Month: December 2015

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

If I call love, who will answer?

Gargoyles and winged lions.
Bridges and parks.
The gold angel bearing aloft
a cross in the shadow of the winter palace.

A chained bear on its side in the square,
around which a crowd has gathered.
It has possibly been drugged.
Little children can come up

to pet its matted fur, feel its flanks
rise and fall with ragged breath.
Like everything torn out of place,
it reeks of the momentous.

But isn’t that how it is under every facade?
Especially where light looks the most
severe, where the lines try their best
to hold in, deflect, contain.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Absent.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Valor

Before I went to my office I went to Mr. Crew’s and paid Mr. Andrews the same 60l. that he had received of Mr. Calthrop the last week. So back to Westminster and walked with him thither, where we found the soldiers all set in the Palace Yard, to make way for General Monk to come to the House. At the Hall we parted, and meeting Swan, he and I to the Swan and drank our morning draft. So back again to the Hall, where I stood upon the steps and saw Monk go by, he making observance to the judges as he went along. At noon my father dined with me upon my turkey that was brought from Denmark, and after dinner he and I to the Bull Head Tavern, where we drank half a pint of wine and so parted. I to Mrs. Ann, and Mrs. Jem being gone out of the chamber she and I had a very high bout, I rattled her up, she being in her bed, but she becoming more cool, we parted pretty good friends. Thence I went to Will’s, where I staid at cards till 10 o’clock, losing half a crown, and so home to bed.

soldiers
make way for a swan
that high rattle


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 6 February 1659/60. (See the original erasure.)

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Gallery opening

(Lord’s day). A great snow, and so to church this morning with my wife, which is the first time she hath been at church since her going to Brampton, and Gosnell attending her, which was very gracefull. So home, and we dined above in our dining room, the first time since it was new done, and in the afternoon I thought to go to the French church; but finding the Dutch congregation there, and then finding the French congregation’s sermon begun in the Dutch, I returned home, and up to our gallery, where I found my wife and Gosnell, and after a drowsy sermon, we all three to my aunt Wight’s, where great store of her usuall company, and here we staid a pretty while talking, I differing from my aunt, as I commonly do, in our opinion of the handsomeness of the Queen, which I oppose mightily, saying that if my nose be handsome, then is her’s, and such like. After much discourse, seeing the room full, and being unwilling to stay all three, I took leave, and so with my wife only to see Sir W. Pen, who is now got out of his bed, and sits by the fireside. And after some talk, home and to supper, and after prayers to bed. This night came in my wife’s brother and talked to my wife and Gosnell about his wife, which they told me afterwards of, and I do smell that he I doubt is overreached in thinking that he has got a rich wife, and I fear she will prove otherwise. So to bed.

a congregation
at the gallery

we eat and differ in our opinion
hands like seeing fires

some talk in which I smell
doubt and fear


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 7 December 1662.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Decryption

Welcome back, dear friend: I have missed your doomsday predictions, your crisp, dry spells of migratory quiet. I still have your last letter, warning that there is barely any trace of almonds in almond milk; and that you have managed to build a small cob house. My daughter says her workmate has a miniature herbarium on his desk where he grows basil and rosemary. Do plants know the subtle differences among the kinds of warmth they aspire to? The world is still always trying to become, aided now too with LED lights. Wasn’t it just yesterday we thought Y2K would make time turn upon itself? But we are also infinitely foolish to think that neither the sun nor the wind could die.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Lull.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

The future is rising like a wave,

unfurling like an idea
everyone thought was slow
but isn’t anymore.
No one knows if the shadow
will stick to the sundial,
or if the cistern’s green depth
equals the condition of our
collective disbelief.
The flower on the sill
swivels its dyed head to follow
a plane of moving light.
Once there was a way to live
that wasn’t always a weighing
against different forms of despair.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Absent

(Lord’s day). In the morning before church time Mr. Hawly, who had for this day or two looked something sadly, which methinks did speak something in his breast concerning me, came to me telling me that he was out 24l. which he could not tell what was become of, and that he do remember that he had such a sum in a bag the other day, and could not tell what he did with it, at which I was very sorry but could not help him. In the morning to Mr. Gunning, where a stranger, an old man, preached a good honest sermon upon “What manner of love is this that we should be called the sons of God.” After sermon I could not find my wife, who promised to be at the gate against my coming out, and waited there a great while; then went to my house and finding her gone I returned and called at the Chequers, thinking to dine at the ordinary with Mr. Chetwind and Mr. Thomas, but they not being there I went to my father and found her there, and there I dined. To their church in the afternoon, and in Mrs. Turner’s pew my wife took up a good black hood and kept it. A stranger preached a poor sermon, and so read over the whole book of the story of Tobit. After sermon home with Mrs. Turner, staid with her a little while, then she went into the court to a christening and we to my father’s, where I wrote some notes for my brother John to give to the Mercers’ to-morrow, it being the day of their apposition. After supper home, and before going to bed I staid writing of this day its passages, while a drum came by, beating of a strange manner of beat, now and then a single stroke, which my wife and I wondered at, what the meaning of it should be.
This afternoon at church I saw Dick Cumberland newly come out of the country from his living, but did not speak to him.

what manner of love is this
that we should call and call
but not be there

where a drum came
beating a single stroke
out of the living


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 5 February 1659/60. (See the original erasure.)

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Harbor

Up and to the office, and there sat all the morning, Mr. Coventry and I alone, the rest being paying off of ships. Dined at home with my wife and Gosnell, my mind much pleased with her, and after dinner sat with them a good while, till my wife seemed to take notice of my being at home now more than at other times. I went to the office, and there I sat till late, doing of business, and at 9 o’clock walked to Mr. Rawlinson’s, thinking to meet my uncle Wight there, where he was, but a great deal of his wife’s kindred-women and I knew not whom (which Mr. Rawlinson did seem to me to take much notice of his being led by the nose by his wife), I went away to my office again, and doing my business there, I went home, and after a song by Gosnell we to bed.

morning ships
I take notice of
my wife’s nose


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 6 December 1662.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

No excuse for being

When I ask my old friend, former professor and colleague D
about another former professor and colleague F, he presses
his fingers together to make a tent and sighs.

It’s a shame, he says, shaking his head. What a waste
of a mind, of talent. He confirmed the stories I’d heard
of how she’d turned into a kind of recluse; and also,

gin first thing in the morning and on into night, the way
she now wore only the clothes of the artist-lover
she cared for until his death— rumpled,

perhaps unwashed, unaired, steeped in the smell
of linseed and turpentine; the way she no longer
combed her once lustrous hair and wished

over and over for herself to die, to pass
from this earth which no longer held any charm.
This was the woman who lectured with such fervor

on beauty being its own excuse for being, and read
from Emerson: Here might the red-bird come his plumes
to cool, And court the flower that cheapens his array.

It saddens me a little to think how the ordinary flower
came to conclude it had no excuse itself for being, until
the beautiful red bird calling itself love came along.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Lull

Up, it being a snow and hard frost, and being up I did call up Sarah, who do go away to-day or to-morrow. I paid her her wages, and gave her 10s. myself, and my wife 5s. to give her. For my part I think never servant and mistress parted upon such foolish terms in the world as they do, only for an opinion in my wife that she is ill-natured, in all other things being a good servant. The wench cried, and I was ready to cry too, but to keep peace I am content she should go, and the rather, though I say nothing of that, that Jane may come into her place.
This being done, I walked towards Guildhall, thither being summoned by the Commissioners for the Lieutenancy; but they sat not this morning. So meeting in my way W. Swan, I took him to a house thereabouts, and gave him a morning draft of buttered ale; he telling me still much of his Fanatique stories, as if he were a great zealot, when I know him to be a very rogue. But I do it for discourse, and to see how things stand with him and his party; who I perceive have great expectation that God will not bless the Court nor Church, as it is now settled, but they must be purified. The worst news he tells me, is that Mr. Chetwind is dead, my old and most ingenious acquaintance. He is dead, worth 3,000l., which I did not expect, he living so high as he did always and neatly. He hath given W. Symons his wife 300l., and made Will one of his executors.
Thence to the Temple to my counsel, and thence to Gray’s Inn to meet with Mr. Cole but could not, and so took a turn or two in the garden, being very pleasant with the snow and frost. Thence to my brother’s, and there I eat something at dinner and transcribed a copy or two of the state of my uncle’s estate, which I prepared last night, and so to the Temple Church, and there walked alone till 4 or 5 o’clock, and then to my cozen Turner’s chamber and staid there, up and down from his to Calthrop’s and Bernard’s chambers, till so late, that Mr. Cole not coming, we broke up for meeting this night, and so taking my uncle Thomas homewards with me by coach, talking of our desire to have a peace, and set him down at Gracious-street end, and so home, and there I find Gosnell come, who, my wife tells me, is like to prove a pretty companion, of which I am glad. So to my office for a little business and then home, my mind having been all this day in most extraordinary trouble and care for my father, there being so great an appearance of my uncle’s going away with the greatest part of the estate, but in the evening by Gosnell’s coming I do put off these thoughts to entertain myself with my wife and her, who sings exceeding well, and I shall take great delight in her, and so merrily to bed.

foolish world
they tell me the wind is dead

my old and most
ingenious acquaintance

the snow talking peace
like the evening light


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 5 December 1662.