Via Negativa

July 16, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Anxiety

In the morning I found all my ceilings, spoiled with rain last night, so that I fear they must be all new whited when the work is done.
Made me ready and to my office, and by and by came Mr. Moore to me, and so I went home and consulted about drawing up a fair state of all my Lord’s accounts, which being settled, he went away, and I fell to writing of it very neatly, and it was very handsome and concisely done. At noon to my Lord’s with it, but found him at dinner, and some great company with him, Mr. Edward Montagu and his brother, and Mr. Coventry, and after dinner he went out with them, and so I lost my labour; but dined with Mr. Moore and the people below, who after dinner fell to talk of Portugall rings, and Captain Ferrers offered five or six to sell, and I seeming to like a ring made of a coco-nutt with a stone done in it, he did offer and would give it me. By and by we went to Mr. Creed’s lodging, and there got a dish or two of sweetmeats, and I seeing a very neat leaden standish to carry papers, pen, and ink in when one travels I also got that of him, and that done I went home by water and to finish some of my Lord’s business, and so early to bed.
This day I was told that my Lady Castlemaine (being quite fallen out with her husband) did yesterday go away from him, with all her plate, jewels, and other best things; and is gone to Richmond to a brother of her’s; which, I am apt to think, was a design to get out of town, that the King might come at her the better. But strange it is how for her beauty I am willing to construe all this to the best and to pity her wherein it is to her hurt, though I know well enough she is a whore.

my fear is ready
to hand and concise

like a stone to carry
when one travels

some way to a brother
but willing to hurt

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 16 July 1662.

July 15, 2025July 15, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Raga

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

In the evenings, in the shadow of the dorms 
during the summer writing conference, a small 
group of women would sit under the chestnut 
tree. We could hear the tones of their quiet 
conversation as night deepened, until the outlines 
of their figures softened. Then one of them would begin 
to sing— what we learned from others at breakfast time 
was a raga: improvised, undulating; a pentatonic 
framework lofting a thread into the atmosphere. 
Trembling with color, it drew us to our windows, 
out of our beds where we were trying to sleep 
in sultry heat uncooled by air conditioning. 
As it receded, it felt as though every hair on my
body exhaled a breath I didn't even know I had been 
holding in. Years later, I still think of that sensation—
to have been brought to the brink of a calm 
as stupendous and as simple as a field of fireflies.

July 15, 2025 by Dave Bonta

In a flash

Up by 4 o’clock, and after doing some business as to settling my papers at home, I went to my office, and there busy till sitting time. So at the office all the morning, where J. Southern, Mr. Coventry’s clerk, did offer me a warrant for an officer to sign which I desired, claiming it for my clerk’s duty, which however did trouble me a little to be put upon it, but I did it. We broke up late, and I to dinner at home, where my brother Tom and Mr. Cooke came and dined with me, but I could not be merry for my business, but to my office again after dinner, and they two and my wife abroad. In the evening comes Mr. Cooper, and I took him by water on purpose to tell me things belonging to ships, which was time well spent, and so home again, and my wife came home and tells me she has been very merry and well pleased with her walk with them. About bedtime it fell a-raining, and the house being all open at top, it vexed me; but there was no help for it.

settling at sitting time
south of however little
but not for us

the road in water
belonging to ships

bedtime rain

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 15 July 1662.

July 14, 2025July 14, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 28

A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond. Although I tend to quote my favorite bits, please do click through and read the whole posts. You can also browse the blog digest archive at Via Negativa or, if you’d like it in your inbox, subscribe on Substack (where the posts might be truncated by some email providers).

This week: resistance training, Bastille Day, the orbweaver’s song, Crusoe in England, and much more. Enjoy.

July 14, 2025July 14, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Knowledge Transfer

History, before it becomes history,
lives in the realm of the ordinary:
anecdote and family story, photographs, 
postcards, letters in cursive. The news  
—carried on stone tablets, by ship, by 
courier, by decree. Warnings by lantern,
by crier on horseback, by sirens breaking
open the seals of night. From theory 
to praxis, idea to application: how 
the thumb flies into the mouth 
at the instance of a burn; how you 
run away from an impending storm or 
put your car quick in reverse when 
you see the bridge ahead in imminent 
collapse. The body, a repository 
of knowledge collected through history— 
the ache looped like a noose against
the collarbone, pain stippling your joints 
or striping your back as you toss at night 
in bed— not even yours, personally, but 
an archive you've nevertheless inherited.

July 14, 2025July 14, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Horticulture

Up by 4 o’clock and to my arithmetique, and so to my office till 8, then to Thames Street along with old Mr. Green, among the tarr-men, and did instruct myself in the nature and prices of tarr, but could not get Stockholm for the use of the office under 10l. 15s. per last, which is a great price. So home, and at noon Dr. T. Pepys came to me, and he and I to the Exchequer, and so back to dinner, where by chance comes Mr. Pierce, the chyrurgeon, and then Mr. Battersby, the minister, and then Mr. Dun, and it happened that I had a haunch of venison boiled, and so they were very wellcome and merry; but my simple Dr. do talk so like a fool that I am weary of him. They being gone, to my office again, and there all the afternoon, and at night home and took a few turns with my wife in the garden and so to bed. My house being this day almost quite untiled in order to its rising higher. This night I began to put on my waistcoat also. I found the pageant in Cornhill taken down, which was pretty strange.

I am green among men
my target is so so simple

like the night garden
and its rising corn

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 14 July 1662.

July 13, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Fire marshall

(Lord’s day) Having by some mischance hurt my cods. I had my old pain all yesterday and this morning, and so kept my bed all this morning. So up and after dinner and some of my people to church, I set about taking down my books and papers and making my chamber fit against to-morrow to have the people come to work in pulling down the top of my house. In the evening I walked to the garden and sent for Mr. Turner (who yesterday did give me occasion of speaking to him about the difference between him and me), and I told him my whole mind, and how it was in my power to do him a discourtesy about his place of petty purveyance, and at last did make him see (I think) that it was his concernment to be friendly to me and what belongs to me. After speaking my mind to him and he to me, we walked down and took boat at the Tower and to Deptford, on purpose to sign and seal a couple of warrants, as justice of peace in Kent, against one Annis, who is to be tried next Tuesday, at Maidstone assizes, for stealing some lead out of Woolwich Yard. Going and coming I did discourse with Mr. Turner about the faults of our management of the business of our office, of which he is sensible, but I believe is a very knave. Come home I found a rabbit at the fire, and so supped well, and so to my journall and to bed.

yesterday is my church
and tomorrow my hole

I long to speak
my mind to a stone

some discourse of management
in our office of fire

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 13 July 1662.

July 13, 2025July 13, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Sunday Poem in Which I Ask you to Imagine Details

An older man and his wife ask the two
women in front of me if they're in line
for coffee; when they nod, they slide
right in as though they don't even see
me there. I don't say anything, though I
think things (like they're probably the type
who won't bus their own table, but maybe 
I'm just being judgmental). It's busy 
behind the counter. Chaotic even, with people 
changing orders: hot not iced, soy milk not 
almond, regular cold brew but no ice. One 
of the baristas fumbles with a glass cup 
and it cracks on the counter then shatters 
on the floor amid a profusion of I'm sorrys. 
A woman with a clerical collar peeking out 
of her t-shirt starts to pick up the pieces 
and the barista says No no I don't want you
to cut yourself. The artist who everyone
knows shuffles in from the back in a dark
blue Hawaiian shirt. There's always 
a reserved table for him; and copies of
his pen and ink drawings plastic-sleeved
in binders near the roaster. Over the grand
piano that no one is playing right now, two
paper lanterns sway lightly in an unseen breeze.
Above the bar there are three more, but ruffled 
like strange upside down poppies. If you look 
closely, you'll see they're cunningly made 
of layers of coffee filter paper.

July 12, 2025July 12, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Weight

After things in the world begin to seriously
     feel bound for hell in a handbasket, for months
I wallow in my inertia and can't seem to haul 
     myself out of bed to go to the gym. I feel 
the flabby parts of my body taking over the muscle
     I was trying to build, offering their soft jello 
lining under the waistband of my workout pants. But  
     it's the pain shooting from my right hip down 
to the knee and calf that forces me to go back; 
     the tightness in my legs, getting up in the morning.
Funny how this thing done with pulleys and dumb- 
     bells is called resistance training: resistance
meaning the capacity to oppose or withstand 
     an obstacle or impeding force, the biggest one
in this case being your own body— each day toting  
     its limbs and organs around, so long carrying 
brickloads of grief it's forgotten how to let go of.

July 12, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Subtraction

Up by five o’clock, and put things in my house in order to be laid up, against my workmen come on Monday to take down the top of my house, which trouble I must go through now, but it troubles me much to think of it. So to my office, where till noon we sat, and then I to dinner and to the office all the afternoon with much business. At night with Cooper at arithmetique, and then came Mr. Creed about my Lord’s accounts to even them, and he gone I to supper and to bed.

five o’clockwork Monday
to take the top
of my office off
with night arithmetic
count to one

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 12 July 1662.