Via Negativa

January 19, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Sled run

To the Comptroller’s, and with him by coach to White Hall; in our way meeting Venner and Pritchard upon a sledge, who with two more Fifth Monarchy men were hanged to-day, and the two first drawn and quartered. Where we walked up and down, and at last found Sir G. Carteret, whom I had not seen a great while, and did discourse with him about our assisting the Commissioners in paying off the Fleet, which we think to decline. Here the Treasurer did tell me that he did suspect Thos. Hater to be an informer of them in this work, which we do take to be a diminution of us, which do trouble me, and I do intend to find out the truth.
Hence to my Lady, who told me how Mr. Hetley is dead of the small-pox going to Portsmouth with my Lord. My Lady went forth to dinner to her father’s, and so I went to the Leg in King Street and had a rabbit for myself and my Will, and after dinner I sent him home and myself went to the Theatre, where I saw “The Lost Lady,” which do not please me much. Here I was troubled to be seen by four of our office clerks, which sat in the half-crown box and I in the 1s. 6d.
From thence by link, and bought two mouse traps of Thomas Pepys, the Turner, and so went and drank a cup of ale with him, and so home and wrote by post to Portsmouth to my Lord and so to bed.

white way
on a sled

down as fleet
as my rabbit self

in a heat
not seen at home

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 19 January 1660/61.

January 19, 2024January 18, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Poem Which Wants to Banish Encroaching Cold

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

The sounds of dishes washed in the sink, the smell of coffee brewing. 
      In the dining room, last night I talked with an old friend on Zoom—
my former college Philosophy teacher, now approaching his eighth 
      decade, hair gone grey and sparse but face still youthful. All around, 
books and papers spill over shelves and counters. Winter shadows 
      frost the window panes. He used to study beads among highland 
tribes: smoky agates, striped jasper, cloudy carnelian—heirlooms 
       passed down in families, until dire straits forced their sale. Likewise, 
I've wished to leave meaningful objects with those I love. I have a pair 
       of Kalinga earrings, discs of mother-of-pearl; a beaded T'boli blouse, 
a few bits of abaca fabric embroidered by hand. Beside the kitchen clock,
       a carved granary god with sooty countenance sits, unaware that the heat 
in our house has gone out. Winter without, wintry within. We feel it in our 
      bones, hunting for some  bright amulet whose light won't go out.

(for Benjie Abellera)

January 18, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Addict

The Captains went with me to the post-house about 9 o’clock, and after a morning draft I took horse and guide for London; and through some rain, and a great wind in my face, I got to London at eleven o’clock. At home found all well, but the monkey loose, which did anger me, and so I did strike her till she was almost dead, that they might make her fast again, which did still trouble me more. In the afternoon we met at the office and sat till night, and then I to see my father who I found well, and took him to Standing’s to drink a cup of ale. He told me my aunt at Brampton is yet alive and my mother well there. In comes Will Joyce to us drunk, and in a talking vapouring humour of his state, and I know not what, which did vex me cruelly. After him Mr. Hollier had learned at my father’s that I was here (where I had appointed to meet him) and so he did give me some things to take for prevention. Will Joyce not letting us talk as I would I left my father and him and took Mr. Hollier to the Greyhound, where he did advise me above all things, both as to the stone and the decay of my memory (of which I now complain to him), to avoid drinking often, which I am resolved, if I can, to leave off.
Hence home, and took home with me from the bookseller’s Ogilby’s Aesop, which he had bound for me, and indeed I am very much pleased with the book.
Home and to bed.

rain in my face
at the dead of night

I see a standing stone
decay into drink

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 18 January 1660/61.

January 18, 2024January 11, 2025 by Dave Bonta

January Blues

shadows on the snow
stretched out as if in prayer

the sound made by a spring
as ice smothers it

news that breaks and breaks
on slow snowshoes left right

here the urgent leaps
of a white-footed mouse

there a coyote pair
taking turns breaking trail

squirrels in heat
their labyrinthine urges

skeletal feathers of frost
where a vole is breathing

all just uphill from the interstate
a thing shown on maps

and a town in the mountains
taken over by mountains of snow

in every parking lot
another white peak

the pigeons rise
become a flock of rock doves

revolving in the blue
like a stuck tire

January 18, 2024May 9, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Heart Paper Ghazal

I can't remember the name of the girl in high school who tried
to convince us to smoke by saying "It's just like inhaling paper."

After school, we'd walk to Session Road and try to get into Gingerbread
Folkhouse, where college kids drank beer and passed around rolling papers.

A group would sit around in their denim bell-bottoms, strumming
guitars, puffing smoke rings, writing editorials for the newspaper.

We were all young and green, naive to the world. Some pretended
to turn up their noses at fashion magazines with glossy paper.

Apparently one could not be trusted to be loyal to the cause if one
harbored bourgeois aspirations: heavy stock stationery paper,

bread and cheese; art, movies, poetry that cared about the strength
and beauty of language besides the violence we read about in the papers.

These days, no one is spared, no one set apart from the cruelties of human
hate. I try to keep my heart open despite heartrending news in the papers.

January 17, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Estate agent

Up, and breakfast with my Lady. Then come Captains Cuttance and Blake to carry her in the barge on board; and so we went through Ham Creeke to the Soverayne (a goodly sight all the way to see the brave ships that lie here) first, which is a most noble ship. I never saw her before. My Lady Sandwich, my Lady Jemimah, Mrs. Browne, Mrs. Grace, and Mary and the page, my lady’s servants and myself, all went into the lanthorn together. From thence to the Charles, where my lady took great pleasure to see all the rooms, and to hear me tell her how things are when my Lord is there. After we had seen all, then the officers of the ship had prepared a handsome breakfast for her, and while she was pledging my Lord’s health they give her five guns. That done, we went off, and then they give us thirteen guns more. I confess it was a great pleasure to myself to see the ship that I begun my good fortune in. From thence on board the Newcastle, to show my Lady the difference between a great and a small ship. Among these ships I did give away 7l.. So back again and went on shore at Chatham, where I had ordered the coach to wait for us. Here I heard that Sir William Batten and his lady (who I knew were here, and did endeavour to avoyd) were now gone this morning to London. So we took coach, and I went into the coach, and went through the town, without making stop at our inn, but left J. Goods to pay the reckoning. So I rode with my lady in the coach, and the page on the horse that I should have rid on — he desiring it. It begun to be dark before we could come to Dartford, and to rain hard, and the horses to fayle, which was our great care to prevent, for fear of my Lord’s displeasure, so here we sat up for to-night, as also Captains Cuttance and Blake, who came along with us. We sat and talked till supper, and at supper my Lady and I entered into a great dispute concerning what were best for a man to do with his estate — whether to make his elder son heir, which my Lady is for, and I against, but rather to make all equall. This discourse took us much time, till it was time to go to bed; but we being merry, we bade my Lady goodnight, and intended to have gone to the Post-house to drink, and hear a pretty girl play of the cittern (and indeed we should have lain there, but by a mistake we did not), but it was late, and we could not hear her, and the guard came to examine what we were; so we returned to our Inn and to bed, the page and I in one bed, and the two captains in another, all in one chamber, where we had very good mirth with our most abominable lodging.

come into my sand castle

the difference between a great
and a small shore
is now gone
we own the dew

and the rain and the lake
talk all night

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 17 January 1660/61.

January 17, 2024January 15, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Cusp

The angel is a column of light In Tanner's "Annunciation." 
 No discernible shape of wings, no halo, no raiment  

but for a sheer wash of bright yellow falling from
a skylight. Without instruction on how to read 

this alteration in the atmosphere, I'd look 
like her too. Against the rumpled linens, feet 

unshod, nails untrimmed; the clamor of the domestic 
hardly a wall away—how would you tell a story you know 

will not be believed? Everyone will say you can't shape 
a thing without touching or feeling. But how do you refuse 

being chosen, when it promises a sort of agency?
Outside, plots of flowers open in the morning and tuck 

themselves in at night, the condition of being seen equal 
to the desire for solitude and the sound of one heartbeat.

January 16, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Zen with Whitman

This morning I went early to the Comptroller’s and so with him by coach to Whitehall, to wait upon Mr. Coventry to give him an account of what we have done, which having done, I went away to wait upon my Lady; but coming to her lodgings I find that she is gone this morning to Chatham by coach, thinking to meet me there, which did trouble me exceedingly, and I did not know what to do, being loth to follow her, and yet could not imagine what she would do when she found me not there. In this trouble, I went to take a walk in Westminster Hall and by chance met with Mr. Child, who went forth with my Lady to-day, but his horse being bad, he come back again, which then did trouble me more, so that I did resolve to go to her; and so by boat home and put on my boots, and so over to Southwarke to the posthouse, and there took horse and guide to Dartford and thence to Rochester (I having good horses and good way, come thither about half-an-hour after daylight, which was before 6 o’clock and I set forth after two), where I found my Lady and her daughter Jem., and Mrs. Browne and five servants, all at a great loss, not finding me here, but at my coming she was overjoyed. The sport was how she had intended to have kept herself unknown, and how the Captain (whom she had sent for) of the Charles had forsoothed her, though he knew her well and she him. In fine we supped merry and so to bed, there coming several of the Charles’s men to see me before, I got to bed. The page lay with me.

what I find
is what I imagine

what would a child
who went forth find

how to unknow
how to see the page

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 16 January 1660/61.

January 15, 2024January 17, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2024, Week 2

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, poets were visionary, resolute, hunkering down, easing back into the grind. Some evinced minds of winter, while others dreamed of warmer times and climes. Enjoy.

January 15, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Re/vision

Up and down the yard all the morning and seeing the seamen exercise, which they do already very handsomely.
Then to dinner at Mr. Ackworth’s, where there also dined with us one Captain Bethell, a friend of the Comptroller’s. A good dinner and very handsome. After that and taking our leaves of the officers of the yard, we walked to the waterside and in our way walked into the rope-yard, where I do look into the tar-houses and other places, and took great notice of all the several works belonging to the making of a cable.
So after a cup of burnt wine at the tavern there, we took barge and went to Blackwall and viewed the dock and the new Wet dock, which is newly made there, and a brave new merchantman which is to be launched shortly, and they say to be called the Royal Oak.
Hence we walked to Dick-Shore, and thence to the Towre and so home. Where I found my wife and Pall abroad, so I went to see Sir W. Pen, and there found Mr. Coventry come to see him, and now had an opportunity to thank him, and he did express much kindness to me. I sat a great while with Sir Wm. after he was gone, and had much talk with him. I perceive none of our officers care much for one another, but I do keep in with them all as much as I can. Sir W. Pen is still very ill as when I went. Home, where my wife not yet come home, so I went up to put my papers in order, and then was much troubled my wife was not come, it being 10 o’clock just now striking as I write this last line.
This day I hear the Princess is recovered again. The King hath been this afternoon at Deptford, to see the yacht that Commissioner Pett is building, which will be very pretty; as also that that his brother at Woolwich is in making.
By and by comes in my boy and tells me that his mistress do lie this night at Mrs. Hunt’s, who is very ill, with which being something satisfied, I went to bed.

seeing the sea at work
making a new shore

I press pen to paper
write this last line over again

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 15 January 1660/61.