Via Negativa

November 15, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Constrained

At home all the morning, and at noon with my wife to the Wardrobe to dinner, and there, did shew herself to my Lady in the handkercher that she bought the lace for the other day, and indeed it is very handsome. Here I left my wife and went to my Lord Privy Seal to Whitehall, and there did give him a copy of the Fees of the office as I have received them, and he was well pleased with it. So to the Opera, where I met my wife and Captain Ferrers and Madamoiselle Le Blanc, and there did see the second part of “The Siege of Rhodes” very well done; and so by coach set her home, and the coach driving down the hill through Thames Street, which I think never any coach did before from that place to the bridge-foot, but going up Fish Street Hill his horses were so tired, that they could not be got to go up the hill, though all the street boys and men did beat and whip them. At last I was fain to send my boy for a link, and so light out of the coach till we got to another at the corner of Fenchurch Street, and so home, and to bed.

morning in her hands
a sea with one fish

so red the light
out of a church

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 15 November 1661.

November 15, 2024November 16, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Will

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

 
     The banners we tacked on the wall
are still there from the last
     celebration. What is time 
anymore? We thought that in the end, 
     we'd choose the desire for good 
over the desire for cold assertion. Oh 
     to touch a future that could break 
in no other way but blossom. What 
     will we do, I ask my daughter.  
We will go on, she says.

November 14, 2024November 14, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Aspirational

At the office all the morning. At noon I went by appointment to the Sun in Fish Street to a dinner of young Mr. Bernard’s for myself, Mr. Phillips, Davenport, Weaver, &c., where we had a most excellent dinner, but a pie of such pleasant variety of good things, as in all my life I never tasted. Hither came to me Captain Lambert to take his leave of me, he being this day to set sail for the Straights. We drank his farewell and a health to all our friends, and were very merry, and drank wine enough. Hence to the Temple to Mr. Turner about drawing up my bill in Chancery against T. Trice, and so to Salisbury Court, where Mrs. Turner is come to town to-night, but very ill still of an ague, which I was sorry to see. So to the Wardrobe and talked with my Lady, and so home and to bed.

all the sun for myself
a pie I never tasted

I am captain of this day
enough to wing it

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 14 November 1661.

November 14, 2024November 14, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Complexity

“All that has dark sounds has duende.”
                 ~ Manuel Torre, via Federico Garcia Lorca


It is cold and the windows rattle.
On their surface, reflections of indoor plants—
those heart-shaped leaves with holes 
through which the old questions leak,
and they wait to see what you might do
with these old-new sorrows. 

I want to pump my fists and yell 
into the air I don't know, why do you 
think I should know what to do,  then
collapse in a heap like my mothers 
when spent, at the height 
of their own upheavals.

Then someone might come 
to help them into bed or feed them
a drink of water, stroke their hair,
hold their hands; after which
their sobs might gentle
into fitful sleep. 

And still they knew they would need
to wake, gather the fragments of old-
new wounds into a knot, pat their hair 
back into place; wield the kitchen knife 
over the scarred back of a wooden 
chopping board, so a mosaic of mutilated 
onions would tinge our stews.

November 13, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Change agent

By appointment, we all went this morning to wait upon the Duke of York, which we did in his chamber, as he was dressing himself in his riding suit to go this day by sea to the Downs. He is in mourning for his wife’s grandmother, which is thought a great piece of fondness. After we had given him our letter relating the bad condition of the Navy for want of money, he referred it to his coming back and so parted, and I to Whitehall and to see la belle Pierce, and so on foot to my Lord Crew’s, where I found him come to his new house, which is next to that he lived in last; here I was well received by my Lord and Sir Thomas, with whom I had great talk: and he tells me in good earnest that he do believe the Parliament (which comes to sit again the next week), will be troublesome to the Court and Clergy, which God forbid! But they see things carried so by my Lord Chancellor and some others, that get money themselves, that they will not endure it. From thence to the Theatre, and there saw “Father’s own Son” again, and so it raining very hard I went home by coach, with my mind very heavy for this my expensefull life, which will undo me, I fear, after all my hopes, if I do not take up, for now I am coming to lay out a great deal of money in clothes for my wife, I must forbear other expenses.
To bed, and this night began to lie in the little green chamber, where the maids lie, but we could not a great while get Nell to lie there, because I lie there and my wife, but at last, when she saw she must lie there or sit up, she, with much ado, came to bed.

dressing in mourning
I live as I believe

in some thin chance
and the rain coming
to green us up

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 13 November 1661.

November 13, 2024November 12, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Birch: A Ghazal

I recently learned that Björk is a common 
girl's name in Sweden, and  it also means birch.

Once, some students were playing a game in which they named
each of their professors after a singer or a band; and I got Björk.

I was amused, and wondered:  did it mean they imagined me
with a live swan draped around my neck like a scarf, like Björk;

or thought I was cool, avant-garde, in a class of my own?
In a forest of elms, oaks and chestnuts, a fragrant silver birch.

Bright green and saw-toothed at the edges, leaves turn
amber in fall. In fading light, a grove of silvery birch

is beautiful. Lorca, who taught about the spirit and power of duende, 
was dragged out of a house and shot in an olive grove, not birch.

November 12, 2024November 12, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

November, Aftermath

At the women's gathering,
the lecturer from Ukraine tells us
how her daughter's Mexican tutor
tenses up when she asks her how she
has been doing this past week.

*

Overnight, wind gusts
have shaken down 
almost all remaining  
leaves on the trees.

*

And it's been weeks, but
I'm still unsure what animal—
badger, coon, or cat—has been 
leaving its scat at the edge
of the deck.

*

Will we have to learn
secret gestures, secret
words, as part of keeping
each other safe?

*

Part of me feels 
it's futile to start unboxing
the Christmas lights;
but the dark is even more
dark now, everywhere.

*

Somewhere in the world,
rigiht now, there are people
who call each other by name,
knowing they exist.

November 12, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Entangled

At the office all the morning. Dined at home alone. So abroad with Sir W. Pen. My wife and I to “Bartholomew Fayre,” with puppets which I had seen once before, and the play without puppets often, but though I love the play as much as ever I did, yet I do not like the puppets at all, but think it to be a lessening to it. Thence to the Greyhound in Fleet Street, and there drank some raspberry sack and eat some sasages, and so home very merry.
This day Holmes come to town; and we do expect hourly to hear what usage he hath from the Duke and the King about this late business of letting the Swedish Embassador go by him without striking his flag.

to play without love
like puppets in a grey sack

ages us in this business
of letting go

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 12 November 1661.

November 11, 2024November 11, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2024, Week 45

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 at Via Negativa or, if you’d like it in your inbox, subscribe on Substack (where the posts might be truncated by some email providers).

This week: notes on self-preservation, walking through fire, soundlessly mouthing the syllables for “beloved”, the gunpowder plot, the intimacies of the woods, and much more. Enjoy.

November 11, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Another minor atrocity

To the Wardrobe, and with Mr. Townsend and Moore to the Saracen’s Head to a barrel of oysters, and so Mr. Moore and I to Tom Trice’s, with whom I did first set my hand to answer to a writt of his this tearm. Thence to the Wardrobe to dinner, and there by appointment met my wife, who had by my direction brought some laces for my Lady to choose one for her. And after dinner I went away, and left my wife and ladies together, and all their work was about this lace of hers.
Captain Ferrers and I went together, and he carried me the first time that ever I saw any gaming house, to one, entering into Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, at the end of Bell Yard, where strange the folly of men to lay and lose so much money, and very glad I was to see the manner of a gamester’s life, which I see is very miserable, and poor, and unmanly.
And thence he took me to a dancing school in Fleet Street, where we saw a company of pretty girls dance, but I do not in myself like to have young girls exposed to so much vanity.
So to the Wardrobe, where I found my Lady had agreed upon a lace for my wife of 6l, which I seemed much glad of that it was no more, though in my mind I think it too much, and I pray God keep me so to order myself and my wife’s expenses that no inconvenience in purse or honour follow this my prodigality. So by coach home.

a head left out
in the yard of a school

where we do not like
to think too much

and pray that no inconvenience
follow this prodigality

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 11 November 1661.