Posts

Posted on by Dave Bonta

(In)attentive

I was at it till past two o’clock on Monday morning, and then read my vowes, and to bed with great joy and content that I have brought my things to so good a settlement, and now having my mind fixed to follow my business again and sensible of Sir W. Coventry’s jealousies, I doubt, concerning me, partly my siding with Sir G. Carteret, and partly that indeed I have been silent in my business of the office a great while, and given but little account of myself and least of all to him, having not made him one visitt since he came to towne from Oxford, I am resolved to fall hard to it again, and fetch up the time and interest I have lost or am in a fair way of doing it.
Up about eight o’clock, being called up by several people, among others by Mr. Moone, with whom I went to Lumbard Streete to Colvill, and so back again and in my chamber he and I did end all our businesses together of accounts for money upon bills of Exchange, and am pleased to find myself reputed a man of business and method, as he do give me out to be. To the ‘Change at noon and so home to dinner. Newes for certain of the King of Denmarke’s declaring for the Dutch, and resolution to assist them.
To the office, and there all the afternoon. In the evening come Mr. James and brother Houblons to agree upon share parties for their ships, and did acquaint me that they had paid my messenger, whom I sent this afternoon for it, 200l. for my friendship in the business, which pleases me mightily. They being gone I forth late to Sir R. Viner’s to take a receipt of them for the 200l. lodged for me there with them, and so back home, and after supper to bed.

mind fixed on my art
I have been silent and given
little of myself

the moon at noon
is a brother
to no one


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 5 March 1666.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Ode to Elizabeth Ramsey


She had a gap between her two front teeth,
and her signature song was "Proud Mary." 
In the '60s you came to know her after she
won a singing contest on Student Canteen. 
Had it been part of your vocabulary back then, 
you might have used "Afro" to describe her head 
of wiry hair. You might turn out the way she did, 
too, if your father was a Jamaican marine 
stationed in the Philippines, and your mother 
from the Visayas. You might think comedy a way 
to deflect attention from the features everyone 
loved to point out jeeringly--- skin of darkest 
brown it was almost black, a lipsticked overbite 
glowing under stage lights. "Negrita," they'd call
almost lovingly; but you'd strut across the stage,
belt out the rock & roll and rhythm & blues until
their seeing drowned in thunderous applause.
  
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Bottom-heavy

(Lord’s day). And all day at my Tangier and private accounts, having neglected them since Christmas, which I hope I shall never do again; for I find the inconvenience of it, it being ten times the labour to remember and settle things. But I thank God I did it at last, and brought them all fine and right; and I am, I thinke, by all appears to me (and I am sure I cannot be 10l. wrong), worth above 4600l., for which the Lord be praised! being the biggest sum I ever was worth yet.

a neglected convenience
to settle in at last

a fine pear I am
the biggest sum


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 4 March 1666.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Facelift

All the morning at the office, at noon to the Old James, being sent for, and there dined with Sir William Rider, Cutler, and others, to make an end with two Scots Maisters about the freight of two ships of my Lord Rutherford’s. After a small dinner and a little discourse I away to the Crowne behind the Exchange to Sir W. Pen, Captain Cocke and Fen, about getting a bill of Cocke’s paid to Pen, in part for the East India goods he sold us. Here Sir W. Pen did give me the reason in my eare of his importunity for money, for that he is now to marry his daughter. God send her better fortune than her father deserves I should wish him for a false rogue.
Thence by coach to Hales’s, and there saw my wife sit; and I do like her picture mightily, and very like it will be, and a brave piece of work. But he do complain that her nose hath cost him as much work as another’s face, and he hath done it finely indeed. Thence home and late at the office, and then to bed.

cut and make an end of it
behind the ear

to mar is better
than to be plain

no hat cost as much
as a face done fine


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 3 March 1666.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

America

We used to read about it in school
textbooks: land of milk and honey, land 

of emerald, close-clipped grass and golf 
courses where, on weekends, men practiced 

their swing and women huddled together 
in their living rooms having Tupperware 

parties as the charming family dog--- 
beagle, terrier, poodle--- sat up and begged 

for treats. Meanwhile, grandmother dished up 
rice for breakfast topped with boiled squash--- 
 
mashed with a fork, she said, it looks like egg.
From reading Nancy Drew novels, I learned

the word roadster; I thought sleuth was a career
for which one had to dress in three-fourth sleeve 

cardigans and sheath skirts. Decades later, 
in the land of the everlasting 30-year mortgage 

and the terrifying health insurance co-pay, I order
breakfast at a diner and wind up with the sunny side-up 

double yolk. We pinch every penny and it's only just enough
to keep us afloat, out of the red. How do others do it 

as if it were as easy as breathing, as if trees were
leafed with crisp green, as if everything were only money?


 
 
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Folded

Up, as I have of late resolved before 7 in the morning and to the office, where all the morning, among other things setting my wife and Mercer with much pleasure to worke upon the ruling of some paper for the making of books for pursers, which will require a great deale of worke and they will earn a good deale of money by it, the hopes of which makes them worke mighty hard.
At noon dined and to the office again, and about 4 o’clock took coach and to my Lord Treasurer’s and thence to Sir Philip Warwicke’s new house by appointment, there to spend an houre in talking and we were together above an hour, and very good discourse about the state of the King as to money, and particularly in the point of the Navy. He endeavours hard to come to a good understanding of Sir G. Carteret’s accounts, and by his discourse I find Sir G. Carteret must be brought to it, and what a madman he is that he do not do it of himself, for the King expects the Parliament will call upon him for his promise of giving an account of the money, and he will be ready for it, which cannot be, I am sure, without Sir G. Carteret’s accounts be better understood than they are.
He seems to have a great esteem of me and my opinion and thoughts of things. After we had spent an houre thus discoursing and vexed that we do but grope so in the darke as we do, because the people, that should enlighten us, do not helpe us, we resolved fitting some things for another meeting, and so broke up. He shewed me his house, which is yet all unhung, but will be a very noble house indeed.
Thence by coach calling at my bookseller’s and carried home 10l. worth of books, all, I hope, I shall buy a great while.
There by appointment find Mr. Hill come to sup and take his last leave of me, and by and by in comes Mr. James Houbland to bear us company, a man I love mightily, and will not lose his acquaintance. He told me in my eare this night what he and his brothers have resolved to give me, which is 200l., for helping them out with two or three ships. A good sum and that which I did believe they would give me, and I did expect little less.
Here we talked and very good company till late, and then took leave of one another, and indeed I am heartily sorry for Mr. Hill’s leaving us, for he is a very worthy gentleman, as most I know. God give him a good voyage and successe in his business. Thus we parted and my wife and I to bed, heavy for the losse of our friend.

paper heart
my wife and I heavy
for the loss of our friend


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 2 March 1666.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Landscape, with phantasms

Noon with its white horse and houses of plague,
evening with its shrouded owls. Biology

of illusions. Everything we wear and shed
and shoot, borrowed from the ransacked past.  

Domes of churches glow pink in the sunset,
made beautiful by all these curtains of smog.
 
In their shadow, vendors with oily trays 
of beads and amulets. There used to be a zoo 

somewhere in the heart of the old city: 
emaciated elephants, drying pools where 

they kept a mermaid dressed in verdigris.
I wanted to ask her how to tune this instrument 

that seems designed for continuous mourning. 
I wanted to ask her about how to be in two

places at once: the heart swishing in
a mason jar, the womb-space bluing the water. 



 


In response to Via Negativa: Circadian.
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Circadian

Up, and to the office and there all the morning sitting and at noon to dinner with my Lord Bruncker, Sir W. Batten and Sir W. Pen at the White Horse in Lumbard Streete, where, God forgive us! good sport with Captain Cocke’s having his mayde sicke of the plague a day or two ago and sent to the pest house, where she now is, but he will not say anything but that she is well. But blessed be God! a good Bill this week we have; being but 237 in all, and 42 of the plague, and of them but six in the City: though my Lord Bruncker says, that these six are most of them in new parishes where they were not the last week. Here was with us also Mr. Williamson, who the more I know, the more I honour.
Hence I slipt after dinner without notice home and there close to my business at my office till twelve at night, having with great comfort returned to my business by some fresh vowes in addition to my former, and more severe, and a great joy it is to me to see myself in a good disposition to business.
So home to supper and to my Journall and to bed.

noon with a white horse and house of plague
here I am

the more I know the more I notice
till twelve at night

having turned
into myself


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 1 March 1666.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Wolf among dogs

(Ash Wednesday). Up, and after doing a little business at my office I walked, it being a most curious dry and cold morning, to White Hall, and there I went into the Parke, and meeting Sir Ph. Warwicke took a turne with him in the Pell Mall, talking of the melancholy posture of affairs, where every body is snarling one at another, and all things put together looke ominously. This new Act too putting us out of a power of raising money. So that he fears as I do, but is fearfull of enlarging in that discourse of an ill condition in every thing, and the State and all. We appointed another time to meet to talke of the business of the Navy alone seriously, and so parted, and I to White Hall, and there we did our business with the Duke of Yorke, and so parted, and walked to Westminster Hall, where I staid talking with Mrs. Michell and Howlett long and her daughter, which is become a mighty pretty woman, and thence going out of the Hall was called to by Mrs. Martin, so I went to her and bought two bands, and so parted, and by and by met at her chamber, and there did what I would, and so away home and there find Mrs. Knipp, and we dined together, she the pleasantest company in the world. After dinner I did give my wife money to lay out on Knipp, 20s., and I abroad to White Hall to visit Colonell Norwood, and then Sir G. Carteret, with whom I have brought myself right again, and he very open to me; is very melancholy, and matters, I fear, go down with him, but he seems most afeard of a general catastrophe to the whole kingdom, and thinks, as I fear, that all things will come to nothing. Thence to the Palace Yard, to the Swan, and there staid till it was dark, and then to Mrs. Lane’s, and there lent her 5l. upon 4l. 01s. in gold. And then did what I would with her, and I perceive she is come to be very bad, and offers any thing, that it is dangerous to have to do with her, nor will I see [her] any more a good while. Thence by coach home and to the office, where a while, and then betimes to bed by ten o’clock, sooner than I have done many a day.
And thus ends this month, with my mind full of resolution to apply myself better from this time forward to my business than I have done these six or eight days, visibly to my prejudice both in quiett of mind and setting backward of my business, that I cannot give a good account of it as I ought to do.

where everybody is snarling I howl
long and pretty
then go down a hole till dark

where the clock is full forward
my day is quiet and backward


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 28 February 1666.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

End times poet

Up, and after a harsh word or two my wife and I good friends, and so up and to the office, where all the morning. At noon late to dinner, my wife gone out to Hales’s about her picture, and, after dinner, I after her, and do mightily like her picture, and think it will be as good as my Lady Peters’s. So home mightily pleased, and there late at business and set down my three last days’ journalls, and so to bed, overjoyed to thinke of the pleasure of the last Sunday and yesterday, and my ability to bear the charge of these pleasures, and with profit too, by obliging my Lord, and reconciling Sir George Carteret’s family.

an afterword
like a last days journal
to joy in the last yes of art


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 27 February 1666.