Poems & poem-like things

October 25, 2026October 25, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

An Incident

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

Early 15c., “something which occurs casually in connection
with something else,” from Old French incident (13c.), and directly
from Latin incidentem (nominative incidens), present participle of incidere
“to fall in, fall, find the way; light upon, fall in with; fall upon, occur;
happen, befall”
– Etymology Online

To fall or befall, to occur or to happen. Infinitives
that may be used as a noun, an adjective, an adverb.

In and only of itself, an incident requires an act of
relation. Something against which it becomes possible
to say here it derives from, is a mere instance of. A minor thing.

An almost randomness. But what of taxonomic hierarchy?
Class, genus, species—steps for organizing living things

according to broadest, then broader, then more individual
categories. A species not a minor form of, but unique.
Not incident nor accident, this expression of life.

If something were mere incident, would it be assigned
nomenclature? The genus name, followed by the epithet.

A system for recording physical traits, provenance or
origin. Traits. Habits. Appearance. A body. A significance.

October 25, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Sweet nothings

Up and to my office, where busy all the morning about Mr. Gauden’s account, and at noon to dinner with him at the Dolphin, where mighty merry by pleasant stories of Mr. Coventry’s and Sir J. Minnes’s, which I have put down some of in my book of tales. Just as I was going out my uncle Thomas came to the with a draught of a bond for him and his sons to sign to me about the payment of the 20l. legacy, which I agreed to, but he would fain have had from me the copy of the deed, which he had forged and did bring me yesterday, but I would not give him it. Says I perceive then you will keep it to defame me with, and desired me not to speak of it, for he did it innocently. Now I confess I do not find any great hurt in the thing, but only to keep from me a sight of the true original deed, wherein perhaps there was something else that may touch this business of the legacy which he would keep from me, or it may be, it is really lost as he says it is. But then he need not have used such a slight, but confess it without danger.
Thence by coach with Mr. Coventry to the Temple, and thence I to the Six Clerks’ office, and discoursed with my Attorney and Solicitor, and he and I to Mr. Turner, who puts me in great fear that I shall not get retayned again against Tom Trice; which troubles me.
Thence, it being night, homewards, and called at Wotton’s and tried some shoes, but he had none to fit me. He tells me that by the Duke of York’s persuasion Harris is come again to Sir W. Davenant upon his terms that he demanded, which will make him very high and proud. Thence to another shop, and there bought me a pair of shoes, and so walked home and to my office, and dispatch letters by the post, and so home to supper and to bed, where to my trouble I find my wife begin to talk of her being alone all day, which is nothing but her lack of something to do, for while she was busy she never, or seldom, complained. She hath also a pain in the place which she used to have swellings in; and that that troubles me is that we fear that it is my matter that I give her that causes it, it never coming but after my having been with her.
The Queen is in a good way of recovery; and Sir Francis Pridgeon hath got great honour by it, it being all imputed to his cordiall, which in her dispaire did give her rest and brought her to some hopes of recovery.
It seems that, after the much talk of troubles and a plot, something is found in the North that a party was to rise, and some persons that were to command it are found, as I find in a letter that Mr. Coventry read to-day about it from those parts.

in my book of tales
you desire me

not to speak
only to touch

shoes that make a pair
shoes that never despair

over a plot
thin as we are

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 24 October 1663.

October 24, 2026October 24, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Preternatural

Within a furniture store, labyrinthine trails
               wound through draperies of green. 
Oh the enticements packaged as tufted
               nests, aisles lined with luminaries
voluptuous as menageries. Beds with no 
               bodies in them, wrappers and quilts 
baroque with scrolls and windowpanes. 
              Glass blown into acorn shapes 
beckoning eternal winter, next to bins 
              of stuffed red pandas and raccoons. 
When we passed  back through the automatic 
             doors, the sky was ablaze like a high 
contrast movie poster. Every edge hummed,
             just short of a strident register.

October 24, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Academia

Up, and this morning comes Mr. Clerke, and tells me that the Injunction against Trice is dismissed again, which troubles me much. So I am to look after it in the afternoon. There comes also by appointment my uncle Thomas, to receive the first payment of his daughter’s money. But showing of me the original of the deed by which his daughter gives her right to her legacy to him, and the copy of it attested by the Scrivener, for me to keep by me, I did find some difference, and thereupon did look more into it, and at last did find the whole thing a forgery; yet he maintained it again and again, upon oath, that it had been signed and sealed by my cozen Mary ever since before her marriage. So I told him to his teeth he did like a knave, and so he did, and went with him to the Scrivener at Bedlam, and there found how it came to pass, viz., that he had lost, or pretends to have lost, the true original, and that so he was forced to take this course; but a knave, at least a man that values not what he swears to, I perceive he is. But however I am now better able to see myself fully secured before I part with the money, for I find that his son Charles has right to this legacy till the first 100l. of his daughter’s portion be paid, he being bond for it. So I put him upon getting both his sons to be bound for my security, and so left him and so home, and then abroad to my brother’s, but found him abroad at the young couple that was married yesterday, and he one of the Br[ide’s] men, a kinswoman (Brumfield) of the Joyces married to an upholster.
Thence walked to the King’s Head at Charing Cross and there dined, and hear that the Queen slept pretty well last night, but her fever continues upon her still. It seems she hath never a Portuguese doctor here.
Thence by appointment to the Six Clerks’ office to meet Mr. Clerke, which I did and there waited all the afternoon for Wilkinson my attorney, but he came not, and so vexed and weary we parted, and I endeavoured but in vain to have found Dr. Williams, of whom I shall have use in Trice’s business, but I could not find him. So weary walked home; in my way bought a large kitchen knife and half dozen oyster knives. Thence to Mr. Holliard, who tells me that Mullins is dead of his leg cut off the other day, but most basely done.
He tells me that there is no doubt but that all my slyme do come away in my water, and therefore no fear of the stone; but that my water being so slymy is a good sign. He would have me now and then to take a clyster, the same I did the other day, though I feel no pain, only to keep me loose, and instead of butter, which he would have to be salt butter, he would have me sometimes use two or three ounces of honey, at other times two or three ounces of Linseed oil.
Thence to Mr. Rawlinson’s and saw some of my new bottles made, with my crest upon them, filled with wine, about five or six dozen.
So home and to my office a little, and thence home to prepare myself against T. Trice, and also to draw a bond fit for my uncle and his sons to enter into before I pay them the money. That done to bed.

at the junction of legacy and difference
I look into a hole

like a scrivener at Bedlam
that true original course

I am better able to see
my part of a broad field

I have found all my water
and a stone to keep

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 23 October 1663.

October 23, 2026October 23, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Entr’acte

In the stillness that follows a great
abandonment, the smallest motifs 
acquire consequence. Once there was
a patch of milkweed where now there is 
raked gravel. The woman in the workshop 
tonight spoke of what she called red doors—
those threshold moments that tick like a lure 
and like a warning, and after you've crossed 
into them you realize there's no returning. 
The scent of spores, of old musk, lines the air. 
How many more calendar squares are left 
in the year? To be cocooned in cold, to slowly 
run out of words. To surrender to a force 
and without the least bit of guile say 
It appears you have won—for now.

October 23, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Specialist

Up to the office, where we sat till noon and then I home to dinner, and after dinner with my wife to her study and there read some more arithmetique, which she takes with great ease and pleasure. This morning, hearing that the Queen grows worse again, I sent to stop the making of my velvet cloake, till I see whether she lives or dies.
So a little abroad about several businesses, and then home and to my office till night, and then home to supper, teach my wife, and so to bed.

home to my arithmetic
with an ear of velvet

till I live or die a little
in each bed

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 22 October 1663.

October 22, 2026October 23, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

The Students are Writing Signs

The students put up these signs in front of the building
where yesterday, one of them fell to their death
from the eighth floor.

The signs are lettered using their own hands, fingers
curled around markers.

They tape them up on the glass panes
and you can see every finger smudge.

The signs are unafraid of using words
like suicide instead of incident.

Like accountability. And care, community, humanity.

They are composed on the spot, fueled by feeling,
by anger, by sadness, by fear, by frustration.

Nothing a machine would understand enough
to generate something real.

Something not immediately trying to isolate
and contain.

October 21, 2026October 21, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

After: A Zuihitsu

I distrust what preaches of progression toward certain resolution. 

It was a blue and gold day. The first of many tinged with the growing colors
of autumn. 

Leftover blue of a wing; a wave, cold and crested by a lone surfboarder. 

A sky that looked almost like memory preserved whole. Almost.

We stood on the periphery, craning our necks upward.

Afterward is not just what or how much might remain, not just 
the message of consolation as repair. 

Sirens moved down the boulevard as trucks and buses moved aside.

It is rumored that there are now only two custodians assigned the cleaning
of one building.

The labor of love is equal to the labor of grief. 
Someone has to climb the ladder.

Coats in the hall closet look like they have kept the shapes of 
shoulders that have long slipped out of them.

There are messages left on office phones that do not ask for a reply.
Messages made entirely of silence, and yet take up time.

Taking inventory sometimes means only fragments remain.
They still matter, beyond any account of their usefulness.

That pause in the weather. Half a sentence carried by wind.
The scent of soap, the trace of oil on a sleeve.

October 21, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Coloring

Up, and by and by comes my brother Tom to me, though late (which do vex me to the blood that I could never get him to come time enough to me, though I have spoke a hundred times; but he is very sluggish, and too negligent ever to do well at his trade I doubt), and having lately considered with my wife very much of the inconvenience of my going in no better plight, we did resolve of putting me into a better garb, and, among other things, to have a good velvet cloake; that is, of cloth lined with velvet and other things modish, and a perruque, and so I sent him and her out to buy me velvet, and I to the Exchange, and so to Trinity House, and there dined with Sir W. Batten, having some business to speak with him, and Sir W. Rider. Thence, having my belly full, away on foot to my brother’s, all along Thames Streete, and my belly being full of small beer, I did all alone, for health’s sake, drink half a pint of Rhenish wine at the Still-yard, mixed with beer.
From my brother’s with my wife to the Exchange, to buy things for her and myself, I being in a humour of laying out money, but not prodigally, but only in clothes, which I every day see that I suffer for want of, I so home, and after a little at my office, home to supper and to bed.
Memorandum: This morning one Mr. Commander, a scrivener, came to me from Mr. Moore with a deed of which. Mr. Moore had told me, that my Lord had made use of my name, and that I was desired by my Lord to sign it. Remembering this very well, though understanding little of the particulars, I read it over, and found it concern Sir Robt. Bernard and Duckinford, their interest in the manor of Brampton. So I did sign it, declaring to Mr. Commander that I am only concerned in having my name at my Lord Sandwich’s desire used therein, and so I sealed it up after I had signed and sealed the deed, and desired him to give it so sealed to Mr. Moore. I did also call at the Wardrobe this afternoon to have told Mr. Moore of it, but he was not within, but knowing Mr. Commander to have the esteem of a good and honest man with my Lord Crew, I did not doubt to intrust him with the deed after I had signed it.
This evening after I came home I begun to enter my wife in arithmetique, in order to her studying of the globes, and she takes it very well, and, I hope, with great pleasure, I shall bring her to understand many fine things.

up comes the blood
into the oak

a prodigal embering
I understand little of

to sign my name in red
but not to rust

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 21 October 1663.

October 21, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Promise land

Up and to the office, where we sat; and at noon Sir G. Carteret, Sir J. Minnes, and I to dinner to my Lord Mayor’s, being invited, where was the Farmers of the Customes, my Lord Chancellor’s three sons, and other great and much company, and a very great noble dinner, as this Mayor is good for nothing else. No extraordinary discourse of any thing, every man being intent upon his dinner, and myself willing to have drunk some wine to have warmed my belly, but I did for my oath’s sake willingly refrain it, but am so well pleased and satisfied afterwards thereby, for it do keep me always in so good a frame of mind that I hope I shall not ever leave this practice. Thence home, and took my wife by coach to White Hall, and she set down at my Lord’s lodgings, I to a Committee of Tangier, and thence with her homeward, calling at several places by the way. Among others at Paul’s Churchyard, and while I was in Kirton’s shop, a fellow came to offer kindness or force to my wife in the coach, but she refusing, he went away, after the coachman had struck him, and he the coachman. So I being called, went thither, and the fellow coming out again of a shop, I did give him a good cuff or two on the chops, and seeing him not oppose me, I did give him another; at last found him drunk, of which I was glad, and so left him, and home, and so to my office awhile, and so home to supper and to bed.
This evening, at my Lord’s lodgings, Mrs. Sarah talking with my wife and I how the Queen do, and how the King tends her being so ill. She tells us that the Queen’s sickness is the spotted fever; that she was as full of the spots as a leopard which is very strange that it should be no more known; but perhaps it is not so. And that the King do seem to take it much to heart, for that he hath wept before her; but, for all that; that he hath not missed one night since she was sick, of supping with my Lady Castlemaine; which I believe is true, for she says that her husband hath dressed the suppers every night; and I confess I saw him myself coming through the street dressing of a great supper to-night, which Sarah says is also for the King and her; which is a very strange thing.

a farm for nothing
in every belly

a war always on offer
kindness or force

a way of seeing
no other at last

left us a leopard
to take to heart

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 20 October 1663.