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Posted on by Dave Bonta

Politics

Up betimes and to my office, met to pass Mr. Pitt’s (anon Sir J. Lawson’s Secretary and Deputy Treasurer) accounts for the voyage last to the Streights, wherein the demands are strangely irregular, and I dare not oppose it alone for making an enemy and do no good, but only bring a review upon my Lord Sandwich, but God knows it troubles my heart to see it, and to see the Comptroller, whose duty it is, to make no more matter of it. At noon home for an hour to dinner, and so to the office public and private till late at night, so home to supper and bed with my father.

where the demands are strange
are for making an enemy

do I know my heart whose duty
is to make more at the public supper


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 16 April 1663.

Posted on by Kristin Berkey-Abbott

One Intentional Mistake

how for years I was taught:
fly low under the radar.
Luisa Igloria, “Only“

Amish quilters made intentional mistakes
because only God can craft
items of perfection.

I make mistakes without precision,
scattering them across my work
with great abandon, as if to ward
off evil spirits.

Those spirits will move
on to haunt those who are too proud
of their precise stitches, their perfect
children, their houses ready to grace
the cover of glossy magazines.

I fly under the radar
of every evil spirit with my chaotic
collection of art supplies spread
out across every surface, children frolicking
in paint or mud.

But my children get their nightly baths
before being tucked into beds with bright
quilts with crooked seams. I will tell
them one last story
about the woman who abandoned
the neatness of numbered columns
for the spatter of paint and the magic
of fairy cakes in the overgrown garden.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

The subject, once again, of the Other

“… Some days, I feel my duty;
Some days, I love my work.” ~ Cornelius Eady

Today it is duty and work.
Today it is having to explain
why it is not ok to take
language or a story that isn’t yours
to begin with, and repurpose it
into something else under another label
which then makes it seem acceptable
under the rules of so-called creative
engagement. It cannot be called
collaboration if the other party
is not privy to what has been done.
It does not bear the spirit
of collaboration if the new
thing created by redaction turns
upon the original to make it seem
a false representation of itself.
And so today it is both duty and work,
because though I too love the work I do
I feel the obligation to attest
to lived truths that precede language
or the poem or any belief
that observation is simply a matter
of what you saw—
Even if I spoke or wrote and revised
all day, history is almost always
the narrative of harm
that has already been done
to others like me.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Cruise ship

Up betimes, and after talking with my father awhile, I to my office, and there hard at it till almost noon, and then went down the river with Maynes, the purveyor, to show a ship’s lading of Norway goods, and called at Sir W. Warren’s yard, and so home to dinner.
After dinner up with my wife and Ashwell a little to the Tryangle, and so I down to Deptford by land about looking out a couple of catches fitted to be speedily set forth in answer to a letter of Mr. Coventry’s to me. Which done, I walked back again, all the way reading of my book of Timber measure, comparing it with my new Sliding Rule brought home this morning with great pleasure.
Taking boat again I went to Shishe’s yard, but he being newly gone out towards Deptford I followed him thither again, and there seeing him I went with him and pitched upon a couple, and so by water home, it being late, past 8 at night, the wind cold, and I a little weary. So home to my office, then to supper and bed.

on a river in Norway
well lit
the land looking back


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 15 April 1663.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Housekeeper

Up betimes to my office, where busy till 8 o’clock that Sir W. Batten, Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Pen and I down by barge to Woolwich, to see “The Royal James” launched, where she has been under repair a great while. We staid in the yard till almost noon, and then to Mr. Falconer’s to a dinner of fish of our own sending, and when it was just ready to come upon the table, word is brought that the King and Duke are come, so they all went away to shew themselves, while I staid and had a little dish or two by myself, resolving to go home, and by the time I had dined they came again, having gone to little purpose, the King, I believe, taking little notice of them. So they to dinner, and I staid a little with them, and so good bye. I walked to Greenwich, studying the slide rule for measuring of timber, which is very fine. Thence to Deptford by water, and walked through the yard, and so walked to Redriffe, and so home pretty weary, to my office, where anon they all came home, the ship well launched, and so sat at the office till 9 at night, and I longer doing business at my office, and so home to supper, my father being come, and to bed.
Sir G. Carteret tells me to-night that he perceives the Parliament is likely to make a great bustle before they will give the King any money; will call all things into question; and, above all, the expences of the Navy; and do enquire into the King’s expences everywhere, and into the truth of the report of people being forced to sell their bills at 15 per cent. loss in the Navy; and, lastly, that they are in a very angry pettish mood at present, and not likely to be better.

she has fish on the table
and little time to little purpose

taking little notice
of the little green yard

and the night like any money
will call things into question

and everywhere the people
being forced to sell their ills


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 14 April 1663.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Unwinding

It doesn’t matter
what kind of day

I’ve had— I always
have a hard time falling

asleep. In the trees,
in the dark, I hear

the elongated molecules of owl
calls, the signature elegies

of frogs at the river’s edge.
I try to still the hovering shapes

of thoughts that want to graze
on the meadow after I’ve pulled close

the paddock gate. I was taught
to believe that even the longest

devotions find their reason,
if not their reward. The clock

with no face flashes amber
numbers on the ceiling— mirror

surface to my own, lying here,
listening to my own inner pulsing.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Happy Hour.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Mr. Fix-it

Up by five o’clock and to my office, where hard at work till towards noon, and home and eat a bit, and so going out met with Mr. Mount my old acquaintance, and took him in and drank a glass or two of wine to him and so parted, having not time to talk together, and I with Sir W. Batten to the Stillyard, and there eat a lobster together, and Wyse the King’s fishmonger coming in we were very merry half an hour, and so by water to Whitehall, and by and by being all met we went in to the Duke and there did our business and so away, and anon to the Tangier Committee, where we had very fine discourse from Dr. Walker and Wiseman, civilians, against our erecting a court-merchant at Tangier, and well answered in many things by my Lord Sandwich (whose speaking I never till now observed so much to be very good) and Sir R. Ford.
By and by the discourse being ended, we fell to my Lord Rutherford’s dispatch, which do not please him, he being a Scott, and one resolved to scrape every penny that he can get by any way, which the Committee will not agree to. He took offence at something and rose away, without taking leave of the board, which all took ill, though nothing said but only by the Duke of Albemarle, who said that we ought to settle things as they ought to be, and if he will not go upon these terms another man will, no doubt. Here late, quite finishing things against his going, and so rose, and I walked home, being accompanied by Creed to Temple Bar, talking of this afternoon’s passage, and so I called at the Wardrobe in my way home, and there spoke at the Horn tavern with Mr. Moore a word or two, but my business was with Mr. Townsend, who is gone this day to his country house, about sparing Charles Pepys some money of his bills due to him when he can, but missing him lost my labour.
So walked home, finding my wife abroad, at my aunt, Wight’s, who coming home by and by, I home to supper and to bed.

my old acquaintance wine
is a wise answer to every offense

it ought to settle things
as they ought to be

and not another word
about sparing my wife


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 13 April 1663.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Recalibrate

How easily I sink,
overtaken by the hours.

Were I to pause
I fear I might fall asleep

in the middle of the room.
It is such an effort

sometimes to just be
the fixed point of a compass

—not at all easy
even to give oneself

no other reward
but rest.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Happy hour

(Lord’s day). Lay till 8 o’clock, which I have not done a great while, then up and to church, where I found our pew altered by taking some of the hind pew to make ours bigger, because of the number of women, more by Sir J. Minnes company than we used to have.
Home to dinner, and after dinner, intending to go to Chelsey to my Lord Sandwich, my wife would needs go with me, though she walked on foot to Whitehall. Which she did and staid at my Lord’s lodgings while Creed and I took a turn at Whitehall, but no coach to be had, and so I returned to them and sat talking till evening, and then got a coach and to Gray’s Inn walks, where some handsome faces, and so home and there to supper, and a little after 8 o’clock to bed, a thing I have not done God knows when.
Coming home to-night, a drunken boy was carrying by our constable to our new pair of stocks to handsel them, being a new pair and very handsome.

a clock with no face
after 8 o’clock I have no when

a drunken pair tocks
hand in hand


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 12 April 1663.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Mother; & Shadow, Shadow

This entry is part 9 of 15 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2016

At the army hospital, whose nipple
did they put in my mouth after I
slid out and through her? That first
night and the rest that came after,

whose arms received the wrapped
bundle of me (in those days before
Pampers or vinyl diaper covers),
that soon I must have soaked

with my own effluvia? I know
they never were farther apart
or closer than that day; later,
through the winding years, one

always in the next room,
or at most a floor below
in the split-level bungalow
we shared. To this day,

what they knew suspends
like a gauzy drape above my head,
around my shoulders as I sift
in my own rooms, trying to write

again toward their secrets: older
and younger, sisters yoked by that
most domestic space of the womb
and what issues from it.

In what way and what did it signify
how each in turn or at the same time
was loved by my father? —for he
is the other shadow in this

unfinished tale. Two being dead,
only one of them perhaps could put
my questions to rest—but she sits
in the house of her diminishing

faculties, unconscious
of the echolalia that’s crept
into her speech… In a moment
I’ll put these threads aside,

as the hour grows late. But never
do they leave me completely alone—
at table, at the stove, attending
to my work or my own

housekeeping, I’ll feel the fierce
press of their shadows in the old
ways: triumvirate to all I do,
dreaming, sleeping, waking.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.