that story about a daily 
offering of fruit tossed into a king's 
treasury room, until the accidental 
discovery of  their jeweled hearts—

How could no one have smelled 
or seen ripeness and its head-
long rush toward decay? 

The dizzying scent of ammonia, 
the slipped  and speckled skins; 
a multitude of ants and flies 
eating what others discarded.

Unbearable desire; rot 
or ferment: all that requires 
surrender until nothing
remains but beautiful bone.