Via Negativa

January 21, 2016 by Luisa A. Igloria

Mammatus

What kind of cloud is that? our traveling
companion asked, peering at the bobbled

masses suspended like teats on the underside
of a thunderstorm, like follicles of cream—

And if snow or rain fell now,
tilting back our heads

would we most clearly resemble
our ongoing hunger, would we open

and open as in that first instinctive
prising-then-latching, that gasping

for breath between the beginning
and the rest of the curving track—

In response to Via Negativa: Impediment.

January 20, 2016 by Luisa A. Igloria

Against Oblivion

They called your name once, twice,
thrice to keep the cord
from snapping

To call the frightened bird
of your spirit back
to its bamboo cage

I found the cloth on which those
mystical letters had been embroidered—
I know now why I may not say them

In response to Via Negativa: Self-conscious.

January 20, 2016May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Up betimes and to the office, where all the morning. Dined at home, and Mr. Deane of Woolwich with me, talking about the abuses of the yard. Then to the office about business all the afternoon with great pleasure, seeing myself observed by every body to be the only man of business of us all, but Mr. Coventry. So till late at night, and then home to supper and bed.

talking about abuse
I see myself
served by every body
the only oven

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 20 January 1662/63.

January 20, 2016May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

First blood

Up and to White Hall, and while the Duke is dressing himself I went to wait on my Lord Sandwich, whom I found not very well, and Dr. Clerke with him. He is feverish, and hath sent for Mr. Pierce to let him blood, but not being in the way he puts it off till night, but he stirs not abroad to-day. Then to the Duke, and in his closett discoursed as we use to do, and then broke up. That done, I singled out Mr. Coventry into the Matted Gallery, and there I told him the complaints I meet every day about our Treasurer’s or his people’s paying no money, but at the goldsmith’s shops, where they are forced to pay fifteen or twenty sometimes per cent. for their money, which is a most horrid shame, and that which must not be suffered. Nor is it likely that the Treasurer (at least his people) will suffer Maynell the Goldsmith to go away with 10,000l. per annum, as he do now get, by making people pay after this manner for their money.
We were interrupted by the Duke, who called Mr. Coventry aside for half an hour, walking with him in the gallery, and then in the garden, and then going away I ended my discourse with Mr. Coventry. But by the way Mr. Coventry was saying that there remained nothing now in our office to be amended but what would do of itself every day better and better, for as much as he that was slowest, Sir W. Batten, do now begin to look about him and to mind business. At which, God forgive me! I was a little moved with envy, but yet I am glad, and ought to be, though it do lessen a little my care to see that the King’s service is like to be better attended than it was heretofore.
Thence by coach to Mr. Povy’s, being invited thither by [him] came a messenger this morning from him, where really he made a most excellent and large dinner, of their variety, even to admiration, he bidding us, in a frolique, to call for what we had a mind, and he would undertake to give it us: and we did for prawns, swan, venison, after I had thought the dinner was quite done, and he did immediately produce it, which I thought great plenty, and he seems to set off his rest in this plenty and the neatness of his house, which he after dinner showed me, from room to room, so beset with delicate pictures, and above all, a piece of perspective in his closett in the low parler; his stable, where was some most delicate horses, and the very-racks painted, and mangers, with a neat leaden painted cistern, and the walls done with Dutch tiles, like my chimnies. But still, above all things, he bid me go down into his wine-cellar, where upon several shelves there stood bottles of all sorts of wine, new and old, with labells pasted upon each bottle, and in the order and plenty as I never saw books in a bookseller’s shop; and herein, I observe, he puts his highest content, and will accordingly commend all that he hath, but still they deserve to be so. Here dined with me Dr. Whore and Mr. Scawen.
Therewith him and Mr. Bland, whom we met by the way, to my Lord Chancellor’s, where the King was to meet my Lord Treasurer, &c., many great men, to settle the revenue of Tangier. I staid talking awhile there, but the King not coming I walked to my brother’s, where I met my cozen Scotts (Tom not being at home) and sent for a glass of wine for them, and having drunk we parted, and I to the Wardrobe talking with Mr. Moore about my law businesses, which I doubt will go ill for want of time for me to attend them.
So home, where I found Mrs. Lodum speaking with my wife about her kinswoman which is offered my wife to come as a woman to her.
So to the office and put things in order, and then home and to bed, it being my great comfort that every day I understand more and more the pleasure of following of business and the credit that a man gets by it, which I hope at last too will end in profit.
This day, by Dr. Clerke, I was told the occasion of my Lord Chesterfield’s going and taking his lady (my Lord Ormond’s daughter) from Court. It seems he not only hath been long jealous of the Duke of York, but did find them two talking together, though there were others in the room, and the lady by all opinions a most good, virtuous woman. He, the next day (of which the Duke was warned by somebody that saw the passion my Lord Chesterfield was in the night before), went and told the Duke how much he did apprehend himself wronged, in his picking out his lady of the whole Court to be the subject of his dishonour; which the Duke did answer with great calmness, not seeming to understand the reason of complaint, and that was all that passed but my Lord did presently pack his lady into the country in Derbyshire, near the Peake; which is become a proverb at Court, to send a man’s wife to the Devil’s arse a’ Peake, when she vexes him.
This noon I did find out Mr. Dixon at Whitehall, and discoursed with him about Mr. Wheatly’s daughter for a wife for my brother Tom, and have committed it to him to enquire the pleasure of her father and mother concerning it. I demanded 300l..

blood in the night
they say nothing about it to her

take dinner in a room beset
with delicate pictures

where horses painted
like shelves for war

pass with great calmness
into the devil’s wheat

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 19 January 1662/63.

January 19, 2016January 19, 2016 by Luisa A. Igloria

Coy Anatomies

No one promised there would be signposts.
So I found my way best, closing my eyes

and trying to recall what stood there
the last time— a pair of ancient magnolias

crowding the scrap of yard, machine shop
on the street corner. Rows of apartments

painted ghastly pink next to the yellow
shingled hotel. When I sat down to dinner

in the Japanese restaurant, before tea
was poured I recognized the paneling,

the wide fireplace studded with river stones;
stands of ancient bamboo on the periphery—

how did it come to pass that price lists
for hibachi and all-you-can-eat lunch

were pinned beside the stately double doors?
Someone, something else lived there before,

wanting a quieter life. In the taxi,
the radio was on: a voice speaking of how

fakery abounds— unless you have
an expert eye, it’s hard to tell

if a deep red carpet scrolled with vines
and curling branches was woven in Iran

or China. Bounty of fruit spread out
at every stall in the crowded streets—

muskmelons, sapodillas, masaflora;
and always, in the middle of them all,

one cheek cut open under a plastic film
as though to swear: surface matches surface.

In response to Via Negativa: Cezanne's Doubt.

January 19, 2016January 19, 2016 by Jean Morris

Cézanne’s Doubt

Cézanne's painting Mont Sainte Victoire

He comes here daily,
endlessly repeats the same motif,
his whole existence focused
on the mountain, on the struggle
to relate the scene before him
to the one appearing on his canvas,
stays until the light fades,
packs his things and,
unappeased, tramps home,
begins again tomorrow.

Cézanne’s agony, the doubt
he feels about the value of his work,
stems just from this: he starts
not with a given image, ready-made,
but seeks instead to make anew
each time the sense we have
of looking at and living in the world –
and thus creating it.

After Gabriel Josipovici, Whatever Happened to Modernism? Chapter 8: “A Universe for the First Time Bereft of All Signposts.”

Writer and book blogger Victoria Best recently conducted a long and wonderful interview with the novelist and critic Gabriel Josipovici that makes you want to rush off and read/re-read his books – I did, and found the cadences of his critical writing so lovely they were almost a poem.

January 18, 2016May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Impediment

(Lord’s day). Up, and after the barber had done, and I had spoke with Mr. Smith (whom I sent for on purpose to speak of Field’s business, who stands upon 250l. before he will release us, which do trouble me highly), and also Major Allen of the Victualling Office about his ship to be hired for Tangier, I went to church, and thence home to dinner alone with my wife, very pleasant, and after dinner to church again, and heard a dull, drowsy sermon, and so home and to my office, perfecting my vows again for the next year, which I have now done, and sworn to in the presence of Almighty God to observe upon the respective penalties thereto annexed, and then to Sir W. Pen’s (though much against my will, for I cannot bear him, but only to keep him from complaint to others that I do not see him) to see how he do, and find him pretty well, and ready to go abroad again.

the peak stands
alone as a drowsy god

against my plain
and ready road

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 18 January 1662/63.

January 18, 2016May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Drunkard’s progress

Waked early with my mind troubled about our law matters, but it came into my mind that ἐκ ἡμῖν καὶ οὐκ &c. of Epictetus, which did put me to a great deal of ease, it being a saying of great reason.
Up to the office, and there sat Mr. Coventry, Mr. Pett, new come to town, and I. I was sorry for signing a bill and guiding Mr. Coventry to sign a bill to Mr. Creed for his pay as Deputy Treasurer to this day, though the service ended 5 or 6 months ago, which he perceiving did blot out his name afterwards, but I will clear myself to him from design in it. Sat till two o’clock and then home to dinner, and Creed with me, and after dinner, to put off my mind’s trouble, I took Creed by coach and to the Duke’s playhouse, where we did see “The Five Hours” entertainment again, which indeed is a very fine play, though, through my being out of order, it did not seem so good as at first; but I could discern it was not any fault in the play. Thence with him to the China alehouse, and there drank a bottle or two, and so home, where I found my wife and her brother discoursing about Mr. Ashwell’s daughter, whom we are like to have for my wife’s woman, and I hope it may do very well, seeing there is a necessity of having one. So to the office to write letters, and then home to supper and to bed.