Via Negativa

February 4, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Public servant

(Lord’s day). This day I first begun to go forth in my coat and sword, as the manner now among gentlemen is. To Whitehall. In my way heard Mr. Thomas Fuller preach at the Savoy upon our forgiving of other men’s trespasses, shewing among other things that we are to go to law never to revenge, but only to repayre, which I think a good distinction. So to White Hall; where I staid to hear the trumpets and kettle-drums, and then the other drums, which are much cried up, though I think it dull, vulgar musique. So to Mr. Fox’s, unbid; where I had a good dinner and special company. Among other discourse, I observed one story, how my Lord of Northwich, at a public audience before the King of France, made the Duke of Anjou cry, by making ugly faces as he was stepping to the King, but undiscovered. And how Sir Phillip Warwick’s lady did wonder to have Mr. Darcy send for several dozen bottles of Rhenish wine to her house, not knowing that the wine was his.
Thence to my Lord’s; where I am told how Sir Thomas Crew’s Pedro, with two of his countrymen more, did last night kill one soldier of four that quarrelled with them in the street, about 10 o’clock. The other two are taken; but he is now hid at my Lord’s till night, that he do intend to make his escape away.
So up to my Lady, and sat and talked with her long, and so to Westminster Stairs, and there took boat to the bridge, and so home, where I met with letters to call us all up to-morrow morning to Whitehall about office business.

I go forth
in my coat and sword
to drums and other drums,
a vulgar audience
making ugly faces,
not knowing the wine
where I kill the clock
that talked on
about business.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 3 February 1660/61.

February 4, 2014February 4, 2014 by Luisa A. Igloria

Last Call

“Let the pursers and clerks
make up their accounts…” – D. Bonta

Will it be held against me
that I have three rhinestone hairpins,
red Converse sneakers, and not a single
karaoke machine? Who will testify
to the justness of keeping a half-
slip embroidered with rosebuds
in the bottom of the sock drawer,
or that it was last worn at a First
Communion? Will the Bank of Final
and Never-to-be-Repeated Disastrous
Experiences agree to cashing one
more check, or better still, absolving
all debt? And when all offices close
for the rest of the season, will they
let me wait with a hopefully handsome
escort in the gazebo, instead of
in the sauna of no return?

In response to Via Negativa: Initiation.

February 4, 2014February 4, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Secondary school

This entry is part 12 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

I grew up with a woodstove
instead of a TV. I know all
the theme songs of oak.

If I could unlearn
the names of the birds,
how much freer their flight!

In a dream, I run
through my half-remembered high school
to catch a bus.

February 3, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Initiation

Early to Mr. Moore, and with him to Sir Peter Ball, who proffers my uncle Robert much civility in letting him continue in the grounds which he had hired of Hetley who is now dead.
Thence home, where all things in a hurry for dinner, a strange cook being come in the room of Slater, who could not come.
There dined here my uncle Wight and my aunt, my father and mother, and my brother Tom, Dr. Fairbrother and Mr. Mills, the parson, and his wife, who is a neighbour’s daughter of my uncle Robert’s, and knows my Aunt Wight and all her and my friends there; and so we had excellent company to-day.
After dinner I was sent for to Sir G. Carteret’s, where he was, and I found the Comptroller, who are upon writing a letter to the Commissioners of Parliament in some things a rougher stile than our last, because they seem to speak high to us.
So the Comptroller and I thence to a tavern hard by, and there did agree upon drawing up some letters to be sent to all the pursers and Clerks of the Cheques to make up their accounts. Then home; where I found the parson and his wife gone. And by and by the rest of the company, very well pleased, and I too; it being the last dinner I intend to make a great while, it having now cost me almost 15l. in three dinners within this fortnight. In the evening comes Sir W. Pen, pretty merry, to sit with me and talk, which we did for an hour or two, and so good night, and I to bed.

Let him continue
in the ground, he
who is now dead,
where all things hurry—
a strange company
who seem to speak.
Let the pursers and clerks
make up their accounts,
the parson rest, and
the great night come
to sit with night.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 2 February 1660/61.

February 3, 2014February 4, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Subnivean

This entry is part 11 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

Like varicose veins
in the thinning snow, the dark
tunnels of the voles.

My garbage is nothing
but coffee grounds, each morning
wrapped in its filter-shroud.

I miss summer:
those small millipedes that glide
across the bathroom floor.

February 2, 2014February 3, 2014 by Luisa A. Igloria

Tempering

Rice that’s fed to the gods must be allowed to sweeten in
a gourd: they like best the foam of its intoxicating ferment.

Oh most golden fruit, unblemished skin of melon or pear: meanwhile
we cook the rinds and boast about their notes of complex ferment.

An offering’s a gift: largesse, windfall, the best willingly
given up. No seed pearls that sour, then soon ferment.

And children sing in any tongue their mouths know how to give
shape to: what joy in that honey, before bitterness or its ferment.

Mornings, more often now, in the winter-bare trees, the birds bring
their small, brightly colored racket: I love that startling ferment.

I’ll lie down in my bed at night and pull you close as a sheet,
to dream of bees buzzing in the hive, their ambering ferment.

In response to thus: small stone (265).

February 2, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Imbolc

(Friday). A full office all this morning, and busy about answering the Commissioners of Parliament to their letter, wherein they desire to borrow two clerks of ours, which we will not grant them.
After dinner into London and bought some books, and a belt, and had my sword new furbished. To the alehouse with Mr. Brigden and W. Symons and drank together. At night home. So after a little music to bed, leaving my people up getting things ready against to-morrow’s dinner.

Ice is an answer
to desire we will
not grant. I don
new fur, den up
against tomorrow’s din.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 1 February 1660/61.

February 2, 2014February 4, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Primary school

This entry is part 10 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

Children in the woods:
at first I mistake their distant yelps
for coyotes.

When did I stop climbing trees?
Views are best when seasoned
with a little terror.

Once I found a dead cicada,
stuck half-way out
of its former self.

February 1, 2014 by Luisa A. Igloria

True Meridian

Where I wanted to go, years ago, seemed so far away:
a dream, a fantasy even, in the blue distance.

Not now what might be purchased, what comes with
a ticket, that place of no return in the blue distance.

All that glitters isn’t a rhinestone seam on a fishnet
stocking: the long hallway beckons in the blue distance.

And the hills will be there, but that city to which
you dedicate songs has receded in the blue distance.

This is the way it is for exiles, for poets, for lovers
who want to keep something pure in the blue distance.

For instance: that parapet where you leant as a child
to watch boats in the harbor, in the blue distance.

Spirits distilled from the lowly potato, the unassuming
birch: waters that have traveled from a blue distance.

Have you changed? and how? ask compatriots. What they mean,
really, is: have I also traversed the same blue distance?

On the eve of the lunar year I walked about with a saucer of salt,
a handful of augurs— Talismans to ground me in this blue distance.

In response to Via Negativa: Lay of the land.

February 1, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Inferno

This morning with Mr. Coventry at Whitehall about getting a ship to carry my Lord’s deals to Lynne, and we have chosen the Gift. Thence at noon to my Lord’s, where my Lady not well, so I eat a mouthfull of dinner there, and thence to the Theatre, and there sat in the pit among the company of fine ladys, &c.; and the house was exceeding full, to see Argalus and Parthenia, the first time that it hath been acted: and indeed it is good, though wronged by my over great expectations, as all things else are. Thence to my father’s to see my mother, who is pretty well after her journey from Brampton. She tells me my aunt is pretty well, yet cannot live long. My uncle pretty well too, and she believes would marry again were my aunt dead, which God forbid. So home.

We have chosen the gift of heat
and a pit fine and full.
The first time it is good, though wronged
by my over-great expectations,
as all things are.
I cannot believe in a dead God.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 31 January 1660/61.