Poems & poem-like things – Page 4

March 17, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Retreat

Up very betimes and to my office, where, with several Masters of the King’s ships, Sir J. Minnes and I advising upon the business of Slopps, wherein the seaman is so much abused by the Pursers, and that being done, then I home to dinner, and so carried my wife to her mother’s, set her down and Ashwell to my Lord’s lodging, there left her, and I to the Duke, where we met of course, and talked of our Navy matters. Then to the Commission of Tangier, and there, among other things, had my Lord Peterborough’s Commission read over; and Mr. Secretary Bennet did make his querys upon it, in order to the drawing one for my Lord Rutherford more regularly, that being a very extravagant thing.
Here long discoursing upon my Lord Rutherford’s despatch, and so broke up, and so going out of the Court I met with Mr. Coventry, and so he and I walked half an hour in the long Stone Gallery, where we discoursed of many things, among others how the Treasurer doth intend to come to pay in course, which is the thing of the world that will do the King the greatest service in the Navy, and which joys my heart to hear of. He tells me of the business of Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Pen, which I knew before, but took no notice or little that I did know it. But he told me it was chiefly to make Mr. Pett’s being joyned with Sir W. Batten to go down the better, and do tell me how he well sees that neither one nor the other can do their duties without help. But however will let it fall at present without doing more in it to see whether they will do their duties themselves, which he will see, and saith they do not. We discoursed of many other things to my great content and so parted, and I to my wife at my Lord’s lodgings, where I heard Ashwell play first upon the harpsicon, and I find she do play pretty well, which pleaseth me very well. Thence home by coach, buying at the Temple the printed virginal-book for her, and so home and to my office a while, and so home and to supper and to bed.

the sea is so much
her own matter
rough and raw

that I long for another
world in the heart
of the present

and lo
I hear harps
play in a book

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 16 March 1662/63.

March 16, 2026March 16, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Afterimage

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

This morning on the radio, the woman
who came back from the brink of a terminal 
disease said all she wanted to do was bite
into a piece of bread spread thick with butter, 
drink the good bottle of wine she'd been saving 
for a special occasion. Then she wanted to steal 
some art off the walls of the clinic she'd gone to 
for so many months, do something ridiculous, 
audacious. Also, she said she doesn't believe 
there's anything else after this life. No 
shining country after crossing the threshold, 
no luminous chorus singing like piped-in muzak 
in a tunnel or train station. I was amazed
at how sure she sounded: not a bump of doubt 
in her throat, not a sudden wriggle like a small 
animal hiding in her pocket. You might know
what I mean if you've ever awakened at night 
with the remembered sweetness of egg in your 
mouth, or smelled the yeast in a rind of old 
bread hours after you tucked it into a bag.

March 15, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Breaking bread

(Lord’s day). Up and with my wife and her woman Ashwell the first time to church, where our pew was so full with Sir J. Minnes’s sister and her daughter, that I perceive, when we come all together, some of us must be shut out, but I suppose we shall come to some order what to do therein. Dined at home, and to church again in the afternoon, and so home, and I to my office till the evening doing one thing or other and reading my vows as I am bound every Lord’s day, and so home to supper and talk, and Ashwell is such good company that I think we shall be very lucky in her. So to prayers and to bed.
This day the weather, which of late has been very hot and fair, turns very wet and cold, and all the church time this afternoon it thundered mightily, which I have not heard a great while.

the first church
is a meal together

we come to some order
in supper and talk

prayer is a weather
hot and wet
a thunder I have not heard

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 15 March 1662/63.

March 15, 2026March 15, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

The Winter Garden

Is it unreasonable or a flaw
to ache long after what others say 
was a trifling matter, an oversight?

To feel too much under the skin
a wound that reopens with a careless
word or gesture? In the winter garden, 

hardy root crops grow alongside rosemary, 
thyme, and camellia. Pine, juniper, and 
winterberry wear snow like a light 

garment that doesn't choke them. How 
is it a flaw to be moved by the world, 
to be undone by what was felled 

or disfigured, torn from its bed? 
May we be tender through the frost 
that comes to kill everything,

the scrubbing after the stain that 
reddened the walls and toppled 
the chairs to the floor.

March 14, 2026 by Dave Bonta

War rant

Up betimes and to my office, where we sat all the morning, and a great rant I did give to Mr. Davis, of Deptford, and others about their usage of Michell, in his Bewpers, which he serves in for flaggs, which did trouble me, but yet it was in defence of what was truth. So home to dinner, where Creed dined with me, and walked a good while in the garden with me after dinner, talking, among other things, of the poor service which Sir J. Lawson did really do in the Streights, for which all this great fame and honour done him is risen. So to my office, where all the afternoon giving maisters their warrants for this voyage, for which I hope hereafter to get something at their coming home.
In the evening my wife and I and Ashwell walked in the garden, and I find she is a pretty ingenuous girl at all sorts of fine work, which pleases me very well, and I hope will be very good entertainment for my wife without much cost. So to write by the post, and so home to supper and to bed.

we rant about the defense of truth
go on and on

giving the war
a walk in the garden

and find a fine hope
without much cost

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 14 March 1662/63.

March 14, 2026March 14, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Despite

There goes the neighbor with the dogs
he's trained to walk alongside him without

leashes, the neighbors in Lululemon leggings,
puffy vests, and fingerless gloves getting  
 
their ten thousand steps in. It's still cold, but 
the man on the corner stops to wipe his forehead 

after vigorously mowing the lawn. The woman across 
the steet parks her van and unloads her paper 

(not plastic) bags of groceries. The brown 
crusty end of a baguette peeks out from one.
 
In the middle of the world's daily burning, 
our desire for something small and good 

has not evaporated. Our hands touch and gather
tiny salvations and bouquets: garlic and lemon,

dill and laundry soap. Someone pours honey
into a cup of tea and stirs, then sets
 
the spoon singing for a second on the rim
of the cup. Duty and pleasure, necessity

and extremity— they come knocking on the door,
sometimes asking to be let in at the same 

time. And all we can do is open, since we've 
known them all our lives and they, us.

March 13, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Great White Father

Up pretty early and to my office all the morning busy. At noon home to dinner expecting Ashwell’s father, who was here in the morning and promised to come but he did not, but there came in Captain Grove, and I found him to be a very stout man, at least in his discourse he would be thought so, and I do think that he is, and one that bears me great respect and deserves to be encouraged for his care in all business.
Abroad by water with my wife and Ashwell, and left them at Mr. Pierce’s, and I to Whitehall and St. James’s Park (there being no Commission for Tangier sitting to-day as I looked for) where I walked an hour or two with great pleasure, it being a most pleasant day. So to Mrs. Hunt’s, and there found my wife, and so took them up by coach, and carried them to Hide Park, where store of coaches and good faces. Here till night, and so home and to my office to write by the post, and so to supper and to bed.

ear of ash father
who promised to be stout
serves rage

and we left to hit
hide aches and faces
and stand up

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 13 March 1662/63.

March 13, 2026March 13, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Impossible Labors

There's always someone we applaud:
for endurance, for courage, resilience
in the face of terrible fortune. Go back 
to the old tales and find her counterpart:
the girl who spun and swept until the room
turned dizzy with gold, the girl who tufted
feathers and turned them into shirts without
holes. She poured water into jars not designed
to hold, carried wind and fire in paper, 
counted millet and wheat, pebbles and
pearls. No one asked why she must keep
doing this. No one asked her to stop.
The rules were already in place, but
being rules surely they could be broken,
amended, rewritten, undone. Tell her 
to put down the spindle, tell her 
to throw the needle into the hay.
Tell her rest shouldn't be 
a door to another test.

March 12, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Muted

Up betimes and to my office all the morning with Captain Cocke ending their account of their Riga contract for hemp. So home to dinner, my head full of business against the office. After dinner comes my uncle Thomas with a letter to my father, wherein, as we desire, he and his son do order their tenants to pay their rents to us, which pleases me well. In discourse he tells me my uncle Wight thinks much that I do never see them, and they have reason, but I do apprehend that they have been too far concerned with my uncle Thomas against us, so that I have had no mind hitherto, but now I shall go see them. He being gone, I to the office, where at the choice of maisters and chyrurgeons for the fleet now going out, I did my business as I could wish, both for the persons I had a mind to serve, and in getting the warrants signed drawn by my clerks, which I was afeard of.
Sat late, and having done I went home, where I found Mary Ashwell come to live with us, of whom I hope well, and pray God she may please us, which, though it cost me something, yet will give me much content. So to supper and to bed, and find by her discourse and carriage to-night that she is not proud, but will do what she is bid, but for want of being abroad knows not how to give the respect to her mistress, as she will do when she is told it, she having been used only to little children, and there was a kind of a mistress over them.
Troubled all night with my cold, I being quite hoarse with it that I could not speak to be heard at all almost.

my head full of tenants
I never reason with
I have no mind for war

fear having come
to live with us as a child
that could not speak

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 12 March 1662/63.

March 12, 2026March 18, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Not Unmarked, Spinning

     Again, the blare of warnings, agitation of
bodies fleeing rooms or hiding in place.
     Can't fathom the terrible seed that ticks then
detonates inside an anger so great, it must
     express itself in violence. No training prepares 
for what we fear the most when guns
     go off in a hallway, a classroom. Not theory nor
hypothesis. Bodies falling to the floor: the
     irrefutable conclusion. Sirens down the boulevard:
just moments ago we pointed out blooming trees, 
     kalanchoe shrubs tucked along walkways. Mid-morning 
limps now toward noon. What lightness there was
     moves slow like a barge, though we tell ourselves 
not to forget it does exist. Sometimes, just
     one unexpected gesture does that. One kindness
prodded to the surface that breaks the crust,
     quieting the turmoil winged black as crows.
Remember what in us is soft-boned, fragile,
     sweet— sometimes all we can do is hug each other
tight. Every day, new ripples of violence 
     unspool. No one is unmarked, though we 
vow not to let it change the human in us. 
     We will ourselves to survive, though rearranged 
exquisitely by grief. In this, just as
     yesterday and tomorrow, life goes on. Birds on  
zoetropes flicker on a spinning drum.