October 2018 – Page 7

October 12, 2018 by Dave Bonta

Limited

Up, and having sent for Mr. Gawden he come to me, and he and I largely discoursed the business of his Victualling, in order to the adding of partners to him or other ways of altering it, wherein I find him ready to do anything the King would have him do. So he and I took his coach and to Lambeth and to the Duke of Albemarle about it, and so back again, where he left me. In our way discoursing of the business and contracting a great friendship with him, and I find he is a man most worthy to be made a friend, being very honest and gratefull, and in the freedom of our discourse he did tell me his opinion and knowledge of Sir W. Pen to be, what I know him to be, as false a man as ever was born, for so, it seems, he hath been to him. He did also tell me, discoursing how things are governed as to the King’s treasure, that, having occasion for money in the country, he did offer Alderman Maynell to pay him down money here, to be paid by the Receiver in some county in the country, upon whom Maynell had assignments, in whose hands the money also lay ready. But Maynell refused it, saying that he could have his money when he would, and had rather it should lie where it do than receive it here in towne this sickly time, where he hath no occasion for it. But now the evil is that he hath lent this money upon tallys which are become payable, but he finds that nobody looks after it, how long the money is unpaid, and whether it lies dead in the Receiver’s hands or no, so the King he pays Maynell 10 per cent. while the money lies in his Receiver’s hands to no purpose but the benefit of the Receiver.
I to dinner to the King’s Head with Mr. Woolly, who is come to instruct me in the business of my goods, but gives me not so good comfort as I thought I should have had. But, however, it will be well worth my time though not above 2 or 300l.. He gone I to my office, where very busy drawing up a letter by way of discourse to the Duke of Albemarle about my conception how the business of the Victualling should be ordered, wherein I have taken great pains, and I think have hitt the right if they will but follow it. At this very late and so home to our lodgings to bed.

I know what I know
to be false

how things in the hand refuse us
gives me comfort

a thought should be worth
one wing

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 6 October 1665.

October 12, 2018 by Luisa A. Igloria

Catalysis

I am always trying to make my way

to that clearing where the gods

hewn from wood sit patiently

watching over their stores of grain—

They fix me with a look I can feel

no matter how far I still am

from that goal: by the shiver

that runs down my spine I know the light

cupped by each tree late in the day

is beaten almost to its thinnest;

a sheet that ripples, numen in each

dent and vein. And I am draped

in the cloth of everything woven before

my time: syllables issue from my lips

in sleep, whose meanings I ache for

all the hours I’m awake. Take me

in your arms, I beg of the unseen.

They only stroke my cheek the same

way I was nudged as a child, made

to keep up on a path whose end

kept vanishing in the just up ahead.

October 12, 2018 by Dave Bonta

The Hollow (14)

This entry is part 14 of 48 in the series The Hollow

off-trail in the woods
in spiderweb season
walking mindfully

a loop of grapevine
rising from the horsebalm patch
the scent of lemons

fall warbler

I pish as if fluent
in bird mysteries

all its offspring
on the other side of the deer fence

the big pine

October 11, 2018October 12, 2018 by Luisa A. Igloria

Figure Studies

In old photographs, the formal
subject is often always posed:
holding an open parasol, standing
midway on a staircase or with one
foot on the running board of a car.
One could say, a favorite subtext
is certainty: everything finding
its place in the world, everything
pressed into service for a theme:
pulchritude, or coming of age;
and after, the ceremonies of coupling
and aging. The baby in its christening
smock, doll-like in the tiny casket.
The hero coming back bemedalled
after war: one arm in a sling,
one trouser leg hiding the shadow
of an exploded limb. Flowers
or a fake trellis in the background:
as if the figures were mere adornment
to the true subject which is time.

October 11, 2018 by Dave Bonta

A matter of interpretation

Lay long in bed talking among other things of my sister Pall, and my wife of herself is very willing that I should give her 400l. to her portion, and would have her married soon as we could; but this great sicknesse time do make it unfit to send for her up.
I abroad to the office and thence to the Duke of Albemarle, all my way reading a book of Mr. Evelyn’s translating and sending me as a present, about directions for gathering a Library; but the book is above my reach, but his epistle to my Lord Chancellor is a very fine piece. When I come to the Duke it was about the victuallers’ business, to put it into other hands, or more hands, which I do advise in, but I hope to do myself a jobb of work in it. So I walked through Westminster to my old house the Swan, and there did pass some time with Sarah, and so down by water to Deptford and there to my Valentine. Round about and next door on every side is the plague, but I did not value it, but there did what I would ‘con elle’, and so away to Mr. Evelyn’s to discourse of our confounded business of prisoners, and sick and wounded seamen, wherein he and we are so much put out of order. And here he showed me his gardens, which are for variety of evergreens, and hedge of holly, the finest things I ever saw in my life. Thence in his coach to Greenwich, and there to my office, all the way having fine discourse of trees and the nature of vegetables. And so to write letters, I very late to Sir W. Coventry of great concernment, and so to my last night’s lodging, but my wife is gone home to Woolwich.
The Bill, blessed be God! is less this week by 740 of what it was the last week. Being come to my lodging I got something to eat, having eat little all the day, and so to bed, having this night renewed my promises of observing my vowes as I used to do; for I find that, since I left them off, my mind is run a’wool-gathering and my business neglected.

I am translating a library into hands

is time a prison or a garden

are trees letters to the night

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 5 October 1665.

October 11, 2018October 11, 2018 by Dave Bonta

The Hollow (13)

This entry is part 13 of 48 in the series The Hollow

downy rattlesnake
plantain leaves

always a start

still twisted
from its rush to leaf out

lady’s-slipper orchid

the blue-headed vireo’s
vireo vireo
sounds blue now

pale pipes scorched
and straightened by sex

corpse plants

October 10, 2018 by Dave Bonta

Disaster capitalism

Up and to my office, where Mr. Andrews comes, and reckoning with him I get 64l. of him. By and by comes Mr. Gawden, and reckoning with him he gives me 60l. in his account, which is a great mercy to me. Then both of them met and discoursed the business of the first man’s resigning and the other’s taking up the business of the victualling of Tangier, and I do not think that I shall be able to do as well under Mr. Gawden as under these men, or within a little as to profit and less care upon me.
Thence to the King’s Head to dinner, where we three and Creed and my wife and her woman dined mighty merry and sat long talking, and so in the afternoon broke up, and I led my wife to our lodging again, and I to the office where did much business, and so to my wife.
This night comes Sir George Smith to see me at the office, and tells me how the plague is decreased this week 740, for which God be praised! but that it encreases at our end of the town still, and says how all the towne is full of Captain Cocke’s being in some ill condition about prize-goods, his goods being taken from him, and I know not what. But though this troubles me to have it said, and that it is likely to be a business in Parliament, yet I am not much concerned at it, because yet I believe this newes is all false, for he would have wrote to me sure about it.
Being come to my wife, at our lodging, I did go to bed, and left my wife with her people to laugh and dance and I to sleep.

come a reckoning
I think I shall be able
to profit off it

the plague increases still
but like a parliament not much concerned
we laugh to sleep

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 4 October 1665.

October 10, 2018October 11, 2018 by Dave Bonta

The Hollow (12)

This entry is part 12 of 48 in the series The Hollow

a self-closing gate
among 200-year-old oaks

its rusty note

smothered in leaf duff
the violet’s self-fertilized
alter ego

ah to be
both dapper and invisible

striped wintergreen

ignored by
a pileated woodpecker

the dust from her drill

October 9, 2018 by Luisa A. Igloria

Querida

Mother cleaned the spare room, changed
the sheets, put the best folded towels
on the bed, mopped the bathroom tiles

in preparation for father’s cousin
the congressman bringing his querida,
his Korean mistress, to our home.

He’d agreed we’d house her for the week
or until primo’s wife cooled off and stopped
accosting hotel managers in town or waiting

for a lobby ambush. Like an act in a soap
opera: the furtiveness, the nighttime visits
during which mother was curt with father

(not more, as she valued her sense
of good breeding)— inferring that
what went down with one

could very well be her fate.
Her friend the engineer’s wife caused
a scandal just weeks before: crazed,

running into the foam in her nightgown
with her husband’s gun and threatening
to kill herself unless he left

his whores. I learned querida
means dearest one, darling; but like
the tiny loop and flourish in the Q

it also meant the female you lusted
after outside the circle that signified
your marriage. This one had skin

like porcelain, a tiny waist, hair long
and dark held in place by one gold barette.
How old was she? Before she was taken away,

mother had softened, but only
toward her. They’d talk in lowered voices,
dunk cookies in their tea. She took the other

woman’s measure, promised she’d sew her
a proper dress: simple sheath, jewel neck-
line; no zippers, only hooks and eyes.

October 9, 2018 by Dave Bonta

Graveyard shift

Up, and to my great content visited betimes by Mr. Woolly, my uncle Wight’s cozen, who comes to see what work I have for him about these East India goods, and I do find that this fellow might have been of great use, and hereafter may be of very great use to me, in this trade of prize goods, and glad I am fully of his coming hither. While I dressed myself, and afterwards in walking to Greenwich we did discourse over all the business of the prize goods, and he puts me in hopes I may get some money in what I have done, but not so much as I expected, but that I may hereafter do more. We have laid a design of getting more, and are to talk again of it a few days hence.
To the office, where nobody to meet me, Sir W. Batten being the only man and he gone this day to meet to adjourne the Parliament to Oxford.
Anon by appointment comes one to tell me my Lord Rutherford is come; so I to the King’s Head to him, where I find his lady, a fine young Scotch lady, pretty handsome and plain. My wife also, and Mercer, by and by comes, Creed bringing them; and so presently to dinner and very merry; and after to even our accounts, and I to give him tallys, where he do allow me 100l., of which to my grief the rogue Creed has trepanned me out of 50l.. But I do foresee a way how it may be I may get a greater sum of my Lord to his content by getting him allowance of interest upon his tallys.
That being done, and some musique and other diversions, at last away goes my Lord and Lady, and I sent my wife to visit Mrs. Pierce, and so I to my office, where wrote important letters to the Court, and at night (Creed having clownishly left my wife), I to Mrs. Pierces and brought her and Mrs. Pierce to the King’s Head and there spent a piece upon a supper for her and mighty merry and pretty discourse, she being as pretty as ever, most of our mirth being upon “my Cozen” (meaning my Lord Bruncker’s ugly mistress, whom he calls cozen), and to my trouble she tells me that the fine Mrs. Middleton is noted for carrying about her body a continued sour base smell, that is very offensive, especially if she be a little hot. Here some bad musique to close the night and so away and all of us saw Mrs. Belle Pierce (as pretty as ever she was almost) home, and so walked to Will’s lodging where I used to lie, and there made shift for a bed for Mercer, and mighty pleasantly to bed.
This night I hear that of our two watermen that use to carry our letters, and were well on Saturday last, one is dead, and the other dying sick of the plague. The plague, though decreasing elsewhere, yet being greater about the Tower and thereabouts.

what work I do
is to get some money

but not so much that my pretty hands
come to grief

trepan my head
carrying about bad music

pierce this night
to let the plague out

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 3 October 1665.