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Passages

28 February 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up, and to the office pretty betimes, and the Board not meeting as soon as I wished, I was forced to go to White Hall in expectation of a Committee for Tangier, but when I come it was put off, and so home again to the office, and sat till past two o’clock; where at the Board some high words passed between Sir W. Pen and I, begun by me, and yielded to by him, I being in the right in finding fault with him for his neglect of duty. At noon home to dinner, and after dinner out with my wife, thinking to have gone to the Duke of York’s playhouse, but was, to my great content in the saving my vow, hindered by coming a little too late; and so, it being a fine day, we out to Islington, and there to the old house and eat cheese-cakes and drank and talked, and so home in the evening, the ways being mighty bad, so as we had no pleasure in being abroad at… [Read more...]

WE NEED

27 February 2021 - Tom

We need eaglesthe way we needthe wind, to cleanup emptiness.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

02.26.21

27 February 2021 - James Brush

second dosewinter rages deepinside me [Read more...]

SNOWY MORNING

27 February 2021 - Tom

Snowy morning.No one knowswhere hawk has gone.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Prime Cause

27 February 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

Who knows where anything begins: if seed, if stock, if accident lays the ground for what manifests after decades of quietude— One day, a body thinking only of walking itself home takes a small detour. Takes a leap, as if to clear a fence. Hopes to take the moon but needless to say, inherits only the steadfast earth. What remnant of that hard encounter with the truth lodges as bone, as breach, as shredded endoneurion? The body after all is mass and also its own residue. A tremor scales the walls; vines hold to the trellis. After a while, it's hard to tell if the foliage moves, or is moved. [Read more...]

Library

27 February 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up; and by coach, with W. Griffin with me, and our Contract-books, to Durham Yard, to the Commissioners for Accounts; the first time I ever was there; and staid awhile before I was admitted to them. I did observe a great many people attending about complaints of seamen concerning tickets, and, among others, Mr. Carcasse, and Mr. Martin, my purser. And I observe a fellow, one Collins, is there, who is employed by these Commissioners particularly to hold an office in Bishopsgate Street, or somewhere thereabouts, to receive complaints of all people about tickets: and I believe he will have work enough. Presently I was called in, where I found the whole number of Commissioners, and was there received with great respect and kindness; and did give them great satisfaction, making it my endeavour to inform them what it was they were to expect from me, and what was the duty of other people; this being my only way to preserve myself, after all my pains and trouble. They did ask many questions, and demanded… [Read more...]

NOT LIKE DAWN

26 February 2021 - Tom

Not like dawnor dusk, thesuddennessof it. Allthe autumnleaves fallingtoday, alltheir blessingslost. How totell you morethan that inwind like this?The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

IN SOME LANGUAGE (12)

26 February 2021 - Tom

In some languagethe word for mindmeans emptinessand also means promise.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Scallions

26 February 2021 - rbarenblat@gmail.com (Velveteen Rabbi)

The scent of this covid year:sour scallion-water in the kitchen window, the tail-ends of green onions trying to miracle fresh green from tap water and sun.When it catches in my throatI choke, then rememberif my sense of smellstill works, how lucky I am. [Read more...]

Itinerant Stanzas

26 February 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

Nets stretch through trees but we make fables about milkweed butterflies and birds flying blind. * A birthing chair, oiled to a dark sheen. Even furniture sings odes to the ways in which certain bodies are made to open. * The fantasy in which you find your way back doesn't exist, even if you remember the name of every river or road shaped like the ideogram for home. * Lean back into your own body, then. Cradle and fist, shuttle and loom. A boat at night. Above all, a boat. [Read more...]

Comestibles

26 February 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up, it being fast day for the King’s death, and so I and Mr. Gibson by water to the Temple, and there all the morning with Auditor Wood, and I did deliver in the whole of my accounts and run them over in three hours with full satisfaction, and so with great content thence, he and I, and our clerks, and Mr. Clerke, the solicitor, to a little ordinary in Hercules-pillars Ally — the Crowne, a poor, sorry place, where a fellow, in twelve years, hath gained an estate of, as he says, 600l. a-year, which is very strange, and there dined, and had a good dinner, and very good discourse between them, old men belonging to the law, and here I first heard that my cozen Pepys, of Salisbury Court, was Marshal to my Lord Cooke when he was Lord Chief justice; which beginning of his I did not know to be so low: but so it was, it seems. After dinner I home, calling at my bookbinder’s, but he not within. When come… [Read more...]

THAT WHICH PASSES

26 February 2021 - Tom

That which passesis lost untilthe stars conspireto end it. Theneverythingthat was will bein that moment,compacted, anddarkness will knowhow much is goneand how littleis left to hope.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Hermit Diary 57. Winter Scenes in the Park

25 February 2021 - Beth

Pandemic notwithstanding, this has been one of the loveliest winters in Montreal, weatherwise, that I can remember. We've had two months of velvety snow, temperatures mostly in the 10s or 20s, lots of bright sun and blue skies, and essentially no rain. That's the crucial difference: when the weather alternates between freezing and thawing, with periods of rain, the whole city turns to ice -- and that's become normal in recent years, thanks to the changing climate. But not this year. I've been out for long brisk walks in the park every single day, which has helped save my sanity during these longest months of winter confinement, as well as keeping me in somewhat decent shape. I've also seen a lot. The city provides two hockey rinks, so the thwack of slapshots and sticks hitting the boards is a constant rhythm, and the players somehow work out a system to rotate both older players and kids on and off the ice so that the game doesn't exceed a certain number of people, and everyone gets… [Read more...]

THE LIGHT

25 February 2021 - Tom

The light,like faded paintstill offeringan opinion.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Tremolando

25 February 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

In the living room of the care home, my mother, hair evenly white and freshly shorn, has been liftedinto a deep armchair by a nurse named Roger. On the side table is a bottle of orange juice, glowinglike a gold bar. There’s a sponge cake on a saucer, its top slathered with butter and sugar. Someoneasks her to sing. Preguntale a las estrellas,she croons and smiles into the camera: askthe stars if at night they see me cry. Though I didn’t know the exact reasoneach time, I did see her cry on many occasions when I was growing up. Big heaves, angrytears, ugly cry; even the quiet whimpering after what might have been defeat. After my father’sfuneral, she stayed in bed for weeks—En esta tierra, tan solo a mi, all alonein the land of her living. I don’t knowwhy the bars of this song have come back to her now; but she is smiling even in the parts with yo te quiero and que me muero. Of course we understand that to love is to… [Read more...]

Time management

25 February 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up betimes, and by coach to Sir W. Coventry, whom I found in his chamber, and there stayed an hour and talked with him about several things of the Navy, and our want of money, which they indeed do supply us with a little, but in no degree likely to enable us to go on with the King’s service. He is at a stand where to have more, and is in mighty pain for it, declaring that he believes there never was a kingdom so governed as this was in the time of the late Chancellor and the Treasurer, nobody minding or understanding any thing how things went or what the King had in his Treasury, or was to have, nothing in the world of it minded. He tells me that there are still people desirous to overthrow him; he resolving to stick at nothing nor no person that stands in his way against bringing the King out of debt, be it to retrench any man’s place or profit, and that he cares not, for… [Read more...]

THE CHILL MEANS

25 February 2021 - Tom

The chill meansautumn, meanswinter isnot far off,means the worldis what itis in thismoment, thisall we have.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

IN SOME LANGUAGE (11)

24 February 2021 - Tom

In some languagethe word for saintalso means holy fool.It also means poet.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

America Replicates Itself in a Foreign Land

24 February 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

"one gestures to the future, ...and one to the past" ~ Claire Wahmanholm What we told the architect who drew up the blueprints: lay down a green sward that cuts through the valley's length. On one side, the monuments and edifices of government; on the other, open spaces for commerce. Let trails be gravel-swept and leveled, wide enough for a motorcar or old-fashioned carriage. Shoot or move the animals to the outskirts, and it is certain their native owners will follow. Those who remain in the overlap will learn our church and customs. Our schools will make their minds more habitable, their hands ours to train in industry. One green knoll after another, interspersed with the more natural rebellion of rock. These, we'll leave as tokens of the great undertaking that led us here, though we shall make the earth crown our efforts with gold and copper vein. [Read more...]

Temblor

24 February 2021 - Dave Bonta

Watch on Vimeo Here’s a poem from my new collection of experimental haibun, Failed State. Long-time readers may recognize the videopoem, a earlier version of which appeared here some seven or eight years ago, under a different title, and with a briefer text. The haiku is based on an experience I had when I was an exchange student in Taiwan back in 1986. The book is the product of a new nanopress, Via Negativa Books — i.e. me — with print-on-demand and electronic versions available through Blurb, which has a worldwide network of printers to keep shipping costs down (and give them bragging rights about a lower carbon footprint). I wrote about my decision to self-publish, and my gratitude for the filmmakers who have made adaptations from it, in a blog post on my author website. To watch some of those other films, see the book’s dedicated page, or go directly to Blurb to preview the content. Failed State is open content, meaning that it’s licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike “copyleft” license to encourage… [Read more...]

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