Via Negativa

April 12, 2025 by Dave Bonta

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At the office all the morning, where, among other things, being provoked by some impertinence of Sir W. Batten’s, I called him unreasonable man, at which he was very angry and so was I, but I think we shall not much fall out about it.
After dinner to several places about business, and so home and wrote letters at my office, and one to Mr. Coventry about business, and at the close did excuse my not waiting on him myself so often as others do for want of leisure. So home and to bed.

among other
things of unreason
we fall into place

I lose myself
so often for want
of a bed

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 12 April 1662.

April 11, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Early riser

Up early to my lute and a song, then about six o’clock with Sir W. Pen by water to Deptford; and among the ships now going to Portugall with men and horse, to see them dispatched. So to Greenwich; and had a fine pleasant walk to Woolwich, having in our company Captn. Minnes, with whom I was much pleased to hear him talk in fine language, but pretty well for all that. Among other things, he and the other Captains that were with us tell me that negros drowned look white and lose their blackness, which I never heard before.
At Woolwich, up and down to do the same business; and so back to Greenwich by water, and there while something is dressing for our dinner, Sir William and I walked into the Park, where the King hath planted trees and made steps in the hill up to the Castle, which is very magnificent. So up and down the house, which is now repayring in the Queen’s lodgings.
So to dinner at the Globe, and Captain Lambert of the Duke’s pleasure boat came to us and dined with us, and were merry, and so home, and I in the evening to the Exchange, and spoke with uncle Wight, and so home and walked with my wife on the leads late, and so the barber came to me, and so to bed very weary, which I seldom am.

up early to see the blackness
hear the water
dress for the trees
and the hill

magnificent to the lamb
of pleasure in me

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 11 April 1662.

April 11, 2025 by Dave Bonta

The Cruelest Month

falling into the open
mouth of silence
vulture shadows

circling among boulders
of off-white quartzite
grown long in the tooth

fingers of ice linger
in the afternoon shadow
on a rock-walled well

where my face looms
among the far more
circumspect trees

some of whom are dead
but still standing on wind-
toughened roots

others yet to succumb
to infestation or pestilence
late frost or drought

here in the east
we can rarely climb
out of our own lives

one cannot vanish
into the thin air afforded to clouds
or the eyebrows of insomniacs

those who like it cold
have nowhere to go but north
we’re all migrants now

and our first green is in uniform
an antispring of plants
no native bug will touch

descending the mountain
i weave through a thorn scrub
wrought by forestry

and trillions of dollars
swifter than thought
encircling the earth

the silence broken
by a blue-headed vireo
singing his slow dream

April 11, 2025April 8, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Missing

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

Where do they all go, the letters 
        and cards that were written 

and mailed but never arrived at their 
        destinations, or got returned to 

their senders? Sometimes the moon 
       looks like the flap of a creased 

envelope— whatever message or instruction
       it bore has slipped into its dark 

pocket. Now it is swimming so far out 
       at sea, to a country not yet discovered.

April 10, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Trade winds

To Westminster with the two Sir Williams by water, and did several businesses, and so to the Wardrobe with Mr. Moore to dinner. Yesterday came Col. Talbot with letters from Portugall, that the Queen is resolved to embarque for England this week.
Thence to the office all the afternoon. My Lord Windsor came to us to discourse of his affairs, and to take his leave of us; he being to go Governor of Jamaica with this fleet that is now going.
Late at the office. Home with my mind full of business. So to bed.

in the war on wind
our airs take leave of us

a fleet hat going
off with my mind

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 10 April 1662.

April 10, 2025April 8, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Form

Flourishing in the same pot,
each green heart is a poem
working against the same
constraints.

There is no need
for rhyme or meter. Time
and space are endless- 
ness enough.

April 9, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Muskrat

Sir George Carteret, Sir Williams both and myself all the morning at the office passing the Victualler’s accounts, and at noon to dinner at the Dolphin, where a good chine of beef and other good cheer.
At dinner Sir George showed me an account in French of the great famine, which is to the greatest extremity in some part of France at this day, which is very strange.
So to the Exchange, Mrs. Turner (who I found sick in bed), and several other places about business, and so home. Supper and to bed.

I am both
myself and a rat

a chin of good
cheer in a famine

I eat some part
of a strange exchange

found in bed
another me

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 9 April 1662.

April 9, 2025April 9, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Redolence

When we can, we like to sleep in 
on weekends. For brunch, we make 

coffee the slow-pour way. It feels 
luxurious just to have eggs, bread, 

papaya cut into squares and laced
with honey and citrus. In our other 

lives, our mothers and grandmothers 
were up before the leaves of the chayote 

unfurled out of the cold. In our other 
lives, they calculated expense vs. need 

vs. desire; they boiled rather than fried, 
mended until a thing fell to pieces from 

the mending. This morning, though the world 
doesn't lack for terrible news, I changed 

pillowcases shiny with oil from our heads, sheets 
humid from the island shapes we rocked into place 

through the night. Envelopes lie on the counter
demanding what we must pay and by when, how much  

we still owe in order to lie under a ceiling the color 
of eggshells. Leaving a cafe a few months ago, I pinched

a sprig of sambac— Arabian jasmine— from bushes massed 
by the entrance. The dream of its scent plucked 

at my sleeve, ghost flower even now, its roots waving 
in water until I can marry it again to the earth.

April 8, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Eatery

Up very early and to my office, and there continued till noon. So to dinner, and in comes uncle Fenner and the two Joyces. I sent for a barrel of oysters and a breast of veal roasted, and were very merry; but I cannot down with their dull company and impertinent. After dinner to the office again. So at night by coach to Whitehall, and Mr. Coventry not being there I brought my business of the office to him, it being almost dark, and so came away and took up my wife. By the way home and on Ludgate Hill there being a stop I bought two cakes, and they were our supper at home.

the joy of oysters
down in the dark

and me up on a hilltop
and they were supper

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 8 April 1662.

April 7, 2025April 7, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Elegy vs. Lyric

What is lyric but a thread 
             embroidering the shroud of our days,
      a feather clearing mirrors of fog
for a visitation of ghosts and ancestors?  
      It's damp again tonight, which means
             our memories can leak through thin
spots in the fabric of time and find us. 
             The wind has knocked down summer-
      colored umbrellas and now their ribs,
open to the sky, are streaked with pollen.
      I am pulling on this thread 
             which reminds me: everything
      I mourn is also everything I loved,
cannot help but love; love even not knowing
      whether something will endure after  
             its passing. There are spaces 
      for rest like there are in music; 
when the rain clears, gardens open like poems.