Via Negativa

October 15, 2013October 15, 2013 by Luisa A. Igloria

Tendril

This entry is part 11 of 28 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Autumn 2013

It is the Past’s supreme italic
makes the Present mean—

~ Emily Dickinson, “Glass was the Street— in Tinsel Peril” (#1518)

My cities and estates are made of smoke
and poems, my résumé laced with ample
culs-de-sac. You must have known

I could not trade my mountains
for plains so desolate in the heat.
I longed for the absolving rain, erasure

of missteps: poor choices, my rush
to cash the currency before its prime.
But now the sight of any small

tenderness moves more than grief
that runs its salt into the soil:
a flower smaller than my finger-

nail bursts white upon the sill
then shrivels; and yet it gifts
its fragrance like a signature.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

October 14, 2013October 14, 2013 by Luisa A. Igloria

What’s Written is Not Always What’s Heard

This entry is part 10 of 28 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Autumn 2013

Once dressed in green, no hopes
fly south; instead they burn
their orange prayer flags.

The mallet and the string,
the shawm and the oboe. The single
reed that stirs when the water stirs.

And the cornets of brass, bright
relatives to the sickle: its rusted
bronze curve leaning against the wall.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

October 14, 2013May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

To my Lord’s in the morning, where I met with Captain Cuttance, but my Lord not being up I went out to Charing Cross, to see Major-general Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition. He was presently cut down, and his head and heart shown to the people, at which there was great shouts of joy. It is said, that he said that he was sure to come shortly at the right hand of Christ to judge them that now had judged him; and that his wife do expect his coming again.
Thus it was my chance to see the King beheaded at White Hall, and to see the first blood shed in revenge for the blood of the King at Charing Cross. From thence to my Lord’s, and took Captain Cuttance and Mr. Sheply to the Sun Tavern, and did give them some oysters. After that I went by water home, where I was angry with my wife for her things lying about, and in my passion kicked the little fine basket, which I bought her in Holland, and broke it, which troubled me after I had done it.
Within all the afternoon setting up shelves in my study. At night to bed.

In the morning to see a general
hanged, drawn and quartered,
his head and heart shown to the people,
great shouts of joy sure
to come shortly to the Lord.

Home, where I was angry with my wife
and kicked the basket I bought her
in Holland and broke it.

All afternoon setting up shelves.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 13 October 1660.

October 13, 2013May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Aquarium

Office day all the morning, and from thence with Sir W. Batten and the rest of the officers to a venison pasty of his at the Dolphin, where dined withal Col. Washington, Sir Edward Brett, and Major Norwood, very noble company. After dinner I went home, where I found Mr. Cooke, who told me that my Lady Sandwich is come to town to-day, whereupon I went to Westminster to see her, and found her at supper, so she made me sit down all alone with her, and after supper staid and talked with her, she showing me most extraordinary love and kindness, and do give me good assurance of my uncle’s resolution to make me his heir. From thence home and to bed.

The dolphin dined
on a sandwich all alone.
I talk with my ma.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 12 October 1660.

October 13, 2013May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

How Jefferson Heard Banjar (videopoem)

This entry is part 6 of 34 in the series Breakdown: The Banjo Poems

“The instrument proper to them is the Banjar, which they brought hither from Africa.” Thomas Jefferson, 1781. It would’ve been hard not to write a poem responding to that quote. It’s one of my personal favorites from the collection.

The clawhammer banjo here is played by my brother Steve, an old modal tune whose name neither of us can remember. I don’t strive for authenticity in these videos, but Jefferson’s “banjar” might’ve been played in a not dissimilar style, though it would’ve been made from a gourd and thus would’ve had a somewhat softer sound. It’s worth remembering that a little later, escaped slaves were told to “follow the drinking gourd” (the big dipper) to find their way north to Canada. A nightjar, of course, is any bird in the goatsucker family, including the whip-poor-Will (which has the delightful Latin name Caprimulgus vociferus).

Additional sounds are from freesound.org user Meffy Ellis, a recording of a swamp in Virginia. The images come from an old, hagiographic educational film in the Prelinger Archives, Jefferson and Monroe, directed by Stan Barnett. I don’t know if non-Americans will immediately recognize Monticello, the plantation house that Thomas Jefferson designed himself, but it’s a fairly iconic building, and shares the white domed roof with Jefferson’s other famous building, the Rotunda at the University of Virginia.

I recorded Steve playing a half-dozen banjo tunes in my living room on Friday evening. My voice-over is stitched together from several different readings. Sometimes I mess up one stanza and sometimes another, but I find if I read a poem four or five times in succession, I can pick and choose the best parts from each.

Update: I made an alternate version of the audio track including the quote from Jefferson (which appears on-screen in the video). It’s on SoundCloud.

October 13, 2013October 13, 2013 by Luisa A. Igloria

To the Patron Saint of the Impossible

(Santa Rita da Cascia,
Ang Banal ng Hindi Mangyayari)

A little cloud of white bees
calmly entered and exited
your open mouth as you lay
in your bassinet, moving
your parents and onlookers
to conclude that surely,
your life ahead would be marked
by purpose and industry— Child
bride, at twelve you pushed your first-
born out into the world, itself no small
miracle in an age of sepsis, superstition,
dogma, while your husband must have been
out carousing, fueling those long-running
fires of vendetta streaking toward his murder.
So there you are in the tapestry and
stained glass window, or walking
with a skull cradled in your hand,
your vestments of ornate brocade
shaken out of storage for church
processions down dusty streets—
Oh see how we gawk at your porcelain mask
with its bright stigmata lasered on your brow,
that red third eye proclaiming the gospel
of an otherworld. Oh how the tired shopkeepers
arrange their merchandise of salted fish,
and housewives in their shabby dusters
finger the halo of pink plastic rollers
hidden in their hair: how we startle
then take heart at your approach, feel
kindred, incorruptible, beatified
when impossible hope visits
our wretched lives.

In response to Via Negativa: Carnival.

October 12, 2013May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Carnival

In the morning to my Lord’s, where I met with Mr. Creed, and with him and Mr. Blackburne to the Rhenish wine house, where we sat drinking of healths a great while, a thing which Mr. Blackburne formerly would not upon any terms have done. After we had done there Mr. Creed and I to the Leg in King Street, to dinner, where he and I and my Will had a good udder to dinner, and from thence to walk in St. James’s Park, where we observed the several engines at work to draw up water, with which sight I was very much pleased.
Above all the rest, I liked best that which Mr. Greatorex brought, which is one round thing going within all with a pair of stairs round; round which being laid at an angle of 45 deg., do carry up the water with a great deal of ease. Here, in the Park, we met with Mr. Salisbury, who took Mr. Creed and me to the Cockpitt to see “The Moore of Venice,” which was well done. Burt acted the Moore; ‘by the same token, a very pretty lady that sot by me, cried to see Desdemona smothered.
From thence with Mr. Creed to Hercules Pillars, where we drank and so parted, and I went home.

We sat drinking
of a great udder,
where we observed
the several
engines at work:
one round thing
going with a pair
of stairs round,
round as a reed
that cried to see
a mother where
we drank.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 11 October 1660.

October 12, 2013 by Luisa A. Igloria

The Hand Pushes the Needle Through the Splice

“For three times, by the violence of the wind and sea, we were turned back; and the fourth time, without any contrary wind, we remained motionless for more than an hour, although our caracoa had ninety barrigas.”

~ The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 27 of 55 1636-37: Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century

My great strength is my great weakness:
rare spice saved for the special occasion,

saffron the sibling of gold. On any other day
its rougher relatives, say salt, or pepper.

Luxury of milk, extravagance of butter,
dwindling stocks once new from the field:

I’ve saved this much, small stores of things
packed tight in the hold, a line of vessels

traveling in convoy down a channel
of traitorous years. Flags of stars

furled tighter than fists until the one
sitting at the prow pushes the marling spike

through the braid, opens her heart and heaves
her heartsick songs full into the wind.

In response to small stone (258).

October 11, 2013October 11, 2013 by Luisa A. Igloria

The heart of what it is we want to say

is always the heart of the question, isn’t it?

One that’s difficult to answer except perhaps
in the form of another question: that is, we feel it

there, lodged in the space close to the gut,
which is just fingers away from the heart,

and so really they might as well be the same
barometer of feeling or non-feeling,

there being no easy half measures,
no in-betweens— Either you eat the fruit

or you leave it in the tree, either you leave
the slug on the leaf or reach for the sear

of salt, either you leave the bullet shell
lodged long near the spine, or risk forced

entry— there being no real argument that doesn’t
engage that space in the center of us all, that space

where a seed might grow into thought, into song,
into a child, into speech, into a reckoning.

In response to Via Negativa: Writer of Color.

October 11, 2013May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Noon Prayer

Office day all the morning. In the afternoon with the upholster seeing him do things to my mind, and to my content he did fit my chamber and my wife’s. At night comes Mr. Moore, and staid late with me to tell me how Sir Hards. Waller (who only pleads guilty), Scott, Coke, Peters, Harrison, &c. were this day arraigned at the bar at the Sessions House, there being upon the bench the Lord Mayor, General Monk, my Lord of Sandwich, &c.; such a bench of noblemen as had not been ever seen in England!
They all seem to be dismayed, and will all be condemned without question. In Sir Orlando Bridgman’s charge, he did wholly rip up the unjustness of the war against the King from the beginning, and so it much reflects upon all the Long Parliament, though the King had pardoned them, yet they must hereby confess that the King do look upon them as traitors.
To-morrow they are to plead what they have to say. At night to bed.

Noon, do things to my mind.
Fit my chamber.

Night comes with coke and dismay,
without a beginning,

so reflect upon me
though I don a lead hat.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 10 October 1660.