Category: Poems & poem-like things

Original poetry, translations and videopoems by the authors of this blog. (See Poets and poetry for criticism, etc.)

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Memory of a Tree

river in November light between bare woods and mountain 
~ after Mercedes López

I've come to love the milky taste 
of tea with no actual milk in it, 

and the tang of salt in the air on dry days
in the mountains. What are the scaffolds 

on which we build if not the ghosts 
of magnificent cities, whose blueprints

sycophants and tyrants tried but failed
to obliterate? Here is a lattice studded

with diamond points of light, an oceanic 
generation of forests. I want to see 

not monuments but grids conducting  
the hum of a different electricity, lanes

and highways overlaid with cool moisture;
every pewter cell of night cast open.
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Student

Sam Pepys and me

With Sir G. Carteret and both the Sir Williams at Whitehall to wait on the Duke in his chamber, which we did about getting money for the Navy and other things. So back again to the office all the morning. Thence to the Exchange to hire a ship for the Maderas, but could get none. Then home to dinner, and Sir G. Carteret and I all the afternoon by ourselves upon business in the office till late at night. So to write letters and home to bed. Troubled at my maid’s being ill.

art to hang
ash for dinner

tea to write letters
home to trouble


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 15 March 1661/62.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Optimistic

Sam Pepys and me

At the office all the morning. At noon Sir W. Pen and I making a bargain with the workmen about his house, at which I did see things not so well contracted for as I would have, and I was vexed and made him so too to see me so critical in the agreement. Home to dinner. In the afternoon came the German Dr. Kuffler, to discourse with us about his engine to blow up ships. We doubted not the matter of fact, it being tried in Cromwell’s time, but the safety of carrying them in ships; but he do tell us, that when he comes to tell the King his secret (for none but the Kings, successively, and their heirs must know it), it will appear to be of no danger at all.
We concluded nothing; but shall discourse with the Duke of York to-morrow about it.
In the afternoon, after we had done with him, I went to speak with my uncle Wight and found my aunt to have been ill a good while of a miscarriage, I staid and talked with her a good while.
Thence home, where I found that Sarah the maid had been very ill all day, and my wife fears that she will have an ague, which I am much troubled for.
Thence to my lute, upon which I have not played a week or two, and trying over the two songs of “Nulla, nulla,” &c., and “Gaze not on Swans,” which Mr. Berkenshaw set for me a little while ago, I find them most incomparable songs as he has set them, of which I am not a little proud, because I am sure none in the world has them but myself, not so much as he himself that set them. So to bed.

the pen and I
making things up

we doubt the time
that comes in secret

for a miscarriage
or the song of a swan


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 14 March 1661/62.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Elegy for the Human, with Extradition Standoff

river in November light between bare woods and mountain 
Human: mid-15c., humain, humaigne, "human," from  
Old French humain, umain (adj.) "of or belonging 
to man" (12c.), from Latin humanus "of man, human," 
also "humane, philanthropic, kind, gentle, polite; 
... in part from PIE *(dh)ghomon-, literally 
"earthling, earthly being," as opposed to 
the gods (from root *dhghem- "earth") 
                               - etymonline.com



Given a choice to do the right 
thing, what is it that people do? 
At Villamor air base before the former 

president is flown to face the music 
at the international criminal court, his wife
and daughter scream "Humane, humane,"

stalling for time. He's an octogenarian 
now; his health is poor, he's waiting for 
his children, because because because—
 
Police close ranks and bodies form a shield 
but not a weapon clicks in place. His rights 
are read to him, unlike the thousands 

he ordered shot because "Human rights, 
son of a bitch." A milky fog, a kind of gauze 
bandage, drapes over this ordinary day. A dog

limps down the alley. A partly disemboweled
squirrel's plastered on the road, syrupy
rot beneath the traffic stop.
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Psalm Ending with a Howl

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series Psalms

 

open the knives
of my heart to rust
blooming like a sunset

the earth’s stillborn twin
glows with purloined light
dimming the stars

and the midnight creek
has one or two things to say
it shimmers as it should

a freight train
labors up the valley
wailing at every crossroads

I feel a howl
uncurling like a leaf
from its shrink-wrapped fist

almost full will do
for an almost fool
to raise his coyote muzzle

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Poem with Extradition, Ace of Swords, and Five of Coins

river in November light between bare woods and mountain 
Fortune can be a fickle lover, 
can be a beggar standing outside 
the gate in blood-stained rags, 

waiting to turn the tables on you. 
It can be a miser who keeps an eye, 
two feet, two hands on his hoard 

of coins because he thinks the world 
is only out to impoverish him. The sun 
shines on his back and on the bustling 

city, but he won't be allowed to buy a stick 
of cotton candy on the beach or a golden 
bullet for the gun in his secret pocket. 

Fortune this week is the despot shuffled
off a plane and into a cell, there to await 
trial; while in the hallway, his wife 

pleads for mercy. Fortune pulls a sword 
out of a gleaming cloud as if to smite 
the mountains and part the sea and all

else in its path. Every blade has two edges,
every sky a moon and sun. Fortune slaps  
one cheek then asks you to turn the other— 

a game it never seems to tire of. Fortune says
this is one way to rid yourself of illusion, 
and prepare for the breakthrough just ahead.
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Beachhead

putting my phone away
the plushness of the moss

at its greenest now
at the end of a hard winter

a butterfly dances past
like a lost carnival float

the naked trees sway
gray and weather-eaten

i find a habitable hush
in the shade of a pine

though from time to time
a moan interjects

the sound of friction
with a too-close neighbor

a wild lettuce seed drifts
on a pompon of down

up over the mountain
and out across the valley

where every raw patch
of plowed or scoured earth

calls to the migrant killdeer
as an unclaimed shore

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Portrait, with Train Wreck and Cartoon Suspension

river in November light between bare woods and mountain 


The trains of Norfolk Southern rumble 
past the new cafe. It's the same line 
that carried vinyl chloride in 2023, 
when something overheated and 38 cars 
derailed on the edge of East Palestine, 
Ohio. Think of the rain that must have 
hissed and crackled in the aftermath. 
Of dark plumes rising into the earth's 
free troposphere, as families packed 
their children and pets into cars
and drove away. A couple of years after
cleanup, some people have returned 
but some have stayed away. I don't 
blame them. How does anyone know 
the earth has no more toxins, 
if air and water particles are 
no longer sheathed in emissions? 
When even one coupler misaligns 
and a railcar wheel slips the track, 
your mind runs away with it— You won't 
even have time to blow kisses or wave 
goodbye, in the brief moment of cartoon 
suspension after you're run off a cliff.
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Orderly

Sam Pepys and me

At the office from morning till night putting of papers in order, that so I may have my office in an orderly condition. I took much pains in sorting and folding of papers. Dined at home, and there came Mrs. Goldsborough about her old business, but I did give her a short answer and sent away.
This morning we had news from Mr. Coventry, that Sir G. Downing (like a perfidious rogue, though the action is good and of service to the King, yet he cannot with any good conscience do it) hath taken Okey, Corbet, and Barkestead at Delfe, in Holland, and sent them home in the Blackmore.
Sir W. Pen, talking to me this afternoon of what a strange thing it is for Downing to do this, he told me of a speech he made to the Lords States of Holland, telling them to their faces that he observed that he was not received with the respect and observance now, that he was when he came from the traitor and rebell Cromwell: by whom, I am sure, he hath got all he hath in the world, — and they know it too.

in order that I may
have order I sort
and fold old news

like a king with a black pen
for a speech
made by the world


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 12 March 1661/62.