Via Negativa

January 29, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Industrial park

Mr. Moore making up accounts with me all this morning till Lieut. Lambert came, and so with them over the water to Southwark, and so over the fields to Lambeth, and there drank, it being a most glorious and warm day, even to amazement, for this time of the year. Thence to my Lord’s, where we found my Lady gone with some company to see Hampton Court, so we three went to Blackfryers (the first time I ever was there since plays begun), and there after great patience and little expectation, from so poor beginning, I saw three acts of “The Mayd in ye Mill” acted to my great content. But it being late, I left the play and them, and by water through bridge home, and so to Mr. Turner’s house, where the Comptroller, Sir William Batten, and Mr. Davis and their ladies; and here we had a most neat little but costly and genteel supper, and after that a great deal of impertinent mirth by Mr. Davis, and some catches, and so broke up, and going away, Mr. Davis’s eldest son took up my old Lady Slingsby in his arms, and carried her to the coach, and is said to be able to carry three of the biggest men that were in the company, which I wonder at. So home and to bed.

water over the fields
glorious and warm

where black as a gun
the great mill turns

where the genteel go
away in wonder

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 29 January 1660/61.

January 29, 2024January 29, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

On the Shore of the Sea Called Younger

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

At a potluck, between lasagne and sips of Korean citron tea, our friends
started talking about dreams they had when they were younger.

It seems many of our dreams then were suffused with calm, like sheets of rippling
or waves on a wide ocean. No restless grasping, just floating, when we were younger.

When I had a cough that just wouldn't go away, the doctor gave me a syrup
with codeine. Sleep felt thick with strange dreams, unlike when I was younger.

The light leaked strange colors. Teeth fell out of my mouth, or I was pursued
by snarling dogs— Never felt that kind of urgency when I was younger.

When last I looked in the mirror, the skin on my neck and inner thighs seemed
looser. Couldn't we be beautiful until we died, like when we were younger?

January 28, 2024February 5, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Hand-Washing Ritual

This entry is part 3 of 11 in the series Rituals

let the water’s currency
pass from palm to palm

scooped up or cupped
from an open tap

its anonymity going public
as a cloak of foam

hands twist and shimmy
dancing fast and close

till they’re indistinguishable
and all hands are right

the skin sheds its oils its soil
its toil-colored self

once again to whisper away
the kiss of living

risky as it is
with unseen tasks

***

Thanks to the anonymous graffiti artist whose rendering of the word TASKS in giant letters on a passing train gave me the closing word.

January 28, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Business man

At the office all the morning; dined at home, and after dinner to Fleet Street, with my sword to Mr. Brigden (lately made Captain of the Auxiliaries) to be refreshed, and with him to an ale-house, where I met Mr. Davenport; and after some talk of Cromwell, Ireton and Bradshaw’s bodies being taken out of their graves to-day, I went to Mr. Crew’s and thence to the Theatre, where I saw again “The Lost Lady,” which do now please me better than before; and here I sitting behind in a dark place, a lady spit backward upon me by a mistake, not seeing me, but after seeing her to be a very pretty lady, I was not troubled at it at all. Thence to Mr. Crew’s, and there met Mr. Moore, who came lately to town, and went with me to my father’s, and with him to Standing’s, whither came to us Dr. Fairbrother, who I took and my father to the Bear and gave a pint of sack and a pint of claret.
He do still continue his expressions of respect and love to me, and tells me my brother John will make a good scholar. Thence to see the Doctor at his lodging at Mr. Holden’s, where I bought a hat, cost me 35s. So home by moonshine, and by the way was overtaken by the Comptroller’s coach, and so home to his house with him. So home and to bed. This noon I had my press set up in my chamber for papers to be put in.

the morning sword
fresh with bodies
I went to the theater

where a lost
and backward crew
moo at the moon

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 28 January 1660/61.

January 28, 2024January 27, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Citizen Ghazal

City dweller, town-dweller. Civilian as private individual, not soldier
or civil officer. Inhabitant of a country: not an alien, but a citizen.

Other early roots point to defenses built around community: walled
towns with battlements and watchtowers, a night watch of citizens.

In the '70s, during the years of fabricated emergency and Martial Law, we
feared curfews, mourned the disappeared. No allies in a militia of citizens.

Now as then, thousands plod to work daily through hellish traffic, while the son
of the dictator rides a helicopter to a concert. No ease for regular citizens,

only rare moments in the soul-sucking labyrinth. Best not to judge those
who've stayed or fled. Some forswear allegiance; some are dual citizens.

January 27, 2024January 27, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Adarna

When the story begins, everything 
          languishes—

Crops wither; the falconets are stunned,
         felted tufts on dry branches. The hornbill 

forgets to mark the moist
        forest hours with its call. In the story,

a king also languishes in bed, under
        canopies of moldy velvet. 
        
Someone must bring back the song
       of an enchanted bird, escaping a fate of

stone. Someone must smart from the kind
       of wound that keeps one awake to possibility 

despite recurring dreams of death—
        from which there is, of course, no cure.

January 27, 2024February 5, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Ritual of Mourning

This entry is part 2 of 11 in the series Rituals

it’s time to lay out cutlery
a dish of rock salt
a bowl of sleep

at each place setting for those
who are no longer with us
but on their phones

break bread with silence
the nothing you feel is
the nothing you deserve

a zest of lemon on
a faceless slab of cod
will never be the opiate of the masses

put away the candles
borrow light from a streetlamp
or a jar of moonshine

straighten your spine
it’s time to begin dreaming
your next life

January 27, 2024January 28, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Past perfect

(Lord’s day). Before I rose, letters come to me from Portsmouth, telling me that the Princess is now well, and my Lord Sandwich set sail with the Queen and her yesterday from thence for France. To church, leaving my wife sick of her menses at home, a poor dull sermon of a stranger. Home, and at dinner was very angry at my people’s eating a fine pudding (made me by Slater, the cook, last Thursday) without my wife’s leave. To church again, a good sermon of Mr. Mills, and after sermon Sir W. Pen and I an hour in the garden talking, and he did answer me to many things, I asked Mr. Coventry’s opinion of me, and Sir W. Batten’s of my Lord Sandwich, which do both please me. Then to Sir W. Batten’s, where very merry, and here I met the Comptroller and his lady and daughter (the first time I ever saw them) and Mrs. Turner, who and her husband supped with us here (I having fetched my wife thither), and after supper we fell to oysters, and then Mr. Turner went and fetched some strong waters, and so being very merry we parted, and home to bed.
This day the parson read a proclamation at church, for the keeping of Wednesday next, the 30th of January, a fast for the murther of the late King.

letters come to me from
her yesterday

an hour in the garden
an answer to my sand

where we part
this day next January

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 27 January 1660/61.

January 26, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Swing shift

Within all the morning. About noon comes one that had formerly known me and I him, but I know not his name, to borrow 5l. of me, but I had the wit to deny him.
There dined with me this day both the Pierces and their wives, and Captain Cuttance, and Lieutenant Lambert, with whom we made ourselves very merry by taking away his ribbans and garters, having made him to confess that he is lately married.
The company being gone I went to my lute till night, and so to bed.

morning had formerly known me
but day pierces
our merry way
made to confess to night

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 26 January 1660/61.

January 26, 2024January 25, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Ghazal on Making Tender

I dig out a bag of meat—sliced rounds of beef rescued from an age
of freezer burn. Now I have to figure out how to make them tender.

There's no meat tenderizer among my kitchen tools. I can't pound pieces
on a cutting board, imagining my enemies, to make the fibers tender.

Home cooks' remedies include slathering the cuts with coarse salt, then
letting them rest an hour. They swear it makes even the cheapest cuts tender.

Some say trim off any remaining gristle, and bed the meat in a tray of fruit
puree. Sweet turns sour. Enzymes from the fruit will make the meat tender.

I once read that a spoonful of baking soda in water can soften squid
before cooking. I wonder if the same could work to make meat tender.

If you can't grill, cut the beef into pieces; sear them and stew in a dutch
oven. It may take hours until at last, like melting grief, the meat is fork-tender.