Via Negativa

June 5, 2023June 5, 2023 by Dave Bonta

#amwriting

Waked in the morning at four o’clock to give some money to Mr. Hetly, who was to go to London with the letters that I wrote yesterday night. After he was gone I went and lay down in my gown upon my bed again an hour or two. At last waked by a messenger come for a Post Warrant for Mr. Hetly and Mr. Creed, who stood to give so little for their horses that the men would not let them have any without a warrant, which I sent them.
All the morning getting Captain Holland’s commission done, which I did, and he at noon went away. I took my leave of him upon the quarter-deck with a bottle of sack, my Lord being just set down to dinner.
Then he being gone I went to dinner and after dinner to my cabin to write.
This afternoon I showed my Lord my accounts, which he passed, and so I think myself to be worth near 100l. now. In the evening I made an order for Captain Sparling of the Assistance to go to Middleburgh, to fetch over some of the King’s goods. I took the opportunity to send all my Dutch money, 70 ducatoons and 29 gold ducats to be changed, if he can, for English money, which is the first venture that ever I made, and so I have been since a little afeard of it. After supper some music and so to bed.
This morning the King’s Proclamation against drinking, swearing, and debauchery, was read to our ships’ companies in the fleet, and indeed it gives great satisfaction to all.

four o’clock nightgown
awake for the horses

in a bottle
in my cabin

to write is an opportunity
to be changed

and I have been
a wearing read

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 4 June 1660.

June 5, 2023June 4, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

On Hold

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

I write messages and wait to see
if they're seen. Sometimes I find 

amusing cat videos, like the one 
where a calico and a ragdoll walk 

through a hallway lined 3-, then 4-, 
then 5-deep with paper towel 

cardboard cores; an unseen hand
orchestrates the obstacle course.

They knock them down, and just 
keep going. If there were a caption, 

it would be You got nothin' on me. 
I wish I had their aplomb if not their

equanimity—but in the absence of any
response, I droop and distend in a holding 

cage of sadness, wear the carpet down 
in a waiting room for the host to let me in.

June 4, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Pilgrim’s Progress

you were the salt in my soup
the shore to my uneasy sleep

your full moonlight drew me
a sharp-edged shadow

i watched lean foxes lope
atop your garden wall

and took happiness
in both hands

a steering wheel
warm from your touch

spinning through the lifelines
etched in my palms

without my glasses
your best smiles went

to my bad teeth
my beard full of birds

everything in shades of blur
except one cricket

and my grief rises
like wind in a drought

this brief striptease of drizzle
gusting sideways

what have we done
to each other’s earth

the burning forests
the erupting methane

i turn again from wholly
fool to foul

to another buggy day
in deer-tick season

bathe my clothes in poison
shoulder my pack

June 4, 2023June 3, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Boast

Someone invites you to write 
your best poem, to rival that

which an AI robot might generate
to the same prompt. The prompt,

in other words, is to write a boast:
which boast will be the best, the most

aggrandizing, the most stupendous? 
You're not sure about the boasting part—

Never been very good at inflating
yourself, or being that kind of PR 

agent. Nevertheless, you've learned 
a few things: how to make a caramel

sauce for flan without burning it; how 
to pinch a dumpling so it resembles 

a leaf. How to keep talking and smiling 
through some fresh agony no one else 

really needs to know—not perfection, 
but more or less pretty damn good.

June 3, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Legion

Waked in the morning by one who when I asked who it was, he told me one from Bridewell, which proved Captain Holland. I rose presently to him. He is come to get an order for the setting out of his ship, and to renew his commission.
He tells me how every man goes to the Lord Mayor to set down their names, as such as do accept of his Majesty’s pardon, and showed me a certificate under the Lord Mayor’s hand that he had done so. At sermon in the morning; after dinner into my cabin, to cast my accounts up, and find myself to be worth near 100l., for which I bless Almighty God, it being more than I hoped for so soon, being I believe not clearly worth 25l. when I came to sea besides my house and goods.
Then to set my papers in order, they being increased much upon my hands through want of time to put them in order. The ship’s company all this while at sermon. After sermon my Lord did give me instruction to write to London about business, which done, after supper to bed.

bride and rose and every
name of God

more than hope my hands
want company

at sermon after sermon
instruction about sin

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 3 June 1660.

June 3, 2023June 3, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Dream Horses

They run in fields
woven of corn and spider silk;

sown of loosestrife, bowgrass, 
sword fern, devil's ivy. 

Because they're made of dream, 
they will never unpeel completely

from fog— But when I join them
in a clearing,  I know whose name

I'll spell with hoof prints
in the shifting sand.

June 2, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Last things first

Being with my Lord in the morning about business in his cabin, I took occasion to give him thanks for his love to me in the share that he had given me of his Majesty’s money, and the Duke’s. He told me he hoped to do me a more lasting kindness, if all things stand as they are now between him and the King, but, says he, “We must have a little patience and we will rise together; in the mean time I will do you all the good jobs I can.” Which was great content for me to hear from my Lord.
All the morning with the Captain, computing how much the thirty ships that come with the King from Scheveling their pay comes to for a month (because the King promised to give them all a month’s pay), and it comes to 6,538l., and the Charles particularly 777l. I wish we had the money. All the afternoon with two or three captains in the Captain’s cabin, drinking of white wine and sugar, and eating pickled oysters, where Captain Sparling told us the best story that ever I heard, about a gentleman that persuaded a country fool to let him gut his oysters or else they would stink.
At night writing letters to London and Weymouth, for my Lord being now to sit in the House of Peers he endeavours to get Mr. Edward Montagu for Weymouth and Mr. George for Dover.
Mr. Cooke late with me in my cabin while I wrote to my wife, and drank a bottle of wine and so took leave of me on his journey and I to bed.

to love the last things
we must have
a little time

all the good ships
come for a month
of wine and oysters

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 2 June 1660.

June 2, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Fuddled

This morning Mr. Sheply disposed of the money that the Duke of York did give my Lord’s servants, 22 ducatoons came to my share, whereof he told me to give Jaspar something because my Lord left him out. I did give Mr. Sheply the fine pair of buckskin gloves that I bought myself about five years ago.
My Lord took physic to-day, and so come not out all day. The Captain on shore all day.
After dinner Captain Jefferys and W. Howe, and the Lieutenant and I to ninepins, where I lost about two shillings and so fooled away all the afternoon.
At night Mr. Cooke comes from London with letters, leaving all things there very gallant and joyful. And brought us word that the Parliament had ordered the 29th of May, the King’s birthday, to be for ever kept as a day of thanksgiving for our redemption from tyranny, and the King’s return to his Government, he entering London that day.
My wife was in London when he came thither, and had been there a week with Mr. Bowyer and his wife.
My poor wife has not been well a week before, but thanks be to God is well again. She would fain see me and be at her house again, but we must be content. She writes word how the Joyces grow very rich and very proud, but it is no matter, and that there was a talk that I should be knighted by the King, which they (the Joyces) laugh at; but I think myself happier in my wife and estate than they are in theirs.
To bed. The Captain come on board, when I was going to bed, quite fuddled; and himself the next morning told me so too, that the Vice-Admiral, Rear-Admiral, and he had been drinking all day.

money on my old thin skin
where I lost a ring

if god would again be word
it should befuddle

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 1 June 1660.

June 1, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Peaceful Societies: Alternatives to Violence and War by Bruce D. Bonta

Might it be possible to build a more peaceful world by studying other societies that are already peaceful? It seems logical, right?

I’m grateful to the Global Center for Nonkilling for undertaking the publication of my Dad’s last book, Peaceful Societies: Alternatives to Violence and War, which we discovered in his papers after he died – even Mom hadn’t known about it! It’s his attempt to distill everything he’d learned from 25 years of deep immersion in the anthropological literature about peaceful societies around the world. It’s available as a free download (PDF) or a $15 paperback.

Is it possible to draw conclusions about the possibilities of building a more peaceful world by studying peaceful societies? In response, this book attempts to demonstrate that peaceful societies are inspiring and that they frequently shed light on difficult aspects of the paths to peacefulness; but there are no good, easy, or obvious answers. These groups of people provide inspiration about possibilities, however. The careful reader should be inspired to look for ways forward on many different issues related to building a more peaceful world by studying societies featured in this book: Lepchas, Ifaluk, Semai, Piaroa, Batek, Buid, Ladakh, Kadar, Chewong, Paliyan and others.

Failing to mention that he’d been working on this was typical of Dad, a deeply private person with an unusually low need for external validation. I’ve also been reflecting lately on his boundless faith in human beings to do the right thing – faith not always repaid, of course, but somehow still undaunted. I don’t think he ever really understood why his work documenting peaceful societies never got a whole lot of traction in activist circles, let alone with policy-makers. He just didn’t understand ethnocentrism and parochialism, and how much even supposedly open-minded people are really not interested in learning from non-Western societies, or even from groups like the Amish or Hutterites. But as I think Dad tries to suggest with his opening story of conversing about peacefulness at a local Audubon Society event, true open-mindedness is often more common among people who are not experts in a field and don’t already have their minds made up. Perhaps over time the message will spread. I’m cautiously optimistic that this publication will reach faith leaders, community organizers, and other grassroots leaders for whom alternatives to violence and competition seem less like an ideological challenge than an urgent, practical need.

For more on the book, here’s the Center’s press release. Please share widely. Thank you.

June 1, 2023May 31, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Like a Wake

Like a wake, but no one has come 
to sing karaoke, play pusoy dos or 
mah jong, drink rum and warm 

coke. No flowers with funerary 
smells in the living room, no 
curling satin ribbons, names 

inked in permanent marker—they 
are not the only things that bleed. 
There are no votives or pictures 

in frames on a mantel strewn 
with White Rabbit candies, shiny 
tangerines, saucers of food offerings. 

But there are things that, when they go
from your life, feel like a death, a mourning.
Long road of grieving, no headstone in sight.