Via Negativa

June 13, 2017 by Dave Bonta

The big question

(Lord’s day). All the morning in my chamber consulting my lesson of ship building, and at noon Mr. Creed by appointment came and dined with us, and sat talking all the afternoon till, about church time, my wife and I began our great dispute about going to Griffin’s child’s christening, where I was to have been godfather, but Sir J. Minnes refusing, he wanted an equal for me and my Lady Batten, and so sought for other. Then the question was whether my wife should go, and she having dressed herself on purpose, was very angry, and began to talk openly of my keeping her within doors before Creed, which vexed me to the guts, but I had the discretion to keep myself without passion, and so resolved at last not to go, but to go down by water, which we did by H. Russell to the Half-way house, and there eat and drank, and upon a very small occasion had a difference again broke out, where without any the least cause she had the cunning to cry a great while, and talk and blubber, which made me mighty angry in mind, but said nothing to provoke her because Creed was there, but walked home, being troubled in my mind also about the knavery and neglect of Captain Fudge and Taylor, who were to have had their ship for Tangier ready by Thursday last, and now the men by a mistake are come on board, and not any master or man or boy of the ship’s company on board with them when we came by her side this afternoon, and also received a letter from Mr. Coventry this day in complaint of it. We came home, and after supper Creed went home, and I to bed. My wife made great means to be friends, coming to my bedside and doing all things to please me, and at last I could not hold out, but seemed pleased, and so parted, and I with much ado to sleep, but was easily wakened by extraordinary great rain, and my mind troubled the more to think what the soldiers would do on board tonight in all this weather.

the child’s question
was very angry

and began to talk openly of my guts
a cunning blubber

who let this complaint and I be friends
wakened by extraordinary weather

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 12 June 1664.

June 12, 2017June 12, 2017 by Luisa A. Igloria

Heliograph

With my hands I measure
the space around my heart

whenever I feel those moments
of ambush— when in great anxiety,

in fright or terror or sorrow
the spirit flutters from me

like a thin silk flag, like a covey
of birds in the bush. Where does it go

in the ticking seconds just after,
before someone remembers how to call

for its return? The sun is a disc
in burning fragments, and water

its liquid twin. High on the cliffs,
I know our dead sit in their library

of hanging coffins. Their bones are lighter
than husk, but not yet lighter than air. Like them

I am trying to learn to keep something back
even in passage: some thread to tether

the wrist to the doorpost, the belled sound
of a name to pierce the fog of distress.

In response to Via Negativa: Heart to heart.

June 11, 2017 by Luisa A. Igloria

Tincture

“…And what does Sorrow care
For the rosemary
Or the marigolds there?”
– Edna St. Vincent Millay

Deep gold and orange, the bloom
of fire trees in summer; the waxy

blistering flesh of peppers.
I recall the story of a man

who sat by the roadside shoving
handful after handful of these

bright jewels into his inflamed
mouth, because he’d already spent

all his money from being tempted
by their red. What have I paid

for my own weaknesses? Night
after night my jaws grind through

the sluice in the cement mixer
of dreams. My hands cup to my lips

their extract: what remains after hot seeds
and skins have pressed into each other.

June 11, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Chapeau

Up and to the office, where we sat all the morning, where some discourse arose from Sir G. Carteret and Mr. Coventry, which gives me occasion to think that something like a war is expected now indeed, though upon the ‘Change afterwards I hear too that an Embassador is landed from Holland, and one from their East India Company, to treat with ours about the wrongs we pretend to.
Mr. Creed dined with me, and thence after dinner by coach with my wife only to take the ayre, it being very warm and pleasant, to Bowe and Old Ford; and thence to Hackney. There ‘light, and played at shuffle-board, eat cream and good churies; and so with good refreshment home. Then to my office vexed with Captain Taylor about the delay of carrying down the ship hired by me for Tangier, and late about that and other things at the office. So home to supper and to bed.

give me a hat
like an ambassador to the air
warm and light

and I go fresh to my thin ice

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 11 June 1664.

June 11, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Heart to heart

Up and by water to White Hall, and there to a Committee of Tangier, and had occasion to see how my Lord Ashworth deports himself, which is very fine indeed, and it joys my heart to see that there is any body looks so near into the King’s business as I perceive he do in this business of my Lord Peterborough’s accounts.
Thence into the Parke, and met and walked with Captain Sylas Taylor, my old acquaintance while I was of the Exchequer, and Dr. Whore, talking of musique, and particularly of Mr. Berckenshaw’s way, which Taylor magnifies mightily, and perhaps but what it deserves, but not so easily to be understood as he and others make of it. Thence home by water, and after dinner abroad to buy several things, as a map, and powder, and other small things, and so home to my office, and in the evening with Captain Taylor by water to our Tangier ship, and so home, well pleased, having received 26l. profit to-day of my bargain for this ship, which comforts me mightily, though I confess my heart, what with my being out of order as to my health, and the fear I have of the money my Lord oweth me and I stand indebted to him in, is much cast down of late.
In the evening home to supper and to bed.

my heart that old whore
magnifies what it deserves

a home and a road map
and another small heart

it being out of order
or much cast down

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 10 June 1664.

June 11, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Burglar

Up and at my office all the morning. At noon dined at home, Mr. Hunt and his kinswoman (wife in the country), after dinner I to the office, where we sat all the afternoon. Then at night by coach to attend the Duke of Albemarle about the Tangier ship. Coming back my wife spied me going home by coach from Mr. Hunt’s, with whom she hath gained much in discourse to-day concerning W. Howe’s discourse of me to him. That he was the man that got me to be secretary to my Lord; and all that I have thereby, and that for all this I never did give him 6d. in my life. Which makes me wonder that this rogue dare talk after this manner, and I think all the world is grown false. But I hope I shall make good use of it. So home to supper and to bed, my eyes aching mightily since last night.

morning is where night spied me
going home in secret

all that I have
is in this rogue world of my eye

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 9 June 1664.

June 10, 2017 by Luisa A. Igloria

Ursa minor

So little it takes:
scent of a white unfurling

at the end of a stem.
A cabbage leaf to tent

a new mother’s tender breast.
That handful of lights pulsing

in soft smudge above pine
needle mulch. From the dark

field above, what we call stars:
far away but sure of themselves.

June 9, 2017 by Luisa A. Igloria

Yearn

From what symposium on what
riverbank did you make your way

to open like a book provisioned
for reading, like a moon magnified

to copper before it split in two
and each rolled toward the spell

of their yoked nostalgias? A scapular
has two faces of rough wool: one

to wear on the chest, the other
on the back. Do you see how,

by nature, it trains the body
in the middle toward ballast,

how it spins the compass
that turns around itself?

June 9, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Voted out

All day before dinner with Creed, talking of many things, among others, of my Lord’s going so often to Chelsy, and he, without my speaking much, do tell me that his daughters do perceive all, and do hate the place, and the young woman there, Mrs. Betty Becke; for my Lord, who sent them thither only for a disguise for his going thither, will come under pretence to see them, and pack them out of doors to the Parke, and stay behind with her; but now the young ladies are gone to their mother to Kensington.
To dinner, and after dinner till 10 at night in my study writing of my old broken office notes in shorthand all in one book, till my eyes did ake ready to drop out. So home to supper and to bed.

I am going without speaking

the doors to the park sing old
broken notes

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 8 June 1664.

June 9, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Charm against busyness

Up and to the office (having by my going by water without any thing upon my legs yesterday got some pain upon me again), where all the morning. At noon a little to the ‘Change, and thence home to dinner, my wife being ill still in bed. Thence to the office, where busy all the afternoon till 9 at night, and so home to my wife, to supper, and to bed.

O my legs
be still
be off to my wife
to bed

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 7 June 1664.