Posts

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Confused

Up and to my office a while, and thence by coach with Sir J. Minnes to St. James’s to the Duke, where Mr. Coventry and us two did discourse with the Duke a little about our office business, which saved our coming in the afternoon, and so to rights home again and to dinner. After dinner my wife and I had a little jangling, in which she did give me the lie, which vexed me, so that finding my talking did but make her worse, and that her spirit is lately come to be other than it used to be, and now depends upon her having Ashwell by her, before whom she thinks I shall not say nor do anything of force to her, which vexes me and makes me wish that I had better considered all that I have of late done concerning my bringing my wife to this condition of heat, I went up vexed to my chamber and there fell examining my new concordance, that I have bought, with Newman’s, the best that ever was out before, and I find mine altogether as copious as that and something larger, though the order in some respects not so good, that a man may think a place is missing, when it is only put in another place.
Up by and by my wife comes and good friends again, and to walk in the garden and so anon to supper and to bed. My cozen John Angier the son, of Cambridge coming to me late to see me, and I find his business is that he would be sent to sea, but I dissuaded him from it, for I will not have to do with it without his friends’ consent.

out in the afternoon I find it
other than it used to be

one may think a place is missing
when it is only another place

I come to walk in the garden
and see a sea


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 8 June 1663.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

The action of light makes the silhouette

In graveyards we pass,
carved angels dripping with rain—

their color the color of stone
rubbed with lichen, blue shadows of long

abandonment. Their robes mimic
the softness of forms we know,

an idea of shelter. The thought
that somewhere in a house

at the end of a road,
there might be a clean

change of clothes, a box
by the door where sopping shoes

might be shed. How does one learn
to exchange one form for another,

to make room for some recourse
not even visible yet?

Some angels have the round
faces of children; cascading curls,

the unselfconsciousness of a body
that has not yet shed its easy

fat. Others are blueprint or
abstraction, holding a lyre,

a scroll; a book with graven
letters, one of them perhaps

the cipher to that world
beyond this rain-drenched one.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Holy relic.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Glare

(Lord’s day). Whit Sunday. Lay long talking with my wife, sometimes angry and ended pleased and hope to bring our matters to a better posture in a little time, which God send. So up and to church, where Mr. Mills preached, but, I know not how, I slept most of the sermon. Thence home, and dined with my wife and Ashwell and after dinner discoursed very pleasantly, and so I to church again in the afternoon, and, the Scot preaching, again slept all the afternoon, and so home, and by and by to Sir W. Batten’s, to talk about business, where my Lady Batten inveighed mightily against the German Princess, and I as high in the defence of her wit and spirit, and glad that she is cleared at the sessions.
Thence to Sir W. Pen, who I found ill again of the gout, he tells me that now Mr. Castle and Mrs. Martha Batten do own themselves to be married, and have been this fortnight. Much good may it do him, for I do not envy him his wife. So home, and there my wife and I had an angry word or two upon discourse of our boy, compared with Sir W. Pen’s boy that he has now, whom I say is much prettier than ours and she the contrary. It troubles me to see that every small thing is enough now-a-days to bring a difference between us.
So to my office and there did a little business, and then home to supper and to bed. Mrs. Turner, who is often at Court, do tell me to-day that for certain the Queen hath much changed her humour, and is become very pleasant and sociable as any; and they say is with child, or believed to be so.

sun on a sometimes
angry dinner

reaching by and by
the high fence

is pared to a small ring
certain as a child


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 7 June 1663.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

World: ’60s

It was the late sixties: summer weekends of hot
pants and mini skirts, The Beatles’ White

Album, the year of the vibrating
belt exercise machine— a row of them

lined up against one wall of the beauty salon
that mother’s new friend Mila ran at the American

base. Women in capri pants slid the elastic band
around their waists or hips, turned the dial

then faced away, trying to keep a serious face
through twenty minutes of electric rippling.

Afterwards, they’d let me sit with them
to have a clear manicure of my own while they

had their full sets done. Outside, the air
still smelled of pine. They’d put on their cropped

cardigans and cat-eye sunglasses and we’d stroll
to the 19th Tee where the men were nursing

coffee or a nip of something stronger,
tapping impatient fingers on formica

or on their wristwatches. When I snagged
and broke the strap of my only pair of sandals

on a shrub, one of Mila’s many daughters said
she’d take me to the store for a replacement.

They were all so tall, so willowy;
it was easy to feel in awe. Father said

some of them had gone away to school in Europe,
knew two or three languages and more: accomplished

was the word he used. We looked through box
after box on shelves until I found a strappy

orange pair my size. Everyone always wore a slightly
amused expression— as if the merest thing

were a wonderment or could turn into a private
joke: a way to lightly wear the world in worldly.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Holy relic

Lay in bed till 7 o’clock, yet rose with an opinion that it was not 5, and so continued though I heard the clock strike, till noon, and would not believe that it was so late as it truly was. I was hardly ever so mistaken in my life before.
Up and to Sir G. Carteret at his house, and spoke to him about business, but he being in a bad humour I had no mind to stay with him, but walked, drinking my morning draft of whay, by the way, to York House, where the Russia Embassador do lie; and there I saw his people go up and down louseing themselves: they are all in a great hurry, being to be gone the beginning of next week. But that that pleased me best, was the remains of the noble soul of the late Duke of Buckingham appearing in his house, in every place, in the doorcases and the windows.
By and by comes Sir John Hebden, the Russia Resident, to me, and he and I in his coach to White Hall, to Secretary Morrice’s, to see the orders about the Russia hemp that is to be fetched from Archangel for our King, and that being done, to coach again, and he brought me into the City and so I home; and after dinner abroad by water, and met by appointment Mr. Deane in the Temple Church, and he and I over to Mr. Blackbury’s yard, and thence to other places, and after that to a drinking house, in all which places I did so practise and improve my measuring of timber, that I can now do it with great ease and perfection, which do please me mightily.
This fellow Deane is a conceited fellow, and one that means the King a great deal of service, more of disservice to other people that go away with the profits which he cannot make; but, however, I learn much of him, and he is, I perceive, of great use to the King in his place, and so I shall give him all the encouragement I can.
Home by water, and having wrote a letter for my wife to my Lady Sandwich to copy out to send this night’s post, I to the office, and wrote there myself several things, and so home to supper and bed. My mind being troubled to think into what a temper of neglect I have myself flung my wife into by my letting her learn to dance, that it will require time to cure her of, and I fear her going into the country will but make her worse; but only I do hope in the meantime to spend my time well in my office, with more leisure than while she is here.
Hebden, to-day in the coach, did tell me how he is vexed to see things at Court ordered as they are by nobody that attends to business, but every man himself or his pleasures. He cries up my Lord Ashley to be almost the only man that he sees to look after business; and with that ease and mastery, that he wonders at him. He cries out against the King’s dealing so much with goldsmiths, and suffering himself to have his purse kept and commanded by them.
He tells me also with what exact care and order the States of Holland’s stores are kept in their Yards, and every thing managed there by their builders with such husbandry as is not imaginable; which I will endeavour to understand further, if I can by any means learn.

a pinion mistaken
for the remains of an archangel

ought to point
to other places

to drinking away the night
and letting dance cure fear

but we see only a wonder
a kept thing

managed with such husbandry
as is imaginable


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 6 June 1663.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

100% post-consumer

Up and to read a little, and by and by the carver coming, I directed him how to make me a neat head for my viall that is making. About 10 o’clock my wife and I, not without some discontent, abroad by coach, and I set her at her father’s; but their condition is such that she will not let me see where they live, but goes by herself when I am out of sight. Thence to my brother’s, taking care for a passage for my wife the next week in a coach to my father’s, and thence to Paul’s Churchyard, where I found several books ready bound for me; among others, the new Concordance of the Bible, which pleases me much, and is a book I hope to make good use of. Thence, taking the little History of England with me, I went by water to Deptford, where Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten attending the Pay; I dined with them, and there Dr. Britton, parson of the town, a fine man and good company, dined with us, and good discourse. After dinner I left them and walked to Redriffe, and thence to White Hall, and at my Lord’s lodgings found my wife, and thence carried her to see my Lady Jemimah, but she was not within. So to Mr. Turner’s, and there saw Mr. Edward Pepys’s lady, who my wife concurs with me to be very pretty, as most women we ever saw. So home, and after a walk in the garden a little troubled to see my wife take no more pleasure with Ashwell, but neglect her and leave her at home. Home to supper and to bed.

make me a head
that will let me see where I am
out of books and hope

use a history of arson
to turn me to ash


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 5 June 1663.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Want, Need

Hunger’s the lesson best learned
from tasting with your hands.

Which is to say: before you
can eat, first you must skin

what refuses to yield, stoop
to plant deep in the soil

a branch or a seed that might grow
to fill the outline of your need.

Do you know what you really need?
I don’t either. All I know

is some days my longing is a wing
stretched bright across a quivering

spine. Some days it’s a road
at the end of which a furnace glows,

and not an inn on the way there
where the broth has not grown cold.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

The life before

This entry is part 15 of 15 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2016

Dark wings like a damp umbrella—
the smell of rain before rain itself.

Light a sheet beaten with spoons,
glancing mercurial off water.

High on cliff ledges, rare birds’ nests.
Mummies in caves, prim with drawn knees.

What you touched in me: medallion with raised edges.

Mummies in caves, prim with dawn knees.
High on cliff ledges, rare birds’ nests.

Glancing mercurial off water,
light a sheet beaten with spoons.

The smell of rain before rain itself.
Dark wings like a damp umbrella.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

The coming storm

Up betimes, and my wife and Ashwell and I whiled away the morning up and down while they got themselves ready, and I did so watch to see my wife put on drawers, which poor soul she did, and yet I could not get off my suspicions, she having a mind to go into Fenchurch Street before she went out for good and all with me, which I must needs construe to be to meet Pembleton, when she afterwards told me it was to buy a fan that she had not a mind that I should know of, and I believe it is so. Specially I did by a wile get out of my boy that he did not yesterday go to Pembleton’s or thereabouts, but only was sent all that time for some starch, and I did see him bringing home some, and yet all this cannot make my mind quiet.
At last by coach I carried her to Westminster Hall, and they two to Mrs. Bowyer to go from thence to my wife’s father’s and Ashwell to hers, and by and by seeing my wife’s father in the Hall, and being loth that my wife should put me to another trouble and charge by missing him to-day, I did employ a porter to go from a person unknown to tell him his daughter was come to his lodgings, and I at a distance did observe him, but, Lord! what a company of questions he did ask him, what kind of man I was, and God knows what. So he went home, and after I had staid in the Hall a good while, where I heard that this day the Archbishop of Canterbury, Juxon, a man well spoken of by all for a good man, is dead; and the Bishop of London is to have his seat. Home by water, where by and by comes Dean Honiwood, and I showed him my double horizontal diall, and promise to give him one, and that shall be it. So, without eating or drinking, he went away to Mr. Turner’s, where Sir J. Minnes do treat my Lord Chancellor and a great deal of guests to-day with a great dinner, which I thank God I do not pay for; and besides, I doubt it is too late for any man to expect any great service from my Lord Chancellor, for which I am sorry, and pray God a worse do not come in his room.
So I to dinner alone, and so to my chamber, and then to the office alone, my head aching and my mind in trouble for my wife, being jealous of her spending the day, though God knows I have no great reason. Yet my mind is troubled. By and by comes Will Howe to see us, and walked with me an hour in the garden, talking of my Lord’s falling to business again, which I am glad of, and his coming to lie at his lodgings at White Hall again.
The match between Sir J. Cutts and my Lady Jemimah, he says, is likely to go on; for which I am glad.
In the Hall to-day Dr. Pierce tells me that the Queen begins to be brisk, and play like other ladies, and is quite another woman from what she was, of which I am glad. It may be, it may make the King like her the better, and forsake his two mistresses, my Lady Castlemaine and Stewart.
He gone we sat at the office till night, and then home, where my wife is come, and has been with her father all the afternoon, and so home, and she and I to walk in the garden, giving ear to her discourse of her father’s affairs, and I found all well.
So after putting things in order at my office, home to supper and to bed.

the soul of suspicion
about all this quiet

they should employ me
at a company of questions

a man well spoken
for a dead man

falling and coming to lie
like brisk ice in the discourse of air


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 4 June 1663.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

In the country of grief

It is midsummer, or the time
just before rain.

All day workers dig in the soil
to set a french drain down.

As they turn stones aside,
worms writhe in a frenzy of light.

Meanwhile in the country of grief
writers and scholars begin

to draft petitions, wondering
how soon they might have to go

into hiding. A woman has just
been elected vice president,

but she and all other women
are told they should expect

to be catcalled and shamed
in public. In the country

of grief, the trains fill
and fill all night

with desperate pedestrians.
Nameless bodies begin

to turn up in the fields
at dawn. Such sovereignty

feels both familiar and
shockingly new. Fleeing

before the impending storm,
small creatures run blind

into ditches and traps.
Thunderclouds spit

like loudmouths with no
regard for law or protocol.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Sad times.