Via Negativa

May 5, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Fire and brimstone

(Lord’s day). Mr. Creed and I went to the red-faced Parson’s church, and heard a good sermon of him, better than I looked for. Then home, and had a good dinner, and after dinner fell in some talk in Divinity with Mr. Stevens that kept us till it was past Church time.
Anon we walked into the garden, and there played the fool a great while, trying who of Mr. Creed or I could go best over the edge of an old fountain wall, and I won a quart of sack of him.
Then to supper in the banquet house, and there my wife and I did talk high, she against and I for Mrs. Pierce (that she was a beauty), till we were both angry.
Then to walk in the fields, and so to our quarters, and to bed.

arson’s church
heard a sermon

better than some divinity
that kept us in

and who could go
over the wall of talk

high as we were
to walk in the fields

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 5 May 1661.

May 5, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Red-eyed

Up in the morning and took coach, and so to Gilford, where we lay at the Red Lyon, the best Inn, and lay in the room the King lately lay in, where we had time to see the Hospital, built by Archbishop Abbott, and the free school, and were civilly treated by the Mayster.
So to supper, and to bed, being very merry about our discourse with the Drawers concerning the minister of the Town, with a red face and a girdle. So to bed, where we lay and sleep well.

up in the morning
to a red room

where it is May
and very merry

a discourse with
the minister of sleep

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 4 May 1661.

May 4, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Long Grief

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

When my father was buried, cremation
was not yet the common practice it is today.

So he is buried in the northwestern section
of the Baguio Cemetery. But wait, all of a sudden

I'm not so sure. I think he's buried in a crypt, meaning 
his coffin with he himself in it, or what used to be 

the shell of himself dressed in his best dark suit 
and tie down to his best polished shoes, was slid into

a cement rectangle, then sealed, then given a coat
of white paint and a marble marker. I can't remember

who decided on any of these things, since I was young
and petrified by this colossal, new grief. There was a brief

argument about what direction he should face, as if it would 
change anything if his head pillowed on satin pointed toward 

the mountains and the space between, where the sun 
went down each evening. You might think this is just another 

poem, again, about grieving my father's death. It's been 
nearly five decades but I can still see his hands, laid one atop

the other; and between them, a rosary broken to signify how, 
despite our sadness, the rest of us weren't ready to follow.

May 3, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Doppelgänger

Where is she now, the one you say left you
              in the swamp of your late awakening? 
And where is the one you pined for in dream 
             after waking dream? She and I are one 
and the same. You think only one of us halved
            her heart when she left you. You think
leaving means only that you could not see 
            the marks our bodies left in space: finger 
trails in a spill of flour and sugar, but not  
            enough wisps of hair to embroider
your name on a pillowcase edge. She comes
            to me when both of us are nearly 
flattened by the unpredictability of time, and
            one of us tells the other she can rest.

May 3, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Day hiker

Early to walk with Mr. Creed up and down the town, and it was in his and some others’ thoughts to have got me made free of the town, but the Mayor, it seems, unwilling, and so they could not do it.
Then to the payhouse, and there paid off the ship, and so to a short dinner, and then took coach, leaving Mrs. Hater there to stay with her husband’s friends, and we to Petersfield, having nothing more of trouble in all my journey, but the exceeding unmannerly and most epicure–like palate of Mr. Creed.
Here my wife and I lay in the room the Queen lately lay at her going into France.

early to walk
free of the town

to a house in the sand
having no more of a journey

but the cure
like a room in France

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 3 May 1661.

May 3, 2024May 3, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Mayday

the song comes from a long way off
slow as an old man making water

like a sort of sky
with one persistent cloud

the song brings its own weather
to a climate of fear

filling every redbreast
with territorial ambitions

until a brown thrasher
gets a hold of it and shakes

upside upside down down
get rid of it get rid of it

as the trees launch their fleets
unfurl their sails

cells vibrate in concert
each at its own pitch

a music not meant for any ears
this side of eden

where pollen still turns
our jack boots green

May 2, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Hiding place

Up, and Mr. Creed and I to walk round the town upon the walls. Then to our inn, and there all the officers of the Yard to see me with great respect, and I walked with them to the Dock and saw all the stores, and much pleased with the sight of the place.
Back and brought them all to dinner with me, and treated them handsomely; and so after dinner by water to the Yard, and there we made the sale of the old provisions. Then we and our wives all to see the Montagu, which is a fine ship, and so to the town again by water, and then to see the room where the Duke of Buckingham was killed by Felton.
So to our lodging, and to supper and to bed.
To-night came Mr. Stevens to town to help us to pay off the Fox.

walls respect the sight
treat hands to visions

to see is to kill

night came
to pay off the fox

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 2 May 1661.

May 1, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

On Solitude, Later in Life

At our monthly gathering, a friend 
close to retirement said she had finally 
moved into her own apartment, years after
living with a partner in his house. Someone
wanted to know if she wasn't lonely, if she 
didn't now miss the way he cooked for her,
or how every now and then he'd filled 
the garden with music bands and guests
milling around under garlands of light,
wine glasses in hand. But I think I can 
understand that kind of need—which doesn't 
mean the desire for erasure, not yet. The anxious
wind settles around rooftops, and the call
of birds carries high into the trees. In public
gardens, irises start to unfurl their frilly skirts, 
and hydrangeas rise from the tight whorls
of leaves. Born and raised in a house 
where people came and went and doors
were never closed, an armchair in a corner
or the top of a double bed became a whole
planet; became a vessel for sailing away.

May 1, 2024May 1, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Brief

a sky with just one aperture
would fit in a briefcase

you’d hear it in there
clacking its beak

i miss the flesh of my flesh
lost during the pandemic

i have been drowning lady beetles
in the toilet in the sink

the oaks are dangling blossoms
before every passing breeze

green and yellow like snakes
in the old folk song

i argue all sides of a position
and call it prayer

i am sung to daily
by my followers the flies

May 1, 2024May 1, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Safe space

Up early, and bated at Petersfield, in the room which the King lay in lately at his being there.
Here very merry, and played us and our wives at bowls. Then we set forth again, and so to Portsmouth, seeming to me to be a very pleasant and strong place; and we lay at the Red Lyon, where Haselrigge and Scott and Walton did hold their councill, when they were here, against Lambert and the Committee of Safety.
Several officers of the Yard came to see us to-night, and merry we were, but troubled to have no better lodgings.

field in a bowl
for the lion and the lamb

the committee of safety
came to see

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 1 May 1661.