Poems & poem-like things – Page 922

November 13, 2013May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Wolf from the door

Lay long in bed to-day. Sir Wm. Batten went this morning to Deptford to pay off the Wolf. Mr. Comptroller and I sat a while at the office to do business, and thence I went with him to his house in Lime Street, a fine house, and where I never was before, and from thence by coach (setting down his sister at the new Exchange) to Westminster Hall, where first I met with Jack Spicer and agreed with him to help me to tell money this afternoon. Hence to De Cretz, where I saw my Lord’s picture finished, which do please me very well. So back to the Hall, where by appointment I met the Comptroller, and with him and three or four Parliament men I dined at Heaven, and after dinner called at Will’s on Jack Spicer, and took him to Mr. Fox’s, who saved me the labour of telling me the money by giving me 3000l. by consent (the other 1000l. I am to have on Thursday next), which I carried by coach to the Exchequer, and put it up in a chest in Spicer’s office. From thence walked to my father’s, where I found my wife, who had been with my father to-day, buying of a tablecloth and a dozen of napkins of diaper, the first that ever I bought in my life.
My father and I took occasion to go forth, and went and drank at Mr. Standing’s, and there discoursed seriously about my sister’s coming to live with me, which I have much mind for her good to have, and yet I am much afeard of her ill-nature.
Coming home again, he and I, and my wife, my mother and Pall, went all together into the little room, and there I told her plainly what my mind was, to have her come not as a sister in any respect, but as a servant, which she promised me that she would, and with many thanks did weep for joy, which did give me and my wife some content and satisfaction.
So by coach home and to bed.
The last night I should have mentioned how my wife and I were troubled all night with the sound of drums in our ears, which in the morning we found to be Mr. Davys’s jack, but not knowing the cause of its going all night, I understand to-day that they have had a great feast to-day.

We pay the wolf
with a fine house
in heaven.

Save me from nature—
not a sister
but a servant.

All night it drums
in our ears.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 12 November 1660.

November 12, 2013May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Promoter

(Lord’s day). This morning I went to Sir W. Batten’s about going to Deptford to-morrow, and so eating some hog’s pudding of my Lady’s making, of the hog that I saw a fattening the other day at her house, he and I went to Church into our new gallery, the first time it was used, and it not being yet quite finished, there came after us Sir W. Pen, Mr. Davis, and his eldest son. There being no woman this day, we sat in the foremost pew, and behind us our servants, and I hope it will not always be so, it not being handsome for our servants to sit so equal with us.
This day also did Mr. Mills begin to read all the Common Prayer, which I was glad of.
Home to dinner, and then walked to Whitehall, it being very cold and foul and rainy weather. I found my Lord at home, and after giving him an account of some business, I returned and went to my father’s where I found my wife, and there we supped, and Dr. Thomas Pepys, who my wife told me after I was come home, that he had told my brother Thomas that he loved my wife so well that if she had a child he would never marry, but leave all that he had to my child, and after supper we walked home, my little boy carrying a link, and Will leading my wife.
So home and to prayers and to bed.
I should have said that before I got to my Lord’s this day I went to Mr. Fox’s at Whitehall, when I first saw his lady, formerly Mrs. Elizabeth Whittle, whom I had formerly a great opinion of, and did make an anagram or two upon her name when I was a boy. She proves a very fine lady, and mother to fine children.
To-day I agreed with Mr. Fox about my taking of the 4000l. of him that the King had given my Lord.

The hog, fattening, is
our common weather.
I found a home after
giving my wife
a child, a child.
And after supper, my ink
is a mother to greed.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 11 November 1660.

November 12, 2013November 12, 2013 by Luisa A. Igloria

Afterwards

is an edifice half on stilts and half unroofed for a newborn’s entrance into the world

is the crimson edging his mother’s skirt as she lies on a makeshift couch waiting for the afterbirth

is the blueprint of darkness drawn in detail beneath a swell of water

is the hollow in the wall of the factory and the sign over a buried church reading Esperar

is the ring of beaten silver around the Badjao woman’s finger and the slow listing of the ferry

is the peeling bark of trees disguised as outriggers stranded in the shoals

is the lantern burning its last store of oil and the doctor tearing his surgical coat into strips

is the helicopter and its cargo of bottled water hovering over no place to land

is the republic of the drowned and its plazas decorated with abandoned basketball courts

is the bread of nothing and the salt of nothing and the crust of nothing freely shared

is the new address of the dead whose gravestones have all been moved to the sea

is the children carrying a jug of water and a clutch of nearly deflated balloons they found lashed to a tree

In response to Via Negativa: Typhoon.

November 11, 2013May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Typhoon

Up early. Sir Wm. Batten and I to make up an account of the wages of the officers and mariners at sea, ready to present to the Committee of Parliament this afternoon. Afterwards came the Treasurer and Comptroller, and sat all the morning with us till the business was done.
So we broke up, leaving the thing to be wrote over fair and carried to Trinity House for Sir Wm. Batten’s hand. When staying very long I found (as appointed) the Treasurer and Comptroller at Whitehall, and so we went with a foul copy to the Parliament house, where we met with Sir Thos. Clarges and Mr. Spry, and after we had given them good satisfaction we parted.
The Comptroller and I to the coffee-house, where he shewed me the state of his case; how the King did owe him about 6000l.. But I do not see great likelihood for them to be paid, since they begin already in Parliament to dispute the paying of the just sea-debts, which were already promised to be paid, and will be the undoing of thousands if they be not paid.
So to Whitehall to look but could not find Mr. Fox, and then to Mr. Moore at Mr. Crew’s, but missed of him also. So to Paul’s Churchyard, and there bought Montelion, which this year do not prove so good as the last was; so after reading it I burnt it.
After reading of that and the comedy of the Rump, which is also very silly, I went to bed. This night going home, Will and I bought a goose.

The wages of the sea, fair or foul,
will be the undoing
of thousands they could not find,
a missed church,
the last reading of the night…

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 10 November 1660.

November 11, 2013November 11, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Landfall

Landfall
that one English word
in Philippine news reports about Guiuan
where Magellan landed in 1521
where the Americans made their first beachhead in World War II
in the swirl of Tagalog I don’t understand
that word keeps floating to the surface
landfall
where floors shook
where roofs blew off
where concrete columns toppled
where wind gusts reached 195 miles per hour
where a 13-foot wall of water swept ashore
landfall
where the eye took a brief calm
sightless look & moved on
where a stone church was flattened
landfall
where “100 percent
of all structures were damaged”
where evacuation centers collapsed
where 47,000 souls had been living
land
fall

November 11, 2013 by Luisa A. Igloria

Elegy, with lines from e.e. cummings

This entry is part 14 of 28 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Autumn 2013

(Tacloban City, Philippines)

Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands: but I do not agree. Time, perhaps, has the illusion of small hands. Time is made of wings we cannot see or feel even if they brush against our faces in the dark. In the daytime, they take the shape of pauses, those moments we think we have forgotten something important and we retrace our steps. Somewhere in the mind, the sound of a shutter clicking open and close. Warnings and sirens, and then the wind: rising, insistent, forcing open all closed doors, all shelters. The pictures show how, before it made landfall, the storm was a magnitude of elegiac proportions: its one eye did not blink, so bent it was on bearing down with the unbearable weight of its sadness. No, this rain did not have small hands. But the child did, the one whose frail body spun like a compass needle wrenched free of its battered case. Let me go, and you live, she said to her mother, before the current took her. None of this is metaphor. Ten thousand lives did not shut very beautifully, suddenly, or close like roses.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

November 10, 2013May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

At the Hoop Tavern

Lay long in bed this morning though an office day, because of our going to bed late last night. Before I went to my office Mr. Creed came to me about business, and also Mr. Carter, my old Cambridge friend, came to give me a visit, and I did give them a morning draught in my study. So to the office, and from thence to dinner with Mr. Wivell at the Hoop Tavern, where we had Mr. Shepley, Talbot, Adams, Mr. Chaplin and Osborne, and our dinner given us by Mr. Ady and another, Mr. Wine, the King’s fishmonger. Good sport with Mr. Talbot, who eats no sort of fish, and there was nothing else till we sent for a neat’s tongue.
From thence to Whitehall where I found my Lord, who had an organ set up to-day in his dining-room, but it seems an ugly one in the form of Bridewell.
Thence I went to Sir Harry Wright’s, where my Lord was busy at cards, and so I staid below with Mrs. Carter and Evans (who did give me a lesson upon the lute), till he came down, and having talked with him at the door about his late business of money, I went to my father’s and staid late talking with my father about my sister Pall’s coming to live with me if she would come and be as a servant (which my wife did seem to be pretty willing to do to-day), and he seems to take it very well, and intends to consider of it. Home and to bed.

I went to dinner with
the king’s fishmonger,
who eats no sort of fish
and sent for a tongue.
The ugly bride was busy
at cards. The lute came
to live with me as a servant.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 9 November 1660.

November 10, 2013November 10, 2013 by Luisa A. Igloria

Chance: The Last Six From a Tarot

This entry is part 13 of 13 in the series Chance: A Poetic Tarot

Let me be quick
to rise when the world
is slow, when the bird
tarries in the guava tree.

The women used to sit one
behind each other on the steps:
talking, cleaning lice
from their hair.

In town after town tonight,
streets are heavy with grief,
lined with bodies
of the drowned.

The moon says, I am not
a gypsy with a crystal
ball. I am not the cold
coal burning in the grate.

I shine my light
through every
unbearable
field.

Only a fool would save
the drink umbrella.
Only a fool would dance
at the brink of the world.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

November 9, 2013May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

In the country of the rat

This morning Sir Wm. and the Treasurer and I went by barge with Sir Wm. Doyley and Mr. Prin to Deptford, to pay off the Henrietta, and had a good dinner. I went to Mr. Davys’s and saw his house (where I was once before a great while ago) and I found him a very pretty man. In the afternoon Commissioner Pett and I went on board the yacht, which indeed is one of the finest things that ever I saw for neatness and room in so small a vessel. Mr. Pett is to make one to outdo this for the honour of his country, which I fear he will scarce better.
From thence with him as far as Ratcliffe, where I left him going by water to London, and I (unwilling to leave the rest of the officers) went back again to Deptford, and being very much troubled with a sudden looseness, I went into a little alehouse at the end of Ratcliffe, and did give a groat for a pot of ale, and there I did shit. So went forward in my walk with some men that were going that way a great pace, and in our way we met with many merry seamen that had got their money paid them to-day.
We sat very late doing the work and waiting for the tide, it being moonshine we got to London before two in the morning. So home, where I found my wife up, she shewed me her head which was very well dressed to-day, she having been to see her father and mother.
So to bed.

In the country of the rat
I give a groat for a pot
and shit in it,
waiting for the moon.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 8 November 1660.

November 9, 2013November 9, 2013 by Luisa A. Igloria

Chance: Six More From a Tarot

This entry is part 12 of 13 in the series Chance: A Poetic Tarot

Fishing boats
and trawlers,
broken masts
and mains—

What’s more
inexhaustible
than what can’t
be controlled?

Salt crusts, split beams
and backyard shrines:
ledger of the lost
along the seawall.

Every stone
will bear a name,
a list that will
go on and on—

Trestle and bridge,
fountain from which
the water has fled:
yet we are all drenched.

Someday you’ll go on hands
and knees, peer through
the stained glass of
the miniature church.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.