Via Negativa

December 29, 2023December 28, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Substantial

Office day. There all the morning. Dined at home alone with my wife, and so staid within all the afternoon and evening; at my lute, with great pleasure, and so to bed with great content.

a real meal
and so thin an evening

I eat to be great

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 28 December 1660.

December 28, 2023December 28, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Vagrant

so what if the labile moon
becomes your emblem

the half-shell upon which
your camino is served up

sew it into the lining of a coat
for use in emergencies

a subway token for the underworld
or an owl’s limitless eye

stirring up the birds
in your bedroom tree

its screen will sell you nothing
in glowing detail

it claims one egg
from every clutch

it brings out your darkest shadow
once a month

December 28, 2023December 27, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

In the morning to Alderman Backwell’s again, where I found the candlesticks done, and went along with him in his coach to my Lord’s and left the candlesticks with Mr. Shepley. I staid in the garden talking much with my Lord, who do show me much of his love and do communicate his mind in most things to me, which is my great content.
Home and with my wife to Sir W. Batten’s to dinner, where much and good company. My wife not very well went home, I staid late there seeing them play at cards, and so home to bed.
This afternoon there came in a strange lord to Sir William Batten’s by a mistake and enters discourse with him, so that we could not be rid of him till Sir Arn. Breames and Mr. Bens and Sir W. Pen fell a-drinking to him till he was drunk, and so sent him away. About the middle of the night I was very ill — I think with eating and drinking too much — and so I was forced to call the maid, who pleased my wife and I in her running up and down so innocently in her smock, and vomited in the bason, and so to sleep, and in the morning was pretty well, only got cold, and so have pain in pissing as I used to have.

sticks in the garden
love in the cards

we drink to unthink
all innocent in sleep

and in the morning
we only have piss

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 27 December 1660.

December 27, 2023December 26, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Word-finding Pantoum

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

You try your best to make language fit
the purpose of your usage; smooth the edges
or square the lines, if only to communicate.
But sometimes language falters.

One purpose of using words: to smooth
what's tangled, bring what's shadowy to light.
But more than sometimes, language falters.
Or in your clumsiness, speech stumbles.

You want to see what's tangled in shadow.
Questions are a place, perhaps, to start.
But in your clumsiness, speech stumbles.
Also, those who might have the answers

to such questions are long gone from this place.
In that case, words try to remember words
once used by those who might have answers.
Intention or chance; slow burn or lightning strike—

In either case, you try to remember the words:
their purpose, their usage, their rough and smooth.
Intention or chance, slow burn or lightning strike—
You're only trying to make the language fit.

December 26, 2023December 26, 2023 by Dave Bonta

The Hollow After Christmas

where a buck rubbed
the felt from his crown

fog drifts through the trees
without getting snagged

the day after Christmas
it’s not accurate to say the ground is bare

it hosts a 10-million-piece puzzle
of the fallen in brown and gray

a hickory nut still in its hull
is riding out the rain

like my last lost idea
nestled among roots

a red flourish of surveyor’s paint
flakes from a dead oak

while a power pole marked up by bears
is turning green

who knows what markings
might outlive us

stay too long in one place
and all the faces change

the once-vernal pools
now hold water year-round

which means we’re witnessing
the birth of a bog

it fattens on raindrops
each one a bull’s eye

the water seems murky
but it’s only the fog’s reflection

down below this cloud ceiling
a train blows its horn three times

instead of the usual six
i keep listening for the rest

my fingers grow cold
daylight begins to fade

shadows flit through the woods
heading for their roosts

at a crossroads of trails
traffic is light

just the clouds and me and then
just the clouds

December 26, 2023 by Dave Bonta

The war cure

In the morning to Alderman Backwell’s for the candlesticks for Mr. Coventry, but they being not done I went away, and so by coach to Mr. Crew’s, and there took some money of Mr. Moore’s for my Lord, and so to my Lord’s, where I found Sir Thomas Bond (whom I never saw before) with a message from the Queen about vessells for the carrying over of her goods, and so with him to Mr. Coventry, and thence to the office (being soundly washed going through the bridge) to Sir Wm. Batten and Pen (the last of whom took physic to-day), and so I went up to his chamber, and there having made an end of the business I returned to White Hall by water, and dined with my Lady Sandwich, who at table did tell me how much fault was laid upon Dr. Frazer and the rest of the Doctors, for the death of the Princess!
My Lord did dine this day with Sir Henry Wright, in order to his going to sea with the Queen.
Thence to my father Bowyer’s where I met my wife, and with her home by water.

can sticks be one
with the oven

ash going white
as the doctor Death

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 26 December 1660.

December 26, 2023December 25, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Villanelle of Rest

I smooth a space for rest, I pour
a tonic for my head. Carnations
droop as if in sympathy in the glass.

My dreams are nothing but a blank.
Or they are about wars in other nations.
I smooth a space for rest, I pour

myself into position for prayer.
I crave only water as libation. Flowers
droop as if in sympathy in the glass.

After the solstice, the dark lifts 
imperceptibly, by degrees. Birds return.
I smooth a tentative space for rest, pour

myself again into some work.
I wake a little later in the day; at night
sometimes I droop too quickly in the glass.

Who knows when we 
will have any ease again?
I smooth a space for rest. Flowers
droop as if in sympathy in the glass.

December 25, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Christmas break

(Christmas day). In the morning very much pleased to see my house once more clear of workmen and to be clean, and indeed it is so, far better than it was that I do not repent of my trouble that I have been at.
In the morning to church, where Mr. Mills made a very good sermon. After that home to dinner, where my wife and I and my brother Tom (who this morning came to see my wife’s new mantle put on, which do please me very well), to a good shoulder of mutton and a chicken. After dinner to church again, my wife and I, where we had a dull sermon of a stranger, which made me sleep, and so home, and I, before and after supper, to my lute and Fuller’s History, at which I staid all alone in my chamber till 12 at night, and so to bed.

Christmas ease
far better than the mill

where I shoulder
a dull sleep

after history
all alone in amber

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 25 December 1660.

Via Negativa

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