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Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Dear editor, dear reader, you wrote

of the earnestness in my (speaker’s) tone, of how her poems have at their heart concerns outside the self, which are also concerns within the self: meditations on massacre and greed, our great consuming appetites, our endless griefs, our pockets full of disaster, loose change of fortunes brought by the winds of commerce and calamity. How to answer, you ask? And then so smartly you say, by witnessing, in the tradition of documentary poetics. Coin for coin, money for money. The ledger’s filled with such scribbling. The mail brings your bill of return, wherein you send regrets, say you longed for a particular allowance for the gray, the deepening that comes from specificity and contradiction. How have you not noticed the details? Hummingbird drinking from a shattered dish. Fingers, breasts, and pelvises uncovered from the earth of hasty burial. The fallen, the fallen, the fallen whose faces are mostly dark, even after all this time.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Ovine.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Ovine

Up exceedingly early to go to the Comptroller, but he not being up and it being a very fine, bright, moonshine morning I went and walked all alone twenty turns in Cornhill, from Gracious Street corner to the Stockes and back again, from 6 o’clock till past 7, so long that I was weary, and going to the Comptroller’s thinking to find him ready, I found him gone, at which I was troubled, and being weary went home, and from thence with my wife by water to Westminster, and put her to my father Bowyer’s (they being newly come out of the country), but I could not stay there, but left her there. I to the Hall and there met with Col. Slingsby. So hearing that the Duke of York is gone down this morning, to see the ship sunk yesterday at Woolwich, he and I returned by his coach to the office, and after that to dinner. After dinner he came to me again and sat with me at my house, and among other discourse he told me that it is expected that the Duke will marry the Lord Chancellor’s daughter at last which is likely to be the ruin of Mr. Davis and my Lord Barkley, who have carried themselves so high against the Chancellor; Sir Chas. Barkley swearing that he and others had lain with her often, which all believe to be a lie.
He and I in the evening to the Coffee House in Cornhill, the first time that ever I was there, and I found much pleasure in it, through the diversity of company and discourse.
Home and found my wife at my Lady Batten’s, and have made a bargain to go see the ship sunk at Woolwich, where both the Sir Williams are still since yesterday, and I do resolve to go along with them. From thence home and up to bed, having first been into my study, and to ease my mind did go to cast up how my cash stands, and I do find as near as I can that I am worth in money clear 240l., for which God be praised.
This afternoon there was a couple of men with me with a book in each of their hands, demanding money for pollmoney, and I overlooked the book and saw myself set down Samuel Pepys, gent. 10s. for himself and for his servants 2s., which I did presently pay without any dispute, but I fear I have not escaped so, and therefore I have long ago laid by 10l. for them, but I think I am not bound to discover myself.

We walk till weary, all in wool,
to dinner after dinner,
and in the evening go see the ship
sunk in the clear afternoon,
money for money
and self for escaped self.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 10 December 1660.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Dragonfly butt power

I guess I’m behind the times, but I didn’t realize until this morning that the long-time nature blogger known as Bug Girl — who I even follow on Twitter, though obviously not closely enough — has come out from behind the pseudonymn (she’s Dr. Gwen Pearson), started a pretty cool-sounding consulting business aimed at helping nature centers and researchers get online, and best of all, has a blog at Wired called “Charismatic Minifauna.” The latest post is especially link-worthy:

The ability of a dragonfly nymph to successfully snatch and grab food is directly related to its anus. The mouth-grabber (labium) is hydraulically activated. The dragonfly draws water in through the anus, clenches, then compresses its abdominal and thoracic muscles against the water-filled rectal chamber. This raises the internal body cavity pressure, and pushes the labium out –in a strike that takes 10 to 30 milliseconds.

The amount of internal pressure generated is about 6000 Pa, or 6 kPa; equivalent to 0.87 psi (pounds per square inch). That doesn’t seem like a lot, until you consider that big nymphs only weigh 100mg (0.0002 lbs), so generating almost a pound of pressure WITH THEIR BUTT is pretty impressive. A Camaro turbocharger produces 7 psi, so you could say this little insect has 1/7th of a Camaro in its ass.

The other amazing function of a dragonfly nymph rectum is jet-propulsion. By un-clenching their rectum, water in the rectal chamber can be jetted out at high pressure, pushing the nymph forward through the water. The forward thrust generated is 1.5 g in 0.1 second; nymphs’ top speed is 10cm/second. They can throttle their rectum back to produce varying amounts of thrust through the water.

And there’s more. (Click through also for the link-references within the passage I quoted.)

Posted on by Dave Bonta

When the wind died

(Lord’s day). Being called up early by Sir W. Batten I rose and went to his house and he told me the ill news that he had this morning from Woolwich, that the Assurance (formerly Captain Holland’s ship, and now Captain Stoakes’s, designed for Guiny and manned and victualled), was by a gust of wind sunk down to the bottom. Twenty men drowned. Sir Williams both went by barge thither to see how things are, and I am sent to the Duke of York to tell him, and by boat with some other company going to Whitehall from the Old Swan. I went to the Duke. And first calling upon Mr. Coventry at his chamber, I went to the Duke’s bed-side, who had sat up late last night, and lay long this morning, who was much surprised, therewith.
This being done I went to chappell, and sat in Mr. Blagrave’s pew, and there did sing my part along with another before the King, and with much ease.
From thence going to my Lady I met with a letter from my Lord (which Andrew had been at my house to bring me and missed me), commanding me to go to Mr. Denham, to get a man to go to him to-morrow to Hinchinbroke, to contrive with him about some alterations in his house, which I did and got Mr. Kennard.
Dined with my Lady and staid all the afternoon with her, and had infinite of talk of all kind of things, especially of beauty of men and women, with which she seems to be much pleased to talk of.
From thence at night to Mr. Kennard and took him to Mr. Denham, the Surveyor’s. Where, while we could not speak with him, his chief man (Mr. Cooper) did give us a cup of good sack. From thence with Mr. Kennard to my Lady who is much pleased with him, and after a glass of sack there; we parted, having taken order for a horse or two for him and his servant to be gone to-morrow.
So to my father’s, where I sat while they were at supper, and I found my mother below stairs and pretty well.
Thence home, where I hear that the Comptroller had some business with me, and (with Giffin’s lanthorn) I went to him and there staid in discourse an hour ‘till late, and among other things he showed me a design of his, by the King’s making an Order of Knights of the Seal to give an encouragement for persons of honour to undertake the service of the sea, and he had done it with great pains and very ingeniously.
So home and to prayers and to bed.

The wind drowned
and went to his grave.
I miss his infinite talk at night
and his cup of good air.
And where am I,
a person of honor,
to undertake the service
of the sea?


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 9 December 1660.

Posted on by Todd Davis

Plummer’s Hollow hunting report

Our near-neighbor, the poet Todd Davis (whose work has appeared here in the past) included the following in an email on Saturday night. I thought it might be of general interest, especially for fans of meditation. —Dave

pileated woodpeckers on a dead tree

Still no deer. But another beautiful day in the woods. As you know, it snowed Friday night until about three in the morning. When I walked in at 5:45 a.m., the woods were striped in white and there was no need for a headlight: the snow on the ground was catching the light from the sliver of moon, making my path easy.

My blind was crushed to the ground by the weight of the snow. It’s a temporary blind, a tent essentially. I had to pull it back up, knock snow and ice from it, and make all kinds of ridiculous noise.

I had deer around me four different times today, but none afforded me a safe and merciful shot. Thus no deer. The ravens were quiet today, but the crows took up the chorus. I had a dead black cherry near and a pileated would knock on it every so often, asking me to open the door of my senses, stop me from day-dreaming or drowsing from lack of sleep.

I walked out at 5:30 p.m. The moon was back up and, without wind, all was silent, except for the railroad tracks in the valley. While my freezer and family may mourn no meat, it was still a day well spent.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

My face is a jar of honey/ you can look through*

Consider the mind of indirection,
how an arrow might travel through it

as through an amber-colored medium:
thickly spangled with motes and relics

from its previous lives— dangle
of severed insect legs, clumps of dust

or grains of pollen, parts of the hive
collapsed from collective industry

of what’s meant to sate the hunger—
And it might be difficult to navigate

one clear course from a given point
to its supposed destination,

for the minuscule pockets of air
traveling up and down are slower

than grill elevators, their pulleys oiled
with molasses— Still, the days grow long

to darken pools of collected gold: thick plot,
dense hold of what we hope will weather sweeter.

~ *after Mary Ruefle

Posted on by Dave Bonta

The gospel of wealth

To Whitehall to the Privy Seal, and thence to Mr. Pierces the Surgeon to tell them that I would call by and by to go to dinner. But I going into Westminster Hall met with Sir G. Carteret and Sir W. Pen (who were in a great fear that we had committed a great error of 100,000l. in our late account gone into the Parliament in making it too little), and so I was fain to send order to Mr. Pierces to come to my house; and also to leave the key of the chest with Mr. Spicer; wherein my Lord’s money is, and went along with Sir W. Pen by water to the office, and there with Mr. Huchinson we did find that we were in no mistake. And so I went to dinner with my wife and Mr. and Mrs. Pierce the Surgeon to Mr. Pierce, the Purser (the first time that ever I was at his house) who does live very plentifully and finely. We had a lovely chine of beef and other good things very complete and drank a great deal of wine, and her daughter played after dinner upon the virginals, and at night by lanthorn home again, and Mr. Pierce and his wife being gone home I went to bed, having drunk so much wine that my head was troubled and was not very well all night, and the wind I observed was rose exceedingly before I went to bed.

O tell me to come, leave
the key of the chest
with the surgeon.
Live plentifully and love
good things. Let the virginal
thorn pierce the rose.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 8 December 1660.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Because delight: an inter-writing

– after seon joon

Because delight is a little white boat
I will gather up my hair, hitch up my skirts,
and lower myself into its hold.

Because risk is a splintered seat
I will push off first with just the toe
of one foot before I lean and let go.

Because delight is a glistening applause
I will learn that I can lower my eyes
to the more homely sting of tears.

Because risk is a wind in the leaves
I will take what needs to be released
to a hill and open my hands.

Because delight is the small flame
in the altar of the eyes, I will be
apprentice acolyte.

Because risk is the god of our beating breath
I will row until my arms are bronzed
and muscled cadence.

Because delight is the yellow star of a crocus
I will tell the winter blooms of paper-
white that they are also loved.

Because risk is the radius of winter
I will not spend all its days
bargaining over the cost of spring.

Because delight is a name I know
I will practice my cursive
in the richest ink.

Because risk is a body I love
I will let it take me by the hand,
turn and turn me before the dip.

 

In response to thus: Three, with photograph.