Posts

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Concurrence

Up by very betimes and to my office, where all the morning till towards noon, and then by coach to Westminster Hall with Sir W. Pen, and while he went up to the House I walked in the Hall with Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, that I met there, talking about my business the other day with Holmes, whom I told my mind, and did freely tell how I do depend upon my care and diligence in my employment to bear me out against the pride of Holmes or any man else in things that are honest, and much to that purpose which I know he will make good use of. But he did advise me to take as few occasions as I can of disobliging Commanders, though this is one that every body is glad to hear that he do receive a check.
By and by the House rises and I home again with Sir W. Pen, and all the way talking of the same business, to whom I did on purpose tell him my mind freely, and let him see that it must be a wiser man than Holmes (in these very words) that shall do me any hurt while I do my duty. I to remember him of Holmes’s words against Sir J. Minnes, that he was a knave, rogue, coward, and that he will kick him and pull him by the ears, which he remembered all of them and may have occasion to do it hereafter to his owne shame to suffer them to be spoke in his presence without any reply but what I did give him, which, has caused all this feud. But I am glad of it, for I would now and then take occasion to let the world know that I will not be made a novice.
Sir W. Pen took occasion to speak about my wife’s strangeness to him and his daughter, and that believing at last that it was from his taking of Sarah to be his maid, he hath now put her away, at which I am glad.
He told me, that this day the King hath sent to the House his concurrence wholly with them against the Popish priests, Jesuits, &c., which gives great content, and I am glad of it. So home, whither my father comes and dines with us, and being willing to be merry with him I made myself so as much as I could, and so to the office, where we sat all the afternoon, and at night having done all my business I went home to my wife and father, and supped, and so to bed, my father lying with me in Ashwell’s bed in the red chamber.

the honest body is wiser
than any word

a presence without any reply
but the world

no novice to concurrence
it gives great content

and I am glad to be so
having done all my lying


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 2 April 1663.

Posted on by J Likha Yatco

From a Book of Days

Prompt 1: Take a draft or poem that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Unstitch from what isn’t working. Step away and refocus. Begin again.” Luisa A. Igloria, “A Poetry Prompt a Day: NaPoMo 2016”

in the beginning is a list of nations
of the world followed by their capitals:
Afghanistan, Kabul;
Albania, Tirana;
Algeria, Algiers;
Andora, Andorra la Vella
all the way to Yemen, Sanaa;
Yugoslavia, Belgrade;
Zambia, Lusaka;
Zimbabwe, Harare

where others may see in their minds’ eyes
beauty queens in swimsuits with sashes diagonally
draped across their voluptuousness,
in my geography lesson i roll those
countries’ names and capitals in my mouth,
taste them on my tongue like savory
and salted flesh seared to medium rare

thus did my yesterday begin, redolent of burnt wood, crackly paper,
a tinderbox of a building exploding on All Fools’ Day,
thus did our yesterday end with a volley of gunpowder meeting defiant
farmers’ flesh on the dry plains south of my country’s Manila

Posted on by Dave Bonta

April fool

Up betimes and abroad to my brother’s, but he being gone out I went to the Temple to my Cozen Roger Pepys, to see and talk with him a little; who tells me that, with much ado, the Parliament do agree to throw down Popery; but he says it is with so much spite and passion, and an endeavour of bringing all Non-conformists into the same condition, that he is afeard matters will not yet go so well as he could wish.
Thence back to my brother’s, in my way meeting Mr. Moore and talking with him about getting me some money, and calling at my brother’s they tell me that my brother is still abroad, and that my father is not yet up. At which I wondered, not thinking that he was come, though I expected him, because I looked for him at my house. So I up to his bedside and staid an hour or two talking with him. Among other things he tells me how unquiett my mother is grown, that he is not able to live almost with her, if it were not for Pall.
All other matters are as well as upon so hard conditions with my uncle Thomas we can expect them.
I left him in bed, being very weary, to come to my house to-night or tomorrow, when he pleases, and so I home, calling on the virginall maker, buying a rest for myself to tune my tryangle, and taking one of his people along with me to put it in tune once more, by which I learned how to go about it myself for the time to come.
So to dinner, my wife being lazily in bed all this morning. Ashwell and I dined below together, and a pretty girl she is, and I hope will give my wife and myself good content, being very humble and active, my cook maid do also dress my meat very well and neatly.
So to my office all the afternoon till night, and then home, calling at Sir W. Batten’s, where was Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Pen, I telling them how by my letter this day from Commissioner Pett I hear that his Stempeese he undertook for the new ship at Woolwich, which we have been so long, to our shame, in looking for, do prove knotty and not fit for service. Lord! how Sir J. Minnes, like a mad coxcomb, did swear and stamp, swearing that Commissioner Pett hath still the old heart against the King that ever he had, and that this was his envy against his brother that was to build the ship, and all the damnable reproaches in the world, at which I was ashamed, but said little; but, upon the whole, I find him still a fool, led by the nose with stories told by Sir W. Batten, whether with or without reason. So, vexed in my mind to see things ordered so unlike gentlemen, or men of reason, I went home and to bed.

I talk with the passion
of a nonconformist
yet wish for quiet

my tune is a tune
of night and knot
swearing at all the roaches in the world

I am on the whole
a fool to see things ordered
so unlike gentlemen of reason


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 1 April 1663.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Origin

This entry is part 5 of 15 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2016

Who left me,
if I was too young

to know? I look into
the bathroom mirror

and touch the forehead’s
porcelain shelf, the twin

arches of brows floating
in the shape of stilled

metronomes. These lips
a boat, a pod set loose

with cravings for salt,
green tea, pork rinds,

cracked black
pepper chips— Who left

in me this strain,
this penchant for looking

out of windows, probing
the soil for any trace

of indigo? Every day
the backyard quietly

erupts with spring.
And for each flag

hoisted from the depths,
I salute the cost.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Rider

…and to that purpose I lay long talking with my wife about my father’s coming, which I expect to-day, coming up with the horses brought up for my Lord. Up and to my office, where doing business all the morning, and at Sir W. Batten’s, whither Mr. Gauden and many others came to us about business. Then home to dinner, where W. Joyce came, and he still a talking impertinent fellow. So to the office again, and hearing by and by that Madam Clerke, Pierce, and others were come to see my wife I stepped in and staid a little with them, and so to the office again, where late, and so home to supper and to bed.

talking about her horses
all morning
a joy in her step


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 31 March 1663.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Coins

“three pieces of gold
for the dead…” – D. Bonta

Every other year or so the mail
brings a summons, a paper
of accounting, a kind of fatwa,
a notice of debt. She doesn’t know
where to begin to address it,
how to reconcile the life
that kept going, versus the cost.
Before the dead are lowered
into the grave, she knows custom
allows one bright coin to seal
each eyelid shut. When the vault
is drawn, by what light will their
currency matter, and to whom?

 

In response to Via Negativa: Gambler.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Surveillance society

Up betimes and found my weather-glass sunk again just to the same position which it was last night before I had any fire made in my chamber, which had made it rise in two hours time above half a degree. So to my office where all the morning and at the Glass–house, and after dinner by coach with Sir W. Pen I carried my wife and her woman to Westminster, they to visit Mrs. Ferrers and Clerke, we to the Duke, where we did our usual business, and afterwards to the Tangier Committee, where among other things we all of us sealed and signed the Contract for building the Mole with my Lord Tiviott, Sir J. Lawson, and Mr. Cholmeley. A thing I did with a very ill will, because a thing which I did not at all understand, nor any or few of the whole board. We did also read over the propositions for the Civill government and Law Merchant of the town, as they were agreed on this morning at the Glasshouse by Sir R. Ford and Sir W. Rider, who drew them, Mr. Povy and myself as a Committee appointed to prepare them, which were in substance but not in the manner of executing them independent wholly upon the Governor consenting to.
Thence to see my Lord Sandwich, who I found very merry and every day better and better. So to my wife, who waited my coming at my Lord’s lodgings, and took her up and by coach home, where no sooner come but to bed, finding myself just in the same condition I was lately by the extreme cold weather, my pores stopt and so my body all inflamed and itching. So keeping myself warm and provoking myself to a moderate sweat, and so somewhat better in the morning…

a glass fire
in my glass house

they build the whole
town in glass

who appointed them
to see and to find us

the body a flame
self provoking self


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 30 March 1663.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Ova

(Lord’s day). Waked as I used to do betimes, but being Sunday and very cold I lay long, it raining and snowing very hard, which I did never think it would have done any more this year.
Up and to church, home to dinner. After dinner in comes Mr. Moore, and sat and talked with us a good while; among other things telling me, that [neither] my Lord nor he are under apprehensions of the late discourse in the House of Commons, concerning resumption of Crowne lands, which I am very glad of.
He being gone, up to my chamber, where my wife and Ashwell and I all the afternoon talking and laughing, and by and by I a while to my office, reading over some papers which I found in my man William’s chest of drawers, among others some old precedents concerning the practice of this office heretofore, which I am glad to find and shall make use of, among others an oath, which the Principal Officers were bound to swear at their entrance into their offices, which I would be glad were in use still.
So home and fell hard to make up my monthly accounts, letting my family go to bed after prayers. I staid up long, and find myself, as I think, fully worth 670l.. So with good comfort to bed, finding that though it be but little, yet I do get ground every month. I pray God it may continue so with me.

sun and snow
which things are under hens

which amber
which old precedent

which ear at the entrance
to a hard monthly ground


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 29 March 1663.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Elegy in early spring

Here it is again, a thing
we might assign the name of herald.

Except that it is just a bird
with red-rouged breast, come into the tree

which has not leafed yet.
I think of the time I saw a photograph

of a man I had not seen in over
twenty years, a child not mine

locked in his arms. I recall
what I once read of grief:

how we mourn at least twice—
first, for the one who left;

and next for the self left behind. I lean
closer to the window, but the bird

is no sooner here than gone—
small bruise of color lifting

away from the twig. My own
face, blurry in the light;

reflection of itself receding
behind the unmoving pane of glass.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Gimpy

Up betimes and to my office, where all the morning. Dined at home and Creed with me, and though a very cold day and high wind, yet I took him by land to Deptford, my common walk, where I did some little businesses, and so home again walking both forwards and backwards, as much along the street as we could to save going by water.
So home, and after being a little while hearing Ashwell play on the tryangle, to my office, and there late, writing a chiding letter — to my poor father about his being so unwilling to come to an account with me, which I desire he might do, that I may know what he spends, and how to order the estate so as to pay debts and legacys as far as may be. So late home to supper and to bed.

high wind—
walking backwards along the street
my poor leg


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 28 March 1663.