Epigrams and Conundrums – Page 3

April 10, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Proverbial (4)

Up early, my Lady Batten knocking at her door that comes into one of my chambers. I did give directions to my people and workmen, and so about 8 o’clock we took barge at the Tower, Sir William Batten and his lady, Mrs. Turner, Mr. Fowler and I. A very pleasant passage and so to Gravesend, where we dined, and from thence a coach took them and me, and Mr. Fowler with some others came from Rochester to meet us, on horseback. At Rochester, where alight at Mr. Alcock’s and there drank and had good sport, with his bringing out so many sorts of cheese. Then to the Hillhouse at Chatham, where I never was before, and I found a pretty pleasant house and am pleased with the arms that hang up there. Here we supped very merry, and late to bed; Sir William telling me that old Edgeborrow, his predecessor, did die and walk in my chamber, did make me some what afeard, but not so much as for mirth’s sake I did seem. So to bed in the treasurer’s chamber…

Knock on a clock, owe an owl.

A sage and an owl meet where a light is out.

Never was a house pleased with the arms that hang there.

We die in fear, not for mirth’s sake.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 8 April 1661.

April 4, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Proverbial (3)

Up among my workmen, my head akeing all day from last night’s debauch. To the office all the morning, and at noon dined with Sir W. Batten and Pen, who would needs have me drink two drafts of sack to-day to cure me of last night’s disease, which I thought strange but I think find it true.
Then home with my workmen all the afternoon, at night into the garden to play on my flageolette, it being moonshine, where I staid a good while, and so home and to bed.
This day I hear that the Dutch have sent the King a great present of money, which we think will stop the match with Portugal; and judge this to be the reason that our so great haste in sending the two ships to the East Indys is also stayed.

I debauch the morning with a pen.

Who needs to think, find a garden.

On my flag: moon and money, our two hips.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 3 April 1661.

March 8, 2014May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Proverbial (2)

This morning Sir Williams both went to Woolwich to sell some old provisions there.
I to Whitehall, and up and down about many businesses. Dined at my Lord’s, then to Mr. Crew to Mr. Moore, and he and I to London to Guildhall to see the seamen paid off, but could not without trouble, and so I took him to the Fleece tavern, where the pretty woman that Luellin lately told me the story of dwells, but I could not see her.
Then towards home and met Spicer, D. Vines, Ruddiard, and a company more of my old acquaintance, and went into a place to drink some ale, and there we staid playing the fool till late, and so I home.
At home met with ill news that my hopes of getting some money for the Charles were spoiled through Mr. Waith’s perverseness, which did so vex me that I could not sleep at night. But I wrote a letter to him to send to-morrow morning for him to take my money for me, and so with good words I thought to coy with him. To bed.

Wool to sell and fleece to dwell.

War and spice acquaint a place.

Ale and a fool spoil sleep.

Let tomorrow take money for good words.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 7 March 1660/61.

January 18, 2014 by Dave Bonta

The Canela tweets

I use Twitter for a bit more than just Morning Porch updates these days. Three weeks of dog-sitting — and especially dog-walking — yielded a few insights, which I shared on Twitter because they weren’t really long enough for blog posts. Canela is an eight- or nine-year-old Chesapeake Bay retriever with a very easy-going disposition, boundless energy and an insatiable curiosity. We walked three to four miles every day. Anyway, for what it’s worth, here’s what I’ve been writing. (The first and last of these also appeared on The Morning Porch.)

Jan. 2
Dozens of juncos flit through the bushes. The old brown retriever that I’m dog-sitting watches from the porch, her nose quivering.

Jan. 12
Trying to teach sarcasm to the dog.

Before I can stop her, the dog wolfs down a frozen coyote turd.

Just back from a three-mile walk full of fascinating scats and urine samples, the dog falls asleep on her Dora the Explorer blanket.

Before I started dog-sitting, I had no idea how much I talk to myself.

The dog’s sleep is punctuated with sighs and episodes of labored breathing. She snores. She smacks her lips.

She rumbles like an appliance with a bad motor.

Her jaws move as if around recalcitrant syllables of human speech. Then she dry-retches and falls silent.

Jan. 13
I just complimented a dog for taking a dump. This pet thing is insidious.

Jan. 14
The dog appears to have two modes: full-on excitement and sleep. I of course am an Eeyore and an insomniac. What a disappointment I must be.

On a walk in the thawing woods, the dog smells everything. All I smell is dog.

Going out to pee in the moonlight, the dog stands gazing into the shadows.

Jan. 15
Having just circled the field, more than anything the dog want to circle the field.

You can’t circle the same field twice, as Heraclitus might’ve said.

Like a suburban kid getting a “tribal” tattoo, the dog wants desperately to roll in coyote scent.

Straining against the leash that won’t let her catch up to a porcupine, the dog whines and whimpers like a creature in pain.

Jan. 16
Ten minutes after telling our neighbor that the dog never barks, I hear her bark, left alone in the house.

So the dog doesn’t bark at people, other dogs, deer, ruffed grouse, rabbits or porcupines. She barks at the absence of all those things.

Jan. 18
Last night, I gave the dog back to her family. In the morning, two inches of wind-blown snow, and the yard unmarred by a single track.

September 6, 2013May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Proverbial (1)

To the office.
From thence by coach upon the desire of the principal officers to a Master of Chancery to give Mr. Stowell his oath, whereby he do answer that he did hear Phineas Pett say very high words against the King a great while ago.
Coming back our coach broke, and so Stowell and I to Mr. Rawlinson’s, and after a glass of wine parted, and I to the office, home to dinner, where (having put away my boy in the morning) his father brought him again, but I did so clear up my boy’s roguery to his father, that he could not speak against my putting him away, and so I did give him 10s. for the boy’s clothes that I made him, and so parted and tore his indenture.
All the afternoon with the principal officers at Sir W. Batten’s about Pett’s business (where I first saw Col. Slingsby, who has now his appointment for Comptroller), but did bring it to no issue. This day I saw our Dedimus to be sworn in the peace by, which will be shortly.
In the evening my wife being a little impatient I went along with her to buy her a necklace of pearl, which will cost 4l. 10s., which I am willing to comply with her in for her encouragement, and because I have lately got money, having now above 200l. in cash beforehand in the world.
Home, and having in our way bought a rabbit and two little lobsters, my wife and I did sup late, and so to bed.
Great news now-a-day of the Duke d’Anjou’s desire to marry the Princesse Henrietta.
Hugh Peters is said to be taken, and the Duke of Gloucester is ill, and it is said it will prove the small-pox.

Chance is a rogue: my clothes tore.

I saw no peace, my wife being impatient to buy it.

A rabbit and lobster desire to marry, it is said.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 5 September 1660.

December 30, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Snophistry

Now that the barn’s been painted, all the buildings on the farm are camouflaged against the snow. The cold is a fierce hunter. One has to take every precaution. Continue reading “Snophistry”

December 5, 2012December 6, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Pilgrimage

for Yahia Lababidi

A star turns cold in an effort to cast a shadow. Or so they say.

A mayfly fresh out of the water, finding itself without functional mouthparts, molts one more time just to make sure.

The Chinese inventors of the compass weren’t travelers trying to make their way through the world, but gardeners & home decorators trying to make their world through the Way.

Her obsessive pursuit of stillness gives the dancer no rest.

While the others were saluting the flag, I saluted the wind.

November 17, 2012November 17, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Cargo Culture

I used to think that doors were failed windows. Now I see that windows are aborted doors.

Were the Melanesian cargo cults ever true religious movements, or were they just short-lived cons perpetrated on the unwary? No one seems to know for sure. Some may wonder if there’s any difference, but to me, it’s clear: the founder of a true religion must first successfully con him- or herself.

Whenever I encounter an uprooted tree and realize how farcical its feet were, I get a little vertigo.

Let’s spell it farcicle and try to imagine how, or whether, it would differ in taste from a popsicle’s sweet, colored ice.

A henge resembles an inside-out fortification: the ditch is on the inside of the wall. Henges must, therefore, have been like zoos for the always-dangerous ancestors.

I will be disappointed if Banksy turns out to be anyone other than a man with the head of a rat. A reporter who met him years ago said he was the grimiest person she’d ever seen.

It may well be that the majority of planets in the universe are small and orphaned: unattached to any star, just drifting through space. Hearing this, for the very first time in my life I feel a keen interest in space travel. Imagine standing on such a world — bleak, cold, lifeless, and utterly free.

Maybe a henge was a replica of the heavens, designed as a form of sympathetic magic to make sure the sun and moon didn’t wander off, and kept circling back each year with their cargo of stars.

October 27, 2012October 27, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Semi-lucid

I used to be embarrassed to call these ridges mountains until I went to Mississippi and saw what they called hills.

The end of October, and a dandelion is in full bloom beside the driveway. I recall that the Brits refer to dandelion seedheads as clocks. This one, when it appears, will be some six months slow.

Three mornings ago I dreamt I was reading a new-to-me poet. I’m enough of a lucid dreamer that I know when I’m dreaming, most of the time, so I tried hard to memorize a few lines so I could claim them as my own when I woke. But I only managed to retain a single word: “apparatus.”

Last night I dreamt I was writing a poem about that Chandler Harris creation the tar baby. Most of us are smarter than Br’er Rabbit, but also more foolish: we know it’s only tar, but we tangle with it anyway.

We should wear masks 364 days of the year and only take them off for Halloween. That would be a terrifying revelation.

I wonder how many members of think tanks have ever spent time in a drunk tank?

The temperature’s right on the line between warm and cool. A fly walking on the windowpane staggers a bit as it crosses a white expanse of sky.

October 9, 2012September 30, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Epigrammatically incorrect

I’m taking a break and highlighting some classic posts from my first full year of blogging, 2004. Epigrammatic posts and humor have been mainstays of Via Negativa from the beginning. Here’s a post that bridged the two categories. (Please click through to read the whole thing.)

Bad maxims:

19. Misery loves company. Specifically, the Frito-Lay Company, makers of Fritos, Cheetos, Doritos, Tostitos, Ruffles and Lay’s brand snack chips. Frito-Lay.^TM Food for the fun of it!^TM

20. Before doing X, always ask yourself, “What would happen if everyone did X?” If the answer is, “Cataclysmic war and social chaos, leading to the rapid extinction of most higher life forms,” then it’s probably a pretty good way to turn a profit.

21. Some people see things as they are and ask, “Why?” Some people dream of things that never were and ask, “Why not?” If you know either of these kinds of people, please call the Department of Homeland Security’s toll-free hotline.