Posts

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Outside influence

(Lord’s day). To church. Home, and after dinner walked to White Hall, thinking to have seen Mr. Coventry, but failed, and therefore walked clear on foot back again. Busy till night in fitting my Victualling papers in order, which I through my multitude of business and pleasure have not examined these several months. Walked back again home, and so to the Victualling Office, where I met Mr. Gawden, and have received some satisfaction, though it be short of what I expected, and what might be expected from me. So after evened I have gone, and so to supper and to bed.

I walk to think
to see clear on foot

night fitting
a paper multitude

no mine back home
where I might have gone


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 6 May 1666.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Of Use

My grandfather taught my mother
who in turn taught me: nothing  

of the animal must go to waste. 
And so the hide is softened, the skin
 
soaked and pickled. Every bit
 of flesh, salted and dried. Babies 

are tossed the chalky eyes or knuckle 
bones; my own were given the tongue

of the roasted pig on which to suck,
still warm from the pit. Look now

at how they swill words and push 
them around in the mud of this life. 

How they thread the meat and the fat
with their bare hands into glistening 

necklaces, then boil what's left of
the blood. Even their own fermenting

sorrow they'll flay without mercy until 
it yields up a thing of use: bright

grains in an hourglass. A book, a poem.
A ladder or bridge to somewhere else. 





 
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Freight

At the office all the morning. After dinner upon a letter from the fleete from Sir W. Coventry I did do a great deale of worke for the sending away of the victuallers that are in the river, &c., too much to remember. Till 10 at night busy about letters and other necessary matter of the office. About 11 home, it being a fine moonshine and so my wife and Mercer come into the garden, and, my business being done, we sang till about twelve at night, with mighty pleasure to ourselves and neighbours, by their casements opening, and so home to supper and to bed.

river at night
the necessary matter
of the moon


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 5 May 1666.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Etymology

In some of the old books, the question is asked:
     what if the apple was really a fig or a pear, 
a dangling ear of carob or St. John's bread; brown 
     clustered pods from the Tamarindus tree, thin-
skinned and shattering easily at touch? Such fruit, 
     linked to the maternal for the way the smallest pits 
burrow into flesh: sown in the belly's sweet depths, stuck 
     in the throat or spat out and back into the soil. What
if the gleam in the leaves was really the pomegranate 
     whose hull, split down the middle, revealed ovaries 
packed with seed? And they lodged there because the man  
     lay down with the woman, or because the girl kidnapped  
into the underworld put six cool rubies under her tongue 
     to become more than what she was before--- Isn't that 
the meaning of knowledge: everything you can't untaste, 
     unsee, unfeel? The more you know, the less the world seems
an unmarked scroll where the opposite of knowledge isn't
     really that you don't know, but rather that you know
perhaps too much already. Each node branches off into
     a V. No matter what it's called, each sticky bud
broken off from its base bursts with milk or sap or stain.  

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Propriety

Up and by water to Westminster to Charing Cross (Mr. Gregory for company with me) to Sir Ph. Warwicke’s, who was not within. So I took Gregory to White Hall, and there spoke with Joseph Williamson to have leave in the next Gazette to have a general pay for the Chest at Chatham declared upon such a day in June. Here I left Gregory, and I by coach back again to Sir Philip Warwicke’s, and in the Park met him walking, so discoursed about the business of striking a quarter’s tallys for Tangier, due this day, which he hath promised to get my Lord Treasurer’s warrant for, and so away hence, and to Mr. Hales, to see what he had done to Mrs. Pierces picture, and whatever he pretends, I do not think it will ever be so good a picture as my wife’s. Thence home to the office a little and then to dinner, and had a great fray with my wife again about Browne’s coming to teach her to paynt, and sitting with me at table, which I will not yield to. I do thoroughly believe she means no hurte in it; but very angry we were, and I resolved all into my having my will done, without disputing, be the reason what it will; and so I will have it. After dinner abroad again and to the New Exchange about play books, and to White Hall, thinking to have met Sir G. Carteret, but failed. So to the Swan at Westminster, and there spent a quarter of an hour with Jane, and thence away home, and my wife coming home by and by (having been at her mother’s to pray her to look out for a mayde for her) by coach into the fields to Bow, and so home back in the evening, late home, and after supper to bed, being much out of order for lack of somebody in the room of Su. This evening, being weary of my late idle courses, and the little good I shall do the King or myself in the office, I bound myself to very strict rules till Whitsunday next.

who was not for the war
and the business of war

and whatever he pretends
means no hurt in it

a failed swan
coming home to a field

at the office I bound myself
to strict rules


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 4 May 1666.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

One summer, I couldn’t smile—

I mean I didn't have
it in me. I heard 
the receptionist ask 
the person over at the next 
cubicle why my face was always
so pensive. There was no explicit 
way to describe how, when I stirred 
the bottom of the pot, the only
shreds I dredged up were thin 
and toneless. Passing
the hallway mirror, I often 
wondered about the stranger
in the creased cotton shirt: 
her limp hair, exhausted eyes 
that looked at her as though 
there was something of such 
importance that needed 
to find the right words
in order for it to be said. 


 
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Romance

Up, and all the morning at the office. At noon home, and contrary to my expectation find my little girle Su worse than she was, which troubled me, and the more to see my wife minding her paynting and not thinking of her house business, this being the first day of her beginning the second time to paynt. This together made me froward that I was angry with my wife, and would not have Browne to think to dine at my table with me always, being desirous to have my house to myself without a stranger and a mechanique to be privy to all my concernments. Upon this my wife and I had a little disagreement, but it ended by and by, and then to send up and down for a nurse to take the girle home and would have given anything. I offered to the only one that we could get 20s. per weeke, and we to find clothes, and bedding and physique, and would have given 30s., as demanded, but desired an houre or two’s time.
So I away by water to Westminster, and there sent for the girle’s mother to Westminster Hall to me; she came and undertakes to get her daughter a lodging and nurse at next doore to her, though she dare not, for the parish’s sake, whose sexton her husband is, to [have] her into her owne house. Thence home, calling at my bookseller’s and other trifling places, and in the evening the mother come and with a nurse she has got, who demanded and I did agree at 10s. per weeke to take her, and so she away, and my house mighty uncouth, having so few in it, and we shall want a servant or two by it, and the truth is my heart was a little sad all the afternoon and jealous of myself. But she went, and we all glad of it, and so a little to the office, and so home to supper and to bed.

always with a strange mechanic
it is time for sex
in her books

the heart a little jealous
a little off


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 3 May 1666.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Schooling

Up and find the girle better, which we are glad of, and with Sir W. Batten to White Hall by coach. There attended the Duke as usual. Thence with Captain Cocke, whom I met there, to London, to my office, to consult about serving him in getting him some money, he being already tired of his slavery to my Lord Bruncker, and the charge it costs him, and gets no manner of courtesy from him for it. He gone I home to dinner, find the girle yet better, so no fear of being forced to send her out of doors as we intended. After dinner. I by water to White Hall to a Committee for Tangier upon Mr. Yeabsly’s business, which I got referred to a Committee to examine. Thence among other stops went to my ruler’s house, and there staid a great while with Nan idling away the afternoon with pleasure. By and by home, so to my office a little, and then home to supper with my wife, the girle being pretty well again, and then to bed.

I attended
the outdoors

got referred
to a committee to examine idling


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 2 May 1666
.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Reconstructed portrait of my parents with glassware not yet broken

 
All our stories are flowers with wounds in them.
     In one, it is high summer and sometimes I want her
dress to be white and stiff like a sail. Other times
     it is the color of a bright marigold, its scent
a mixture of shyness and ambition as she stands
     at a restaurant front counter, clanging the cash
register drawer open and close. As for him,
     he smells like a library or a phone book left
open in the rain. Or he is the more than 3,000
     closely overlapping steps of Machu Picchu:
not even a knife could slide between his teeth
     to topple a whole empire. Above her head, 
shelves of flutes and cordial glasses. Highballs,
     hurricanes; shots, snifters, shooters. When he 
bears down is he a storm front darkening, a wall
     of clouds with no alternate ending? This moment
is not yet the spill of amber-colored glass, not yet 
     the nostalgia of a jazz band playing Let me
call you sweetheart on the radio, not yet 
     counting the months on knuckles and grooves 
to the offer she could not afterwards refuse. 
    
 
 

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Options

Up, and all the morning at the office. At noon, my cozen Thomas Pepys did come to me, to consult about the business of his being a justice of the Peace, which he is much against; and among other reasons, tells me, as a confidant, that he is not free to exercise punishment according to the Act against Quakers and other people, for religion. Nor do he understand Latin, and so is not capable of the place as formerly, now all warrants do run in Latin. Nor is he in Kent, though he be of Deptford parish, his house standing in Surry. However, I did bring him to incline towards it, if he be pressed to take it. I do think it may be some repute to me to have my kinsman in Commission there, specially if he behave himself to content in the country.
He gone and my wife gone abroad, I out also to and fro, to see and be seen, among others to find out in Thames Streete where Betty Howlett is come to live, being married to Mrs. Michell’s son; which I did about the Old Swan, but did not think fit to go thither or see them. Thence by water to Redriffe, reading a new French book my Lord Bruncker did give me to-day, “L’Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules,” being a pretty libel against the amours of the Court of France. I walked up and down Deptford yarde, where I had not been since I come from living at Greenwich, which is some months. There I met with Mr. Castle, and was forced against my will to have his company back with me. So we walked and drank at Halfway house and so to his house, where I drank a cupp of syder, and so home, where I find Mr. Norbury newly come to town to see us. After he gone my wife tells me the ill newes that our Susan is sicke and gone to bed, with great pain in her head and back, which troubles us all. However we to bed expecting what to-morrow would produce. She hath we conceive wrought a little too much, having neither maid nor girle to help her.

war though it be
I have myself an if

an owl is not fit
to see green

or we to see which
tomorrow we conceive


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 1 May 1666
.