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Posted on by Dave Bonta

Picnic

in an oak forest whispery
with caterpillar droppings

an ovenbird steps out
on her pink feet

as i drink my pink tea
of sassafras and milk

the sun slides down
a silk thread

whose absent abseiler tracks
a shadow back to its tree

a caterpillar with whiskers
as bristly as a streetcleaner

entering a dark valley
in the bark of a chestnut oak

follows it up the trunk
propelled by its gut pulsing

in sync with the prolegs
from hump to hump

driven almost literally by hunger
a body within the body

that one day will crawl out
with wings and gonads

an overwhelming urge to mate
and no mouth

the female so full of eggs
she will not be able to fly

i finish my lunch
the male ovenbird is singing

a carpenter ant goes past
carrying a splinter

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Sun-drunk

Sam Pepys and me

Having taken our leaves of Sir W. Batten and my Lady, who are gone this morning to keep their Whitsuntide, Sir W. Pen and I and Mr. Gauden by water to Woolwich, and there went from ship to ship to give order for and take notice of their forwardness to go forth, and then to Deptford and did the like, having dined at Woolwich with Captain Poole at the tavern there.
From Deptford we walked to Redriffe, calling at the half-way house, and there come into a room where there was infinite of new cakes placed that are made against Whitsuntide, and there we were very merry.
By water home, and there did businesses of the office. Among others got my Lord’s imprest of 1000l. and Mr. Creed’s of 10,000l. against this voyage their bills signed. Having wrote letters into the country and read some things I went to bed.

leaves in the sun
give and take

like a tavern
or a half-way house

where the infinite gains
another creed


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 1 June 1661.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Next-to-last supper

Sam Pepys and me

I went to my father’s thinking to have met with my cozen John Holcroft, but he came not, but to my great grief I found my father and mother in a great deal of discontent one with another, and indeed my mother is grown now so pettish that I know not how my father is able to bear with it. I did talk to her so as did not indeed become me, but I could not help it, she being so unsufferably foolish and simple, so that my father, poor man, is become a very unhappy man.
There I dined, and so home and to the office all the afternoon till 9 at night, and then home and to supper and to bed.
Great talk now how the Parliament intend to make a collection of free gifts to the King through the Kingdom; but I think it will not come to much.

my great grief
is an insufferably simple supper

who am I if the kingdom
will not come


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 31 May 1661.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Unspooling Landscape

river in November light between bare woods and mountain 
Along the highway, green-winged cicadas
splayed themselves like fingers on car windows.  

They, too, are working out their own
questions of return. 

What of another life do they remember,
and if they do, what is the brightest point?

Like everyone else, I move not only
at my own pace, but at the pace the world dictates.

LIke everyone else, I have been sometimes
a wanderer, sometimes the ache for a fixed point

which is no longer there. We approach the middle 
of the year, after which we can say, 

look, it is almost winter. In the meantime, I am still 
figuring out the meanings of silence,

what it might take to bargain with 
a future whose nature does not change, 

even if it seems to. I can remember a time
when all I wanted to do was fight it. 

Now I want to be the first one to go,
before other lights are extinguished.
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Functionaries

Sam Pepys and me

To the Wardrobe and there, with my Lord, went into his new barge to try her, and found her a good boat, and like my Lord’s contrivance of the door to come out round and not square as they used to do. Back to the Wardrobe with my Lord, and then with Mr. Moore to the Temple, and thence to Greatorex, who took me to Arundell-House, and there showed me some fine flowers in his garden, and all the fine statues in the gallery, which I formerly had seen, and is a brave sight, and thence to a blind dark cellar, where we had two bottles of good ale, and so after giving him direction for my silver side-table, I took boat at Arundell stairs, and put in at Milford and there behind the door of the stairs shit, there being a house of office there.
So home and found Sir Williams both and my Lady going to Deptford to christen Captain Rooth’s child, and would have had me with them, but I could not go.
To the office, where Sir R. Slingsby was, and he and I into his and my lodgings to take a view of them, out of a desire he has to have mine of me to join to his, and give me Mr. Turner’s.
To the office again, where Sir G. Carteret came and sat a while, he being angry for Sir Williams making of the maisters of this fleet upon their own heads without a full table. Then the Comptroller and I to the Coffee House, and there sat a great while talking of many things.
So home and to bed.
This day, I hear, the Parliament have ordered a bill to be brought in for the restoring the Bishops to the House of Lords; which they had not done so soon but to spite Mr. Prin, who is every day so bitter against them in his discourse in the House.

like statues in a dark cellar
we took root

heads full of spit
so bitter is our house


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 30 May 1661.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Requirements for Canonization

river in November light between bare woods and mountain 
What of the saint 
should be thanked for miracle? The hand
                clasped around the beaded relic, or the grey
tracksuit that sleeved the hand? 
                                                           From the glass-walled 
crypt, his heart was flown like a garnet-colored beetle
and boxed in the church sanctuary. Milk-faced 
and haloed with curls, he could be
                                       any of the children in those late-
night commercials for a cancer research hospital,
before the shaving of heads and placing of ports.
I know that not everyone who dies becomes
                                  a saint just by dying, even if we think  
they're almost holy.  Someone must first be led away
from the brink, brought back to life, rinsed 
of the incurable condition.  
                                    This kind of work seems both 
unremarkable and astonishing. One child survives
the surgery; the other never wakes up
from the ether.
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Kitchen confidential

Sam Pepys and me

(King’s birth-day). Rose early and having made myself fine, and put six spoons and a porringer of silver in my pocket to give away to-day, Sir W. Pen and I took coach, and (the weather and ways being foul) went to Walthamstowe; and being come there heard Mr. Radcliffe, my former school fellow at Paul’s (who is yet a mere boy), preach upon “Nay, let him take all, since my Lord the King is returned,” &c. He reads all, and his sermon very simple, but I looked for new matter. Back to dinner to Sir William Batten’s; and then, after a walk in the fine gardens, we went to Mrs. Browne’s, where Sir W. Pen and I were godfathers, and Mrs. Jordan and Shipman godmothers to her boy. And there, before and after the christening; we were with the woman above in her chamber; but whether we carried ourselves well or ill, I know not; but I was directed by young Mrs. Batten. One passage of a lady that eat wafers with her dog did a little displease me. I did give the midwife 10s. and the nurse 5s. and the maid of the house 2s. But for as much I expected to give the name to the child, but did not (it being called John), I forbore then to give my plate till another time after a little more advice.
All being done, we went to Mrs. Shipman’s, who is a great butter-woman, and I did see there the most of milk and cream, and the cleanest that ever I saw in my life. After we had filled our bellies with cream, we took our leaves and away. In our way, we had great sport to try who should drive fastest, Sir W. Batten’s coach, or Sir W. Pen’s chariott, they having four, and we two horses, and we beat them. But it cost me the spoiling of my clothes and velvet coat with dirt.
Being come home I to bed, and give my breeches to be dried by the fire against to-morrow.

six spoons in my pocket
for you my plate

a great butter-woman
spoiling my breeches


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 29 May 1661.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Owl man

Sam Pepys and me

This morning to the Wardrobe, and thence to a little alehouse hard by, to drink with John Bowles, who is now going to Hinchinbroke this day.
Thence with Mr. Shepley to the Exchange about business, and there, by Mr. Rawlinson’s favour, got into a balcone over against the Exchange; and there saw the hangman burn, by vote of Parliament, two old acts, the one for constituting us a Commonwealth, and the others I have forgot.
Which still do make me think of the greatness of this late turn, and what people will do tomorrow against what they all, through profit or fear, did promise and practise this day.
Then to the Mitre with Mr. Shepley, and there dined with D. Rawlinson and some friends of his very well. So home, and then to Cheapside about buying a piece of plate to give away to-morrow to Mrs. Browne’s child. So to the Star in Cheapside, where I left Mr. Moore telling 5l. out for me, who I found in a great strait for my coming back again, and so he went his way at my coming.
Then home, where Mr. Cook I met and he paid me 30s., an old debt of his to me. So to Sir W. Pen’s, and there sat alone with him till ten at night in talk with great content, he telling me things and persons that I did not understand in the late times, and so I home to bed. My cozen John Holcroft (whom I have not seen many years) this morning came to see me.

an owl who
is still all day who
is alone at night telling me who
I am


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 28 May 1661.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Wisdom

river in November light between bare woods and mountain 
Some think of youth as synonymous with innocence, 
of childhood's landscape as a time uniform and 

unmarked until its transformation. Yet emperors 
and successors of the Dalai Lama were chosen 

even before they reached the age of five. They're sweet 
as children are, giddy in a room full of favorite toys; 

they 'd cry when tired or sleepy. But they reached out, 
touched oracular items as if they recognized them from 

a former life—sandalwood prayer beads, a ritual drum.
Where we are in our ordinary lives, it's the start of another 

hot summer. Blueberry bushes speckle witih fruit that don't 
even make it to ripeness since the birds are early with  

their hunger. Still, there's enough to fill crates arriving 
at the farmer's market; and abundant stone fruit, lacy kale, 

lush peonies. Later, when we walk through the neighborhood, 
our grandson points out anthills, hollows where he thinks rabbits 

burrow; which among the leafy clumps amassed at the base 
of trees are poison ivy. Already, he seems wise beyond his years. 

He listened to his father tell a story about a shoeshine boy 
not much older than him, making his way in a big city 

during the Depression years—that boy kept no more than 
a dollar of every earning, saved the rest for a houseful of

siblings. On one of the hottest days, this boy shaded his mother
with an umbrella as she pulled the trash bins to the curb.
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Falling star

Sam Pepys and me

This morning to the Wardrobe, and thence to a little alehouse hard by, to drink with John Bowles, who is now going to Hinchinbroke this day.
Thence with Mr. Shepley to the Exchange about business, and there, by Mr. Rawlinson’s favour, got into a balcone over against the Exchange; and there saw the hangman burn, by vote of Parliament, two old acts, the one for constituting us a Commonwealth, and the others I have forgot.
Which still do make me think of the greatness of this late turn, and what people will do tomorrow against what they all, through profit or fear, did promise and practise this day.
Then to the Mitre with Mr. Shepley, and there dined with D. Rawlinson and some friends of his very well. So home, and then to Cheapside about buying a piece of plate to give away to-morrow to Mrs. Browne’s child. So to the Star in Cheapside, where I left Mr. Moore telling 5l. out for me, who I found in a great strait for my coming back again, and so he went his way at my coming.
Then home, where Mr. Cook I met and he paid me 30s., an old debt of his to me. So to Sir W. Pen’s, and there sat alone with him till ten at night in talk with great content, he telling me things and persons that I did not understand in the late times, and so I home to bed. My cozen John Holcroft (whom I have not seen many years) this morning came to see me.

war broke out
to turn a profit

on a cheap star
I have not seen this morning


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 28 May 1661.