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Posted on by Dave Bonta

Peak experience

I’m taking a break and highlighting some classic posts from my first full year of blogging, 2004. A trip to the Adirondacks supplied the material for my 400th post at Via Negativa, a milestone I reached after only eight months of blogging. (Please click through to read the whole thing.)

Climbing Algonquin Peak:

We find a shelf of rock facing east where we can sit and watch the clouds swirl past, ogling the iconic, landslide-scarred face of Mt. Colden whenever they clear. The lunch is as luxurious as I can manage; my only regret is the absence of a white linen tablecloth. After tea – Earl Grey steeped with spruce – I sit with my back against the stone. My companion lies supine for a while, and finally says, I can feel the whole mountain underneath me.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Excerpts

This entry is part 5 of 41 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Autumn 2012

The call of vendors in the streets,
the yowling of a cat drowning out the chitter of birds;
the early morning rabble of roosters in their cages,
the drip of water into plastic pails;
the diesel drone of jeepneys in the alley,
the bickering of neighbors across the fence,
the crying of a child who can’t go back to sleep—
Any one of these, sounds you might swear
you have not heard in many years.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

In the voice of Cortez’ mistress

I’m taking a break and highlighting some classic posts from my first full year of blogging, 2004. Here’s a poem in the dramatic monologue mode, written under the influence of Ai with some imagery borrowed from translations of classic Aztec poetry. (Please click through to read the whole poem.)

Malinche, A.D. 1522:

No rain of flowers marked my entry into the world.
I wasn’t born onto a shield or draped
in a robe of feathers. My own mother
sold me in secret & celebrated my funeral
with the substituted corpse of a slave.
I ended up serving the lords of Yucatán,
on the eastern shore.

Four years ago, when Hernán Cortez came back
from setting fire to his ships, slipping
like a thief into camp, I was waiting in
his tent. We understood each other
from the first, before I could speak
one phrase of Castillian. We had
the same hungers.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Breasts

My memory of breasts is not
all gentle, not always milky—
Long before the daughters came,
and their trusting, hungry mouths
closed around aereolas grown turgid
with food, there was a matinee show
at a theatre, standing room only;
and I, the only pre-teen (but tall
for my age) in a group of older
cousins. It was a comedy, slapstick,
and bodies pressed on all sides
against each other— then a hand
came through the darkness to fumble
at the snaps on my blouse. I clawed
and batted at this unseen intruder
which snaked in and out as if
disembodied. Everyone laughed,
oblivious, preoccupied by the antics
onscreen. Stricken mute, I could
not utter a sound. When we came out,
it was late afternoon. The sun made
the hills look sinuous, but I
saw them lit as if on fire.

 

In response to small stone (164).

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Imagining an Iraqi imagining us

I’m taking a break and highlighting some classic posts from my first full year of blogging, 2004. Though a note on the post says it’s a rough, first draft, I ultimately decided it didn’t need further revision. (Please click through and read the whole poem.)

From a Distance:

God knows how many times
I have stood frozen in the hot street
with rifles pointing at my crotch

& watched myself – small
& impossibly thin – in the oil-black
mirrors of their sunglasses.

They never take them off, not even
to enter a mosque. God knows
they are easy to hate.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

From television to shrine

I’m taking a break and highlighting some classic posts from my first full year of blogging, 2004. This one describes the construction of a shrine that still has pride of place in my living room. The somewhat tangential disquisition on Yoruba religion could probably stand to be cut, but what the hell. (Please click through to read the whole thing.)

It’s art, dammit!:

Can the merely cynical be invested with a higher value? And if so, would this stepping outside of a stepping-outside require some leap of faith?

[…]

There sits the shrine in my living room, divested of masks and the four cynical words, which quickly warped. The weird thing is, four years ago when I wanted to stop smoking, this shrine to negativity really did seem to help. Through the worst of the craving I kept a half-dozen cigarettes there in the offering bowl, among the plastic fruit. Somehow just seeing them there, day after day, strengthened my resolve.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Desiring Brightness

She touched my jacket admiringly and said we had the same taste,
except she favored black and white, not so much brightness.

I on the other hand was tired of all the overcast shades
in the closet, wanted a shot of lime and vodka, its brightness.

Oh did I say vodka? I meant of course something crisp and light,
not overbearing; something not neon or cloying in its brightness.

The peach and lemony light of summer has swirled away too quickly.
And no one dries their laundry on the line anymore, for brightness.

One-touch and power settings, then time, then start. Then a circuit
shorting, equals a dead microwave. But there’s a stove! Brightness!

Above the clatter of knives and chafing dishes, he said: So when
are you taking me out? That little swell: fishing for brightness.

I exited the hall as the lights were dimmed, and drove toward the water.
The water was all shades of lilac; the street lamps vied for brightness.

 

In response to small stone (162).

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Vocabulary for a New American Century

I’m taking a break and highlighting some classic posts from my first full year of blogging, 2004. Political posts have always been an occasional feature here, and tend to be personal in nature rather than rants. Here’s one I’m still pleased with, though, in a more satirical mode, written after the disappointing results of the 2004 election, which returned Bush to power for another term. (Please click through to read the whole thing.)

Tyrannosaurus lex:

AMNEIZURE. A paroxysm brought on by the unexpected recurrence of suppressed memories. Example: “On being questioned about parallels with Vietnam, General Richard Myers experienced a sudden amneizure.”

[…]

DEBRIEFING. A slight sartorial adjustment made by most foreign nationals within a few minutes after leaving the Green Zone in Baghdad.

[…]

SELF-FULFILLING PROFLIGACY. A deliberate plan to run up huge deficits in order to bankrupt the U.S. Treasury, forcing massive cuts in every conceivable non-military program, with the ultimate purpose of disabusing Americans once and for all of the absurd and irresponsible notion that government spending can ever solve anything.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Poetas

Everyone we listened to had such a gift: if not lightness of tongue, then the language of expansiveness so that we sat, rapt, transfixed in our chairs or as if loosed into the suddenly bright highway of sky beyond the library windows, reeling among the birds that must have said among themselves, What drunken fool just hit me? And what of that gift, that beat of song, restless tattoo that lives beneath the ribcage, wheezing and pleating like a bandoneón in the hands of an itinerant musician? I heard it once and then nothing was the same. Light became the space between the saying of a word and the shape that its sound made, flying in the cave of the throat; became a rain-soaked umbrella, became each quickly vaporizing bead begging to be counted, threaded, tasted, forgiven, fed.

 

In response to cold mountain (63).