Via Negativa

March 12, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Aboard

At the office about business all the morning, so to the Exchange, and there met with Nick Osborne lately married, and with him to the Fleece, where we drank a glass of wine. So home, where I found Mrs. Hunt in great trouble about her husband’s losing of his place in the Excise. From thence to Guildhall, and there set my hand to the book before Colonel King for my sea pay, and blessed be God! they have cast me at midshipman’s pay, which do make my heart very glad. So, home, and there had Sir W. Batten and my Lady and all their company and Capt. Browne and his wife to a collation at my house till it was late, and then to bed.

ice in a glass
sing to my hand

sea and ship make
my heart their own

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 12 March 1660/61.

March 11, 2024March 11, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2024, Week 10

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: panic needles, jellyfish tentacles, the poem as a begging bowl, mixed mental arts, and more. Enjoy.

March 11, 2024March 11, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Three Lyrics

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

Undress

Testing the sharpness
of an edge, you brace yourself
against undoing. 

Lull

No words tell you more
than any unburdening.
Lie there, just breathing.

Blood Orange

The inside is always
more interesting—but you
have to taste it there.

March 11, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Wayfarers

At the office all the morning, dined at home and my father and Dr. Thos. Pepys with him upon a poor dinner, my wife being abroad. After dinner I went to the theatre, and there saw “Love’s Mistress” done by them, which I do not like in some things as well as their acting in Salsbury Court.
At night home and found my wife come home, and among other things she hath got her teeth new done by La Roche, and are indeed now pretty handsome, and I was much pleased with it. So to bed.

on a poor road
we eat well

bury our night in teeth
and pretty hands

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 11 March 1660/61.

March 10, 2024March 10, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Ancestry

You can buy a kit that comes with a vial
and a cotton swab—gloss it over

the inside of your cheek, send it off
to a company which promises to unlock 

medical and genetic mysteries in your family 
tree and find your ancestors' migration 

patterns. Perhaps fill in, once and for all, 
the many gaps in family stories.

At best, however, these are estimates,
though people have found their way

to unexpected results—who got knocked 
up in the war, who they were not a chlid of, 

after all. Who gave you that leaky heart, that 
questioning nature, that inability to believe.

March 10, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Codependent

(Lord’s day). Heard Mr. Mills in the morning, a good sermon. Dined at home on a poor Lenten dinner of coleworts and bacon. In the afternoon again to church, and there heard one Castle, whom I knew of my year at Cambridge. He made a dull sermon.
After sermon came my uncle and aunt Wight to see us, and we sat together a great while. Then to reading and at night to bed.

lord in a poor castle
my rat and I

together
at night

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 10 March 1660/61.

March 9, 2024March 10, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Ghosts

My father was twenty
years older than my mother
when they married—in a photograph 
I remember seeing, she wore no veil
but was the image of simple 

elegance, her slender neck 
emerging from the cowl of a sheath 
dress she sewed herself. No one 
would guess she came from a sleepy 
town far north: the air tobacco-

scented, textured like carabao hide.
In the short interval after that, I know
I was born. What I know of them
as I grew up is wrapped in clouds 
of dusting powder and tang 

of aftershave, rituals of washing 
and dressing, eating and drinking;
the alcove where they stationed 
their saints and shed the cuff 
links and chains of the everyday.

My youngest daughter said one night 
at the dinner table, perhaps our ghosts 
don't really haunt us. Perhaps it is us 
who are their ghosts, for as long 
as we  keep thinking of them.

March 9, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Surf

To Whitehall and there with Mr. Creed took a most pleasant walk for two hours in the park, which is now a very fine place.
Here we had a long and candid discourse one to another of one another’s condition, and he giving me an occasion I told him of my intention to get 60l. paid me by him for a gratuity for my labour extraordinary at sea. Which he did not seem unwilling to, and therefore I am very glad it is out.
To my Lord’s, where we found him newly come from Hinchingbroke, where he left my uncle very well, but my aunt not likely to live.
I staid and dined with him. He took me aside, and asked me what the world spoke of the King’s marriage. Which I answering as one that knew nothing, he enquired no further of me. But I do perceive by it that there is something in it that is ready to come out that the world knows not of yet.
After dinner into London to Mrs. Turner’s and my father’s, made visits and then home, where I sat late making of my journal for four days past, and so to bed.

white wave on the sea
newly broke

like a world that knew
nothing of the world

turn home
making a bed

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 9 March 1660/61.

March 8, 2024March 8, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Water Clock

Slip your feet into sandals, your shoulders out of loose sweaters.

A slip of rain remains on the roof, and not all bodies are easy to rouse.

You wrap your body in any season, regardless of weather.

The minutes tick quietly above the counter, practicing for the final season.

And yet, so much refusal of what's final; look, leaves rain down but blossoms open.

It's like the world refuses to give up just yet.

A whole world teems with life in a waterdrop, under a scope.

How to stack them like a calculus, an abacus of sheen trembling on the surface?

Which is to say, the countdown began sometime ago but isn't done.

Loose coins of sunlight fall on the body remembering how to be one.

March 8, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Mosquito-eater

All the morning at the office. At noon Sir W. Batten, Col. Slingsby and I by coach to the Tower, to Sir John Robinson’s, to dinner.
Where great good cheer. High company; among others the Duchess of Albemarle, who is ever a plain homely dowdy.
After dinner, to drink all the afternoon. Towards night the Duchess and ladies went away. Then we set to it again till it was very late. And at last came in Sir William Wale, almost fuddled; and because I was set between him and another, only to keep them from talking and spoiling the company (as we did to others), he fell out with the Lieutenant of the Tower; but with much ado we made him under stand his error, and then all quiet. And so he carried Sir William Batten and I home again in his coach, and so I almost overcome with drink went to bed.
I was much contented to ride in such state into the Tower, and be received among such high company, while Mr. Mount, my Lady Duchess’s gentleman usher, stood waiting at table, whom I ever thought a man so much above me in all respects.
Also to hear the discourse of so many high Cavaliers of things past. It was a great content and joy to me.

bat in a tower of night
I am almost an error

the quiet carried me
over a waiting thought

so much above me to hear
so many high things

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 8 March 1660/61.