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Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Abide

river in November light between bare woods and mountain 
When I no longer care 
about the world, let me 
sit on a rock perch where 
my hair can be  
                         combed by the wind.

When I no longer want to bind 
my breasts with cotton and drink 
from an orchard well, let me sleep 
in a room without clocks 
                         in the middle of a monsoon.

The days are full 
of horrors and lamentations,
nights with visions 
of banishment and exile with
                         no hope of return.

Yet deeper blue than the sky,
hydrangeas keep rewriting
a narrative of ordinary survival.
Their dry, petaled heads persist,
                         even in the absence of water.
Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

This Old House

river in November light between bare woods and mountain 
Articles on home maintenance warn about breaks
in the plaster: how they may be a sign of something
more serious in the foundation, or that the soil 
underneath has shifted and softened through the years, 
or both. But it's simply the way things go as they 
get older and more worn. Chips in the stucco, 
scratches on once smooth sanded floors. When  
we moved in, this house was also already old. 
Having been vacant for some time, it was as if 
the pipes sighed awake from a long drought 
the first time we ran the showers and flushed 
the toilets. The realtor found a small nest 
of rodents in the crawl space, and called 
extermination services. We learned new words 
like soffit, fascia, and transom window; and also 
that the modest, side-gabled Cape Cod style dates 
back to the 1800s. From the floor outline in the apron-
sized dining room and a full window set into the wall 
behind the hutch, we can see some of the original 
bones of this house: how and where more rooms 
were added, even as closet space remained the same 
for times when people may have had a need for much 
less in their lives. In summertime, men in shorts 
and baseball caps knock on doors in the neighborhood, 
asking Do you have spiders, mosquitoes, ants, and 
are they a problem for you? We always turn them 
away. Sometimes, a tiny green grasshopper comes in. 
Sometimes, a cricket trills unseen in a corner. 
Moths are our favorite— we like to think they're 
visitations from our dead, gone so many years but there,
like a glimmer of something precious in the cracks.
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Physics (2)

Sam Pepys and me

Up by five o’clock, and after my journall put in order, to my office about my business, which I am resolved to follow, for every day I see what ground I get by it. By and by comes Mr. Cooper, mate of the Royall Charles, of whom I intend to learn mathematiques, and do begin with him to-day, he being a very able man, and no great matter, I suppose, will content him. After an hour’s being with him at arithmetique (my first attempt being to learn the multiplication-table); then we parted till to-morrow. And so to my business at my office again till noon, about which time Sir W. Warren did come to me about business, and did begin to instruct me in the nature of fine timber and deals, telling me the nature of every sort; and from that we fell to discourse of Sir W. Batten’s corruption and the people that he employs, and from one discourse to another of the kind. I was much pleased with his company, and so staid talking with him all alone at my office till 4 in the afternoon, without eating or drinking all day, and then parted, and I home to eat a bit, and so back again to my office; and toward the evening came Mr. Sheply, who is to go out of town to-morrow, and so he and I with much ado settled his accounts with my Lord, which, though they be true and honest, yet so obscure, that it vexes me to see in what manner they are kept. He being gone, and leave taken of him as of a man likely not to come to London again a great while, I eat a bit of bread and butter, and so to bed. This day I sent my brother Tom, at his request, my father’s old Bass Viall which he and I have kept so long, but I fear Tom will do little good at it.

solve for y
what ground comes to matter

I will learn
the multiplication of noon

instruct me in the nature of the nature
that we fell from

it is so obscure
that x like an old bass viol


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 4 July 1662—a lightly edited version of my original attempt.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Chosen Family

river in November light between bare woods and mountain 
      Once, a fish slid its sinuous body 
into the sea's cloud cover; 
                              it was taken to task  
      for not appearing before the gods. For keeping 
its own counsel, 
                 it received a lashing of bones. 
      I feel a natural kinship with it, but also  
with the lizard 
                 skittering through a labyrinth 
      of landmines and guillotines. Kinship with 
the orange-blushed 
                    mountain shrike and its constant 
      alarm of krr-krr-krr, and with ghosts 
of innumerable histories thickening 
                                    the air 
      that we breathe— Lock eyes with any creature 
you meet: the current  
                      you feel is felt by them, 
      too. Some are more expert at shedding 
their skin when it no longer 
                             serves them.
Posted on by Dave Bonta

Parliamentarian

Sam Pepys and me

Up by four o’clock and to my office till 8 o’clock, writing over two copies of our contract with Sir W. Rider, &c., for 500 ton of hempe, which, because it is a secret, I have the trouble of 7 over as well as drawing.
Then home to dress myself, and so to the office, where another fray between Sir R. Ford and myself about his yarn, wherein I find the board to yield on my side, and was glad thereof, though troubled that the office should fall upon me of disobliging Sir Richard.
At noon we all by invitation dined at the Dolphin with the Officers of the Ordnance; where Sir W. Compton, Mr. O’Neale, and other great persons, were, and a very great dinner, but I drank as I still do but my allowance of wine.
After dinner, was brought to Sir W. Compton a gun to discharge seven times, the best of all devices that ever I saw, and very serviceable, and not a bawble; for it is much approved of, and many thereof made.
Thence to my office all the afternoon as long as I could see, about setting many businesses in order. In the evening came Mr. Lewis to me, and very ingeniously did enquire whether I ever did look into the business of the Chest at Chatham; and after my readiness to be informed did appear to him, he did produce a paper, wherein he stated the government of the Chest to me; and upon the whole did tell me how it hath ever been abused, and to this day is; and what a meritorious act it would be to look after it; which I am resolved to do, if God bless me; and do thank him very much for it.
So home, and after a turn or two upon the leads with my wife, who has lately had but little of my company, since I begun to follow my business, but is contented therewith since she sees how I spend my time, and so to bed.

a secret wing
should fall at noon

we allow a gun
to discharge seven times
approve the afternoon

the government of a hole
has little to see


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 3 July 1662.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Instructions for seeing

Sam Pepys and me

Up while the chimes went four, and to put down my journal, and so to my office, to read over such instructions as concern the officers of the Yard; for I am much upon seeing into the miscarriages there. By and by, by appointment, comes Commissioner Pett; and then a messenger from Mr. Coventry, who sits in his boat expecting us, and so we down to him at the Tower, and there took water all, and to Deptford (he in our passage taking notice how much difference there is between the old Captains for obedience and order, and the King’s new Captains, which I am very glad to hear him confess); and there we went into the Store-house, and viewed first the provisions there, and then his books, but Mr. Davis himself was not there, he having a kinswoman in the house dead, for which, when by and by I saw him, he do trouble himself most ridiculously, as if there was never another woman in the world; in which so much laziness, as also in the Clerkes of the Cheque and Survey (which after one another we did examine), as that I do not perceive that there is one-third of their duties performed; but I perceive, to my great content, Mr. Coventry will have things reformed.
So Mr. Coventry to London, and Pett and I to the Pay, where Sir Williams both were paying off the Royal James still, and so to dinner, and to the Pay again, where I did relieve several of my Lord Sandwich’s people, but was sorry to see them so peremptory, and at every word would, complain to my Lord, as if they shall have such a command over my Lord. In the evening I went forth and took a walk with Mr. Davis, and told him what had passed at his office to-day, and did give him my advice, and so with the rest by barge home and to bed.

instructions for seeing
come down to taking notice

how much difference
there is between visions

as if there was never
another world
in one another

and we all have
to give rest a home


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 2 July 1662.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Angst

Sam Pepys and me

To the office, and there we sat till past noon, and then Captain Cuttance and I by water to Deptford, where the Royal James (in which my Lord went out the last voyage, though [he] came back in the Charles) was paying off by Sir W. Batten and Sir W. Pen.
So to dinner, where I had Mr. Sheply to dine with us, and from thence I sent to my Lord to know whether she should be a first rate, as the men would have her, or a second. He answered that we should forbear paying the officers and such whose pay differed upon the rate of the ship, till he could speak with his Royal Highness.
To the Pay again after dinner, and seeing of Cooper, the mate of the ship, whom I knew in the Charles, I spoke to him about teaching the mathematiques, and do please myself in my thoughts of learning of him, and bade him come to me in a day or two.
Towards evening I left them, and to Redriffe by land, Mr. Cowly, the Clerk of the Cheque, with me, discoursing concerning the abuses of the yard, in which he did give me much light. So by water home, and after half an hour sitting talking with my wife, who was afeard I did intend to go with my Lord to fetch the Queen mother over, in which I did clear her doubts, I went to bed by daylight, in order to my rising early to-morrow.

at my age am I
where I should be

on the peak seeing
each thought come

or in a red land
of much light

sitting with my fear
the moth rising early


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 1 July 1662.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Revelation

river in November light between bare woods and mountain 
~ after Remedios Varo (1955)


        Within each time, the contemplation 
             of time. Devices for its calibration 
and measure, the recognition of how 
       it holds up the sky in whatever quadrant 
             we might reside. See how many points of 
existence want to push through the membrane 
       of this life. All the actors gathered here, 
             garbed in their own choice of armor, 
must hear that electric humming in 
             the atmosphere. Strings of tin-can stars 
       waterfall in the room. How thin the border 
between states: outside and in, love and labor, 
             quiet and clamor. The world is no longer 
       beginning to change. It has changed.
Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

The Big One

river in November light between bare woods and mountain 
     is what they call the energy 
that will sunder the plates 
     which have more or less kept  
us in place in the only lifetime 
     we know; is the massive swell, 
tsunami that will rear its head 
     above cities and towns then 
make the noise of a million rushing 
     bees. Plumed emerald basilisks 
freefall from their perches to kiss 
     the ground before it disappears.
Then they'll skitter across water,
     runners looking for the finish line.