Via Negativa

July 9, 2017June 30, 2017 by Luisa A. Igloria

Reveille

That myth, that mouthful, those deep
red kernels lifted out of their white

hulls and dripping as if dyed in blood.
Oh my mother, did my teeth stamp a ring

around your aureoles; what else
besides pleasure did I draw

from your underground stream?
I am sorry for the termite hungers

that live in me, that seek the salt
and the sugar in every ashen clod.

Sometimes I am a hen house filled with dank
straw and mud, every throat cackling. Bear

down, bear down, they sing in that darkness
before the yolk drops out of the rim.

July 8, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Up very betimes, and my wife also, and got us ready; and about eight o’clock, having got some bottles of wine and beer and neat’s tongues, we went to our barge at the Towre, where Mr. Pierce and his wife, and a kinswoman and his sister, and Mrs. Clerke and her sister and cozen were to expect us; and so set out for the Hope, all the way down playing at cards and other sports, spending our time pretty merry. Come to the Hope about one and there showed them all the ships, and had a collacion of anchovies, gammon, &c., and after an houre’s stay or more, embarked again for home; and so to cards and other sports till we came to Greenwich, and there Mrs. Clerke and my wife and I on shore to an alehouse, for them to do their business, and so to the barge again, having shown them the King’s pleasure boat; and so home to the Bridge, bringing night home with us; and it rained hard, but we got them on foot to the Beare, and there put them into a boat, and I back to my wife in the barge, and so to the Tower Wharf and home, being very well pleased today with the company, especially Mrs. Pierce, who continues her complexion as well as ever, and hath, at this day, I think, the best complexion that ever I saw on any woman, young or old, or child either, all days of my life. Also Mrs. Clerke’s kinswoman sings very prettily, but is very confident in it; Mrs. Clerke herself witty, but spoils all in being so conceited and making so great a flutter with a few fine clothes and some bad tawdry things worne with them.
But the charge of the barge lies heavy upon me, which troubles me, but it is but once, and I may make Pierce do me some courtesy as great.
Being come home, I weary to bed with sitting. The reason of Dr. Clerke’s not being here was the King’s being sicke last night and let blood, and so he durst not come away to-day.

wine tongues
bringing night home
in our blood

Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 6 July 1664.

July 8, 2017June 30, 2017 by Luisa A. Igloria

Black market

I tell you this: I was slightly afraid
of the fruit they brought to my sick

bedside— waxy, too-red apples, perfect
unblemished oranges. They smelled

of the black market, which is to say
an idea of America bundled with dried

fish smells, rubber slippers, ground
coffee sieved into oily paper sacks.

I remember how, for his first grandchild,
my father traded his one good bottle

of Courvoisier (a gift from a rich cousin)
for a Fisher-Price music box record player.

This was years after he’d sworn off
alcohol, but kept the bottles for status.

The toy played ten tunes on plastic discs
with grooves, just like real records.

July 7, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Paleolithic diet

Up and to the office, where all the morning. At noon to the ‘Change a little, then with W. Howe home and dined. So after dinner to my office, and there busy till late at night, having had among other things much discourse with young Gregory about the Chest business, wherein Sir W. Batten is so great a knave, and also with Alsop and Lanyon about the Tangier victualling, wherein I hope to get something for myself.
Late home to supper and to bed, being full of thoughts of a sudden resolution this day taken upon the ‘Change of going down to-morrow to the Hope.

after dinner
having had a gory victual

I hope to get thin
being full of solution

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 5 July 1664.

July 7, 2017June 29, 2017 by Luisa A. Igloria

Your skirt! Your lip color! Your hair!

Did you think the mind
is the only thing worth

unbuttoning? Come this way:
let me hook you up with one

of our star agents. We’ve
harvested nectar with the help

of the most prolific
hummingbirds. You’re in,

now that you’ve brought
evidence of some indigenous

trauma from the past, a folder
of old newspaper clippings you

can mine and mine for story.
It’s all structure, baby.

And fashion. And lip color.
And pouting. And hair.

July 6, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Hobo

Up, and many people with me about business, and then out to several places, and so at noon to my Lord Crew’s, and there dined and very much made of there by him. He offered me the selling of some land of his in Cambridgeshire, a purchase of about 1000l., and if I can compass it I will. After dinner I walked homeward, still doing business by the way, and at home find my wife this day of her owne accord to have lain out 25s. upon a pair of pendantes for her eares, which did vex me and brought both me and her to very high and very foule words from her to me, such as trouble me to think she should have in her mouth, and reflecting upon our old differences, which I hate to have remembered. I vowed to breake them, or that she should go and get what she could for them again. I went with that resolution out of doors; the poor wretch afterwards in a little while did send out to change them for her money again. I followed Besse her messenger at the ‘Change, and there did consult and sent her back; I would not have them changed, being satisfied that she yielded. So went home, and friends again as to that business; but the words I could not get out of my mind, and so went to bed at night discontented, and she came to bed to me, but all would not make me friends, but sleep and rise in the morning angry.
This day the King and the Queene went to visit my Lord Sandwich and the fleete, going forth in the Hope.

places made of bridges and old differences
I remember them afterwards

I have no friends but sleep
and the morning sand

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 4 July 1664.

July 6, 2017June 29, 2017 by Luisa A. Igloria

A hole is to dig?

Or to fill before
the echoes fall farther
than to follow.

A party is to say
how do you do and disappear
into the hors d’oeuvres.

A watch is to hear
the quiver of a dress
and the step on the stair.

A wave is the biggest
whorl on a shell
that can splinter.

~ after Ruth Krauss

July 5, 2017July 4, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Charmed

(Lord’s day). Up and ready, and all the morning in my chamber looking over and settling some Brampton businesses. At noon to dinner, where the remains of yesterday’s venison and a couple of brave green geese, which we are fain to eat alone, because they will not keepe, which troubled us.
After dinner I close to my business, and before the evening did end it with great content, and my mind eased by it. Then up and spent the evening walking with my wife talking, and it thundering and lightning all the evening, and this yeare have had the most of thunder and lightning they say of any in man’s memory, and so it is, it seems, in France and everywhere else. So to prayers and to bed.

a couple of green geese we are
alone with the evening light

thunder and lightning it seems
everywhere else

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 3 July 1664.

July 5, 2017June 29, 2017 by Luisa A. Igloria

Stone

I know you have layers like cake—
pink speckled, blue agate, white

like a heat or cold we’ve never imagined.
When I scrub around my ankle, flakes

fall off like little pieces of parchment.
But you never show your heart even after

all that abrasion. When I was a girl,
I wanted to lay your cool grey shard

across my tongue and be transformed
into a flying goddess. Perhaps I am

not yet worthy. Perhaps I must learn
to throw myself harder yet lighter

across the surface, leaving a wide
reverb of rings in my wake.

July 4, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Visionary

Up and to the office, where all the morning. At noon to the ‘Change, and there, which is strange, I could meet with nobody that I could invite home to my venison pasty, but only Mr. Alsopp and Mr. Lanyon, whom I invited last night, and a friend they brought along with them. So home and with our venison pasty we had other good meat and good discourse. After dinner sat close to discourse about our business of the victualling of the garrison of Tangier, taking their prices of all provisions, and I do hope to order it so that they and I also may get something by it, which do much please me, for I hope I may get nobly and honestly with profit to the King. They being gone came Sir W. Warren, and he and I discoursed long about the business of masts, and then in the evening to my office, where late writing letters, and then home to look over some Brampton papers, which I am under an oathe to dispatch before I spend one half houre in any pleasure or go to bed before 12 o’clock, to which, by the grace of God, I will be true. Then to bed.
When I came home I found that to-morrow being Sunday I should gain nothing by doing it to-night, and to-morrow I can do it very well and better than to-night. I went to bed before my time, but with a resolution of doing the thing to better purpose to-morrow.

a change to my past
is the price of visions

one long look under the bed
will be true tomorrow

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 2 July 1664.