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 Dave Bonta

Rain

Up and to my office early, and there all the morning alone till dinner, and after dinner to my office again, and about 3 o’clock with my wife by water to Westminster, where I staid in the Hall while my wife went to see her father and mother, and she returning we by water home again, and by and by comes Mr. Cooper, so he and I to our mathematiques, and so supper and to bed.
My morning’s work at the office was to put the new books of my office into order, and writing on the backsides what books they be, and transcribing out of some old books some things into them.

Water into water
comes to be
my morning’s work:
books into books out of books.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 7 July 1662.

Posted on by Laura M Kaminski

Sailing Stones

inspired by/after Dave Bonta’s poem “Death Valley” and an oil painting by Robert Rhodes titled “Monica alone, quietly reciting the rosary“

Nothing absent-minded in the way the freezing weather
forms the fingers of divinity, each sailing stone
a bead, the midnight breeze a thread on which they

slide, dried mud caked and cracked: chapped skin
beneath a magnifying glass. Mala, rosary, prayer beads,
not Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist—before doctrines

and divisions, night-wind prayed the stones. Tourists
gather, film the still geology, geography of awe. Our
eyes can’t track the motion of these beads, ears have never

heard the words of corresponding prayers. Nothing absent-
minded, only other-minded, inaudible invocations we would
not understand. Racetrack Playa rosary—is this wildfire

a butter lamp, a votive lit for that ancient juniper once
buried at La Brea? Could the fault-line tremors be repeated
kneeling on some ground we have not recognized as holy?

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Inventory

(Lord’s day). Lay long in bed to-day with my wife merry and pleasant, and then rose and settled my accounts with my wife for housekeeping, and do see that my kitchen, besides wine, fire, candle, sope, and many other things, comes to about 30s. a week, or a little over.
To church, where Mr. Mills made a lazy sermon. So home to dinner, where my brother Tom dined with me, and so my wife and I to church again in the afternoon, and that done I walked to the Wardrobe and spent my time with Mr. Creed and Mr. Moore talking about business; so up to supper with my Lady, who tells me, with much trouble, that my Lady Castlemaine is still as great with the King, and that the King comes as often to her as ever he did, at which, God forgive me, I am well pleased.
It began to rain, and so I borrowed a hat and cloak of Mr. Moore and walked home, where I found Captain Ferrer with my wife, and after speaking a matter of an hour with him he went home and we all to bed.
Jack Cole, my old friend, found me out at the Wardrobe; and, among other things, he told me that certainly most of the chief ministers of London would fling up their livings; and that, soon or late, the issue thereof would be sad to the King and Court.

Bed and rose,
wine, fire, candle, soap
and many other things…
Time and trouble
give me rain and a hat
and I am
a sad king.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 6 July 1662.

Posted on by Kristin Berkey-Abbott

Fiber of Existence

“Some maps clearly mark
the exits we need”
—Luisa A. Igloria, “Meander“

You will study the maps,
make a plan, pack
the right clothes, only to find
yourself in a different country,
the one you didn’t know
you needed to explore.

It is here you find the answers
to the unspoken questions.
Here is the journal written
in a language you can’t understand.
Here the box of letters
written between two souls
you do not know.

Here you pledge to drink from a dirty
glass, to ignore all your dusty duties.
Here you will ride the beast that scares
you most, the elephant or the motorcycle,
the couple married multiple decades
or mornings of solitary coffee.

Listen for the wind to whisper
your name. Go where the wind commands.
The rains will wash
away all evidence of your longing.

Eat the mush of memory.
Remember every dreary breakfast.
Resolve to find the fiber of your existence.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Death Valley

To my office all the morning, to get things ready against our sitting, and by and by we sat and did business all the morning, and at noon had Sir W. Pen, who I hate with all my heart for his base treacherous tricks, but yet I think it not policy to declare it yet, and his son William, to my house to dinner, where was also Mr. Creed and my cozen Harry Alcocke. I having some venison given me a day or two ago, and so I had a shoulder roasted, another baked, and the umbles baked in a pie, and all very well done. We were merry as I could be in that company, and the more because I would not seem otherwise to Sir W. Pen, he being within a day or two to go for Ireland.
After dinner he and his son went away, and Mr. Creed would, with all his rhetoric, have persuaded me to have gone to a play; and in good earnest I find my nature desirous to have gone, notwithstanding my promise and my business, to which I have lately kept myself so close, but I did refuse it, and I hope shall ever do so, and above all things it is considerable that my mind was never in my life in so good a condition of quiet as it has been since I have followed my business and seen myself to get greater and greater fitness in my employment, and honour every day more than other. So at my office all the afternoon, and then my mathematiques at night with Mr. Cooper, and so to supper and to bed.

all morning
in a baked land
with nature so close
and so considerable
my mind was
never quiet


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 5 July 1662.

Posted on by Laura M Kaminski

Talking Drum

inspired by “Sweet exiled words: two poems by José Luis Appleyard” translated by Natalie d’Arbeloff

when we were gathering the bitter-
leaf and stopped to play, throw rocks
to coax the spirit of the old baobab
into generosity, beg it to drop one

of its itchy-covered pods down from
the heights that we might break it
open, feast upon sweet-sour powder-
coating on its seeds, when hot breeze

carried first phrase from the drum in
our direction, we would freeze, tilt
our heads to listen for the repeat,
dama gazelles we were, catching scent

upon the wind, waiting for the repeat,
confirmation and instruction, goatskin
rhythm telling us which way to run

goatskin scraped free of hair, scraped
to translucence, soft thick parchment
stretched upon a narrow-waisted body,
hollow carved of wood and secrets,

stretched and threaded with leather
laces waiting for the compression of
the drummer’s upper arm, vocal cords
to tighten, loosen, flex the speaking

surface so the striking mallet could
write words in the language of the drum
each phrase held a message, repeated
and repeated, tonal speech encoded

into total speech, decoded by the body
of each hearer, heads tilted to receive
and suddenly we are stotting, feet
inscribing jubilation in hot sands:

the chieftain’s daughter, she is to
be married, there will be a wedding,
there will be a feast, there will be
rice with black-eyed peas and chicken,

and we all are welcome, welcome, we
are all invited to come and offer
blessings, come and dance in circles
for their union, come and dance our

thanks to those who’ve gone before,
thanks for continuity, dance for them
a prayer for peace beneath their roof,

a welcome for the children yet to come


Note: The talking drum was still an active means of communication between and within villages when I was a child; Natalie’s translations brought back a sense of loss and longing, memories of listening to their messages, knowing their meanings as a child without remembering learning them. I chose the dama gazelle for this poem because it has become critically endangered in the Sahel due to modernization and loss of habitat.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Physics

Up by five o’clock, and after my journall put in order, to my office about my business, which I am resolved to follow, for every day I see what ground I get by it. By and by comes Mr. Cooper, mate of the Royall Charles, of whom I intend to learn mathematiques, and do begin with him to-day, he being a very able man, and no great matter, I suppose, will content him. After an hour’s being with him at arithmetique (my first attempt being to learn the multiplication-table); then we parted till to-morrow. And so to my business at my office again till noon, about which time Sir W. Warren did come to me about business, and did begin to instruct me in the nature of fine timber and deals, telling me the nature of every sort; and from that we fell to discourse of Sir W. Batten’s corruption and the people that he employs, and from one discourse to another of the kind. I was much pleased with his company, and so staid talking with him all alone at my office till 4 in the afternoon, without eating or drinking all day, and then parted, and I home to eat a bit, and so back again to my office; and toward the evening came Mr. Sheply, who is to go out of town to-morrow, and so he and I with much ado settled his accounts with my Lord, which, though they be true and honest, yet so obscure, that it vexes me to see in what manner they are kept. He being gone, and leave taken of him as of a man likely not to come to London again a great while, I eat a bit of bread and butter, and so to bed. This day I sent my brother Tom, at his request, my father’s old Bass Viall which he and I have kept so long, but I fear Tom will do little good at it.

solve for y
what ground comes
to matter

I will learn
the multiplication
of noon

instruct me
in the nature of the nature
that we fell from

so obscure
that x
like an old bass viol


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 4 July 1662.