Via Negativa

October 7, 2023October 7, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Itinerant

(Lord’s day). To White Hall on foot, calling at my father’s to change my long black cloak for a short one (long cloaks being now quite out); but he being gone to church, I could not get one, and therefore I proceeded on and came to my Lord before he went to chapel and so went with him, where I heard Dr. Spurstow preach before the King a poor dry sermon; but a very good anthem of Captn. Cooke’s afterwards.
Going out of chapel I met with Jack Cole, my old friend (whom I had not seen a great while before), and have promised to renew acquaintance in London together. To my Lord’s and dined with him; he all dinner time talking French to me, and telling me the story how the Duke of York hath got my Lord Chancellor’s daughter with child, and that she, do lay it to him, and that for certain he did promise her marriage, and had signed it with his blood, but that he by stealth had got the paper out of her cabinet. And that the King would have him to marry her, but that he will not. So that the thing is very bad for the Duke, and them all; but my Lord do make light of it, as a thing that he believes is not a new thing for the Duke to do abroad. Discoursing concerning what if the Duke should marry her, my Lord told me that among his father’s many old sayings that he had wrote in a book of his, this is one—that he that do get a wench with child and marry her afterwards is as if a man should shit in his hat and then clap it on his head.
I perceive my Lord is grown a man very indifferent in all matters of religion, and so makes nothing of these things.
After dinner to the Abbey, where I heard them read the church-service, but very ridiculously, that indeed I do not in my mind like it at all. A poor cold sermon of Dr. Lamb’s, one of the prebends, in his habit, came afterwards, and so all ended, and by my troth a pitiful sorry devotion that these men pay.
So walked home by land, and before supper I read part of the Marian pecution in Mr. Fuller. So to supper, prayers, and to bed.

on foot in my black cloak
I preach to the road

saying that a man should grow
a different ear

and walk
a fuller prayer

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 7 October 1660.

October 7, 2023October 4, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Allowance

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

(12)  

Raise a toast to those who open closed doors; 
who prod at things declared shut, no trespass, 
red tape, non-negotiable; who've put a foot 
in their mouth, committed uncountable faux pas, 
yet come back spine straight, unashamed, un- 
abashed. You get to an age when it no longer 
daunts you, when other people think you should 
feel small, put in your place; for putting so much 
of yourself on the line, for letting your feelings 
show instead of keeping them in. Your father- 
in-law, making bread, once said, watch how 
everything you've set on the surface of dough 
develops— even or unevenly spaced, lacking 
in sweetness or salt: elastic, all rise together
.

October 6, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Armchair traveler

All this morning Col. Slingsby and I at the office getting a catch ready for the Prince de Ligne to carry his things away to-day, who is now going home again.
About noon comes my cozen H. Alcock, for whom I wrote a letter for my Lord to sign to my Lord Broghill for some preferment in Ireland, whither he is now a-going.
After him comes Mr. Creed, who brought me some books from Holland with him, well bound and good books, which I thought he did intend to give me, but I found that I must pay him.
He dined with me at my house, and from thence to Whitehall together, where I was to give my Lord an account of the stations and victualls of the fleet in order to the choosing of a fleet fit for him to take to sea, to bring over the Queen, but my Lord not coming in before 9 at night I staid no longer for him, but went back again home and so to bed.

this thin way
to go home again
comes to my hill

comes from well-
bound books
I found

I must use all
the stations
of the night

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 6 October 1660.

October 6, 2023September 28, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Allowance

(11) 

Pearled flesh: a softening, once taken on the tongue.
I wanted to write about my mother’s body, her narrow
hips and waist. She, who taught me to string the dried 
umbilical cuttings from each of my daughters’ births. 
But I am also writing of my body—I dearly wish 
to shuck its coverings stitched with scars. I don’t have 
any line across my belly to mark the place children
might have been lifted out of our dark, into air. 
But I have other marks stretching down to the tops 
of my thighs, rippled cheesecloth wavefields. 
First, you know the shell mounts resistance. 
An anger spits grit around the oyster knife. 
Forbearance, they say about prodding. Something 
about a boon surely coming to those who open.

October 5, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Off balance

Office day; dined at home, and all the afternoon at home to see my painters make an end of their work, which they did to-day to my content, and I am in great joy to see my house likely once again to be clean. At night to bed.

office all afternoon
a home to paint

I work on joy
like a lean bed

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 5 October 1660.

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

Allowance

(10)  
 
Unwind the string from around the bird’s throat; dress it for fire.
Touch each feather with apology before you harvest nourishment.

Remember what you were taught about using every part, 
about not wasting. Even the skull and its parts, after it 

emerges, can illustrate the mechanics of those simple 
motions allowing us to speak, to grind our teeth, to smile.

Canny and uncanny: what leads to the momentous.
For instance, I wonder if she passed a hallway 

lined with mirrors one midnight in May; if she 
looked into one with a guttering candle in hand, 

seeking the face of the future she’d marry. How long
did she wait? Every part is useful, every part must

be fed. The trinity of garlic, onion, and ginger. Salt 
and bay leaf in the cavity. Pearled flesh. A softening.

October 4, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Habitual

This morning I was busy looking over papers at the office all alone, and being visited by Lieut. Lambert of the Charles (to whom I was formerly much beholden), I took him along with me to a little alehouse hard by our office, whither my cozen Thomas Pepys the turner had sent for me to show me two gentlemen that had a great desire to be known to me, one his name is Pepys, of our family, but one that I never heard of before, and the other a younger son of Sir Tho. Bendishes, and so we all called cozens.
After sitting awhile and drinking, my two new cozens, myself, and Lieut. Lambert went by water to Whitehall, and from thence I and Lieut. Lambert to Westminster Abbey, where we saw Dr. Frewen translated to the Archbishoprick of York.
Here I saw the Bishops of Winchester, Bangor, Rochester, Bath and Wells, and Salisbury, all in their habits, in King Henry Seventh’s chappell. But, Lord! at their going out, how people did most of them look upon them as strange creatures, and few with any kind of love or respect.
From thence we two to my Lord’s, where we took Mr. Sheply and Wm. Howe to the Raindeer, and had some oysters, which were very good, the first I have eat this year. So back to my Lord’s to dinner, and after dinner Lieut. Lambert and I did look upon my Lord’s model, and he told me many things in a ship that I desired to understand.
From thence by water I (leaving Lieut. Lambert at Blackfriars) went home, and there by promise met with Robert Shaw and Jack Spicer, who came to see me, and by the way I met upon Tower Hill with Mr. Pierce the surgeon and his wife, and took them home and did give them good wine, ale, and anchovies, and staid them till night, and so adieu.
Then to look upon my painters that are now at work in my house. At night to bed.

I hold hard to you
myself translated
to habit

creature
of love and rain
on a black hill at night

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 4 October 1660.

October 4, 2023September 27, 2023 by Luisa A. Igloria

Allowance

(9)  

Lights from across the sea or lights in windows; 
lights in the vestibule where they kept vigil for one 

night, after putting her cremains into a marble urn. 
I look at old photographs and in each, chiseled

cheekbones catch the fitful light, touch 
the little hollow above a cupid’s bow mouth. 

After death but before its next ceremony, light 
swelled the bones with a parchment sheen. You 

could have washed them in a marble basin, 
buffed them dry with an old scarf; traced, 

with a finger, the ladder leading out of the pelvis 
to the heart. That is to say, this is how time lets 

our pulleys down one by one, until everything 
unwound can be laid flat: on the table, for the fire.

October 3, 2023March 13, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Psalm 2.0

This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series Psalms

in response to an Instagram clip by Janet Lees (janetlees2.0)

we meet ourselves between
two thrown stones

how can ripples not reach
the edge of each other

a mirror dancing with itself
grows boneless flesh

translucent skin meant
for an angel of onions

how can ramification not lead
to a kind of godhead

dwelling in absurdity
like the invasive species we are

a tree-of-heaven nursing
its litter of lanternflies

we become monumental
in our blind trust

rust blooming
in the rain

oh holy ghost pipe
let creation somehow survive us

one-flowered
cancer root

let our names break down
into a tilth

October 3, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Colorized

With Sir W. Batten and Pen by water to White Hall, where a meeting of the Dukes of York and Albemarle, my Lord Sandwich and all the principal officers, about the Winter Guard, but we determined of nothing. To my Lord’s, who sent a great iron chest to White Hall; and I saw it carried, into the King’s closet, where I saw most incomparable pictures. Among the rest a book open upon a desk, which I durst have sworn was a reall book, and back again to my Lord, and dined all alone with him, who do treat me with a great deal of respect; and after dinner did discourse an hour with me, and advise about some way to get himself some money to make up for all his great expenses, saying that he believed that he might have any thing that he would ask of the King.
This day Mr. Sheply and all my Lord’s goods came from sea, some of them laid of the Wardrobe and some brought to my Lord’s house.
From thence to our office, where we met and did business, and so home and spent the evening looking upon the painters that are at work in my house.
This day I heard the Duke speak of a great design that he and my Lord of Pembroke have, and a great many others, of sending a venture to some parts of Africa to dig for gold ore there. They intend to admit as many as will venture their money, and so make themselves a company. 250l. is the lowest share for every man. But I do not find that my Lord do much like it.
At night Dr. Fairbrother (for so he is lately made of the Civil Law) brought home my wife by coach, it being rainy weather, she having been abroad today to buy more furniture for her house.

a white winter
the king’s open book

where painters are at work
sending to Africa for gold

to make themselves
another weather

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 3 October 1660.