April 2023 – Page 4 – Via Negativa

April 17, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Fragile

All the morning getting ready commissions for the Vice-Admiral and the Rear-Admiral, wherein my Lord was very careful to express the utmost of his own power, commanding them to obey what orders they should receive from the Parliament, &c., or both or either of the Generals. The Vice-Admiral dined with us, and in the afternoon my Lord called me to give him the commission for him, which I did, and he gave it him himself.
A very pleasant afternoon, and I upon the deck all the day, it was so clear that my Lord’s glass shewed us Calais very plain, and the cliffs were as plain to be seen as Kent, and my Lord at first made me believe that it was Kent. At night, after supper, my Lord called for the Rear-Admiral’s commission, which I brought him, and I sitting in my study heard my Lord discourse with him concerning Deking’s and Newberry’s being put out of commission. And by the way I did observe that my Lord did speak more openly his mind to me afterwards at night than I can find that he did to the Rear-Admiral, though his great confidant. For I was with him an hour together, when he told me clearly his thoughts that the King would carry it, and that he did think himself very happy that he was now at sea, as well for his own sake, as that he thought he might do his country some service in keeping things quiet. To bed, and shifting myself from top to toe, there being J. Goods and W. Howe sat late by my bedside talking. So to sleep, every day bringing me a fresh sense of the pleasure of my present life.

careful of what
I am in the glass

a plain as plain
as a peak

clear and quiet
shifting in my sleep

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 17 April 1660.

April 17, 2023April 16, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Relativity

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

"Our love—when we stagger—lies down inside us. . . "
                                                                              ~ Brenda Hillman  


You, too, turn a thing around
and around in your mind,

as if doing so could make 
a question plainer, a problem

easier to solve or shelve.
What is twenty-five

percent of the largest
amount you can think of

to pay the taxman? What is 
the number of years on average

when you didn't have to ransom
lives you brought into the world,

after sending them off with cheers
and confetti? Where are those

pockets in the curved universe
deep enough to slow time,

shallow enough to snap back
after a massive body moves

into another phase of its orbit?
You've always had trouble trying 

to understand the idea of infinity—
that dream of time as a net stretched 

so far in all directions, it ceases to be
time. But orbits made by bodies 

and their mass move differently,  
at different speeds— some slower 

than others, some faster. At any given
time, the moment you look at so longingly 

is no longer even what you imagine, the same
way the earth always seems to be catching

up, pulled toward the last place
it thought was occupied by the sun.

April 16, 2023April 16, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Four Nights on Earth

the evening sky pulses
like an organ of light and void

the planets aren’t up
to anything i tell myself

a weasel’s shrill cry
behind me in the meadow

i recall the seething darkness
of tadpoles in a shrinking puddle

and the predatory newt who watched
over them as they hatched

east- and west-bound freights
pass each other moaning

a satellite crosses the heavens
without so much as a twinkle

dawn sky
through skinny branches

a thin blade of moon
in its halo like a fish on a platter

a quiet trickle from the spring
gives way to guttural trucks

the open range of the night
is closing fast

any minute now the birds begin
their summoning spells

if the earth’s ache for rain
should become my own

let me suckle at the root
of the lightning tree

for seventeen years
like a cicada

thunder might become
an antidote to numbness

there may be a howl
that holds us all in its bowl

spring peepers will keep up
their transmissions

ground fog and glowworms
build and fade
below the milky way

meteors leave
the briefest of trails

on the horizon the blink
blink of a red-eye flight

i try to picture other skies
elsewhere in the galaxy

what exotic stars
what mysteries of lifelessness

and how many more lives
might i have i wonder

as these stars start to fade
and tires resume
their dull rounds

giving the road called i-99
its red breakfast

April 16, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Purveyor belt

And about 4 o’clock in the morning Mr. Cook waked me where I lay in the great cabin below, and I did give him his packet and directions for London. So to sleep again. All the morning giving out orders and tickets to the Commanders of the Fleet to discharge all supernumeraries that they had above the number that the Council had set in their last establishment.
After dinner busy all the afternoon writing, and so till night, then to bed.

where did I pack
directions for sleep
giving out tickets
to the last establishment
after the afternoon

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 16 April 1660.

April 16, 2023April 14, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Material Life

You are starting to understand 
how it can happen that someone
wakes one morning, looks around,
decides to start culling things

from shelves: duplicates of dented
pans, an extra half-dozen plates, winter
coats worn the last time, years ago,
when snow fell from the sky.

What are those glorious holes
in the night's tin sheet? After you 
tire of trying to finish work you've 
taken home, practice listening 

to silence settle into the walls, into 
the furniture, into the floor. Tell your hands
 to stop wanting to patch or stitch or clean. 
The eyes of things watch you.

April 15, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Ministry

(Lord’s day). Up early and was trimmed by the barber in the great cabin below. After that to put my clothes on and then to sermon, and then to dinner, where my Lord told us that the University of Cambridge had a mind to choose him for their burgess, which he pleased himself with, to think that they do look upon him as a thriving man, and said so openly at table. At dinner-time Mr. Cook came back from London with a packet which caused my Lord to be full of thoughts all day, and at night he bid me privately to get two commissions ready, one for Capt. Robert Blake to be captain of the Worcester, in the room of Capt. Dekings, an anabaptist, and one that had witnessed a great deal of discontent with the present proceedings. The other for Capt. Coppin to come out of that into the Newbury in the room of Blake, whereby I perceive that General Monk do resolve to make a thorough change, to make way for the King. From London I hear that since Lambert got out of the Tower, the Fanatiques had held up their heads high, but I hope all that will come to nothing. Late a writing of letters to London to get ready for Mr. Cook. Then to bed.

I put my clothes on
and then my urges

thriving at table
on a private mission

to be a baptist
in her lake

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 15 April 1660.

April 15, 2023April 13, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Mother

This is what you become—someone else other than the girl
who once upon a time was given her own name. This is how
the intimate contours of that name disappear into the stew,
into the suds of laundry, into the mending and out again as holes
multiply. Nanay, Inang, Mother. Stepmother, Madrasta, Mother-
in-law, -outlaw, unwed and undone by motherhood. This is
the moment of the day that starts with a trickle at the tap,
that moves like molasses through the lean months, that rushes
out in a torrent because you did not keep something back for that
rainy day. You are purse and bank, strings wound twice around
an old broomstick to keep it useful one more season. You are
poultice and emetic, the ache down the spine and the muscles
of the forearm, the bits of food and bile that come up gurgling,
then the swish with mouthwash because mother is also a mouth
for kissing, for doling out sweets even as she swallows blame.

April 14, 2023April 14, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Sacrificial

…rose and drank a good morning draught there with Mr. Sheply, which occasioned my thinking upon the happy life that I live now, had I nothing to care for but myself. The sea was this morning very high, and looking out of the window I saw our boat come with Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, in it in great danger, who endeavouring to come on board us, had like to have been drowned had it not been for a rope. This day I was informed that my Lord Lambert is got out of the Towers and that there is 100l. proffered to whoever shall bring him forth to the Council of State. My Lord is chosen at Waymouth this morning; my Lord had his freedom brought him by Captain Tiddiman of the port of Dover, by which he is capable of being elected for them. This day I heard that the Army had in general declared to stand by what the next Parliament shall do. At night supped with my Lord.

the life I live
is out of wind
like a drowned rope

I was a lamb for the state
my chosen mouth is over
being next

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 14 April 1660.

April 14, 2023April 13, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Alterations

Year after year, she has been shedding 
layers of tulle and lace, sheathes of silk 

shantung; pumps with silver buckles, 
Audrey Hepburn collars. She is leaving 

behind that glass cabinet of special 
occasion dresses—everything she sewed 

herself or ripped herself, to come 
closer to a desired perfection. How many 

more buttons to plant along an edge, 
darts to take in ease or cinch a shape? 

One note traveled the zipper's silver 
track, another wove a linen shroud. 

Fold after fold, this life was shortening. 
Soon, only the last regalia of bone.

April 13, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Red weather

This day very foul all day for rain and wind. In the afternoon set my own things in my cabin and chests in better order than hitherto, and set my papers in order. At night sent another packet to London by the post, and after that was done I went up to the lieutenant’s cabin and there we broached a vessel of ale that we had sent for among us from Deal to-day. There was the minister and doctor with us. After that till one o’clock in the morning writing letters to Mr. Downing about my business of continuing my office to myself, only Mr. Moore to execute it for me. I had also a very serious and effectual letter from my Lord to him to that purpose. After that done then to bed, and it being very rainy, and the rain coming upon my bed, I went and lay with John Goods in the great cabin below, the wind being so high that we were fain to lower some of the masts. I to bed, and what with the goodness of the bed and the rocking of the ship I slept till almost ten o’clock, and then—

rain in my chest
and the doctor
continuing to cut

let my bed be rainy
and the wind rock
the clock

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 13 April 1660.