Via Negativa

February 21, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Reconstruction

To Westminster by coach with Sir W. Pen, and in our way saw the city begin to build scaffolds against the Coronacion. To my Lord, and there found him out of doors. So to the Hall and called for some caps that I have a making there, and here met with Mr. Hawley, and with him to Will’s and drank, and then by coach with Mr. Langley our old friend into the city. I set him down by the way, and I home and there staid all day within, having found Mr. Moore, who staid with me till late at night talking and reading some good books. Then he went away, and I to bed.

a way to build scaffolds
out of doors

for all
who go away

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 21 February 1660/61.

February 20, 2024February 20, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Relevance

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

There are times you wonder if the things 
            you say in the classroom make the kind 

of sense you want to make— if you spoke
            clearly, without stumbling, of ideas 

that filled you with such excitement when you 
           first read or learned them— You know 

how hard it is to let someone in, how hard 
           to come close to another's experience; know 

how most times it's skirt and dodge, no eye contact,  
           fine thank you. What use is language then? 

At home, you stand at the sink and lick the batter 
          off the spatula to taste the sugars before they 

were cooked, to see if you can find a trail of salt,  
           some indissoluble essence at the heart of things.

February 20, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Supremacy Ritual

This entry is part 7 of 11 in the series Rituals

nine knuckles are gathering
in a room appointed for sleep

theirs are the only shadows
not checked at the door

nine claws are judging
the entrails of a suit

flies have been eliminated
but still there’s a hum

nine knives are carving
a number into a bare back

even under the eyelids
it’s white as a cloud

February 20, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Inking problem

All the morning at the office, dined at home and my brother Tom with me, who brought me a pair of fine slippers which he gave me. By and by comes little Luellin and friend to see me, and then my coz Stradwick, who was never here before. With them I drank a bottle of wine or two, and to the office again, and there staid about business late, and then all of us to Sir W. Pen’s, where we had, and my Lady Batten, Mrs. Martha, and my wife, and other company, a good supper, and sat playing at cards and talking till 12 at night, and so all to our lodgings.

at the office
my little bottle
of a pen and I
dot all
our i’s

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 20 February 1660/61.

February 19, 2024February 19, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Dramatic Theory

We do not know how this narrative
will end, or if there will be resolution.

The characters have remained the same,
though sometimes you think they've shifted.

There is quickening and instinct, reasonable
development; and there is foolish meandering.

There is furtiveness and lingering in the woods
or in dark, forbidden places. There are hands

raised mid-swing to the tune of foot-
stomping; hands raised in protest, or 

claw-like and scrabbling. Someone 
is exiled or banished, and someone is 

always trying to return. Someone's heart 
is always breaking, or always on the verge.

February 19, 2024February 19, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2024, Week 7

A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond. Although I tend to quote my favorite bits, please do click through and read the whole posts. You can also browse the blog digest archive, subscribe to its RSS feed in your favorite feed reader, or, if you’d like it in your inbox, subscribe on Substack.

This week: Fat Tuesday, Valentine’s Day, a blog’s birthday, a book’s birthday… as the world steadily becomes more terrible. Poetry remains one of the very few effective antidotes to despair.

February 19, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Macroeconomics

By coach to Whitehall with Colonel Slingsby (carrying Mrs. Turner with us) and there he and I up into the house, where we met with Sir G. Carteret: who afterwards, with the Duke of York, my Lord Sandwich, and others, went into a private room to consult: and we were a little troubled that we were not called in with the rest. But I do believe it was upon something very private. We staid walking in the gallery; where we met with Mr. Slingsby, that was formerly a great friend of Mons. Blondeau, who showed me the stamps of the King’s new coyne; which is strange to see, how good they are in the stamp and bad in the money, for lack of skill to make them. But he says Blondeau will shortly come over, and then we shall have it better, and the best in the world.
The Comptroller and I to the Commissioners of Parliament, and after some talk away again and to drink a cup of ale. He tells me, he is sure that the King is not yet married, as it is said; nor that it is known who he will have. To my Lord’s and found him dined, and so I lost my dinner, but I staid and played with him and Mr. Child, &c., some things of four parts, and so it raining hard and bitter cold (the first winter day we have yet had this winter), I took coach home and spent the evening in reading of a Latin play, the “Naufragium Joculare.” And so to bed.

alone in the war
I befriend the king’s coin

to kill to make a better world
is one way

I have my dinner with it
hard and cold

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 19 February 1660/61.

February 18, 2024February 18, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

To the River

It encircles us all. We glimpse
a flurry of whitecaps whipped 

by wind, small ships and barges 
passing between. We comb 

its banks for brittled shells, 
for height-lines on rock marking 

how far the water came, how long
ago that time. Mostly we don't 

think about it, until it returns 
to lick our ankles, rising above 

porches, making islands of our 
neighborhoods. There's no fixed

timeline; we only know we  
will sink into its endless body.

February 18, 2024January 11, 2025 by Dave Bonta

The Well

this ignorance of mine is deep
as the cloudless sky

in which a small
woodpecker is tapping

having somehow heard
the faint stirring of a grub

i follow a deer track
to its source in a deer bed

a snow-free patch of leaves
shaped like a body

in the pines in the pines
where the sun comes undone

i follow a creak
to its source in the wind

rocking an oak snag
upon which so much must hinge

a barred owl query at noon
elicits a raven croak

this too is poetry
i only have to listen

Short Mountain
February 18, 2024

February 18, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Threaded

At the office all the morning, dined at home with a very good dinner, only my wife and I, which is not yet very usual. In the afternoon my wife and I and Mrs. Martha Batten, my Valentine, to the Exchange, and there upon a payre of embroydered and six payre of plain white gloves I laid out 40s. upon her. Then we went to a mercer’s at the end of Lombard Street, and there she bought a suit of Lutestring for herself, and so home. And at night I got the whole company and Sir Wm. Pen home to my house, and there I did give them Rhenish wine and sugar, and continued together till it was late, and so to bed.
It is much talked that the King is already married to the niece of the Prince de Ligne, and that he hath two sons already by her: which I am sorry to hear; but yet am gladder that it should be so, than that the Duke of York and his family should come to the crown, he being a professed friend to the Catholiques.

all the usual art
of embroidered love

a street of string is married
to a ladder

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 18 February 1660/61.