Via Negativa

January 17, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Unnatural disaster

To Westminster with Mr. Moore, and there, after several walks up and down to hear news, I met with Lany, the Frenchman, who told me that he had a letter from France last night, that tells him that my Lord Hinchingbroke is dead, and that he did die yesterday was se’nnight, which do surprise me exceedingly (though we know that he hath been sick these two months), so I hardly ever was in my life; but being fearfull that my Lady should come to hear it too suddenly, he and I went up to my Lord Crew’s, and there I dined with him, and after dinner we told him, and the whole family is much disturbed by it: so we consulted what to do to tell my Lady of it; and at last we thought of my going first to Mr. George Montagu’s to hear whether he had any news of it, which I did, and there found all his house in great heaviness for the death of his son, Mr. George Montagu, who did go with our young gentlemen into France, and that they hear nothing at all of our young Lord; so believing that thence comes the mistake, I returned to my Lord Crew (in my way in the Piazza seeing a house on fire, and all the streets full of people to quench it), and told them of it, which they are much glad of, and conclude, and so I hope, that my Lord is well; and so I went to my Lady Sandwich, and told her all, and after much talk I parted thence with my wife, who had been there all the day, and so home to my musique, and then to bed.

the news broke me
hard as my life is

its great heaviness
and nothing of you

my house on fire
and all the streets of sand

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 17 January 1661/62.

January 17, 2025January 16, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

I am not ashamed

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

to say I too, talk to my dead;
I tell them about my day and my most 
recent woes, ask them about the terrible 
mistakes I've made as a parent. (They
listen in sympathetic silence.)

I've learned to stick my neck 
out and say something rather 
than nothing, admit I don't see
the point behind things like Burning
Man. (Glamping as "decommodification" 
and "self reliance in community?")

I am not ashamed I had to change
my shirt in the car, in a parking lot, 
after I puked all over myself. (Just think, 
—somewhere, anywhere, someone right now 
is having a wardrobe malfunction or sitting 
on a toilet, having soiled their knickers.) 

When my heart could not stop
lurching from worry, I have reached out 
—blindly, even perhaps unwarrantedly, but 
motivated by the desire to ease someone 
else's pain (even if I know there are 
many things beyond my control). 

Can you blame me for trying?
Can you blame me for wanting 
to exhaust the means available 
to me, if these result in some
reprieve? I am not ashamed to admit
I am that kind of person. I am not

ashamed to plead for mercy.

January 16, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Official

Towards Cheapside; and in Paul’s Churchyard saw the funeral of my Lord Cornwallis, late Steward of the King’s House, a bold profane talking man, go by, and thence I to the Paynter’s, and there paid him 6l. for the two pictures, and 36s. for the two frames. From thence home, and Mr. Holliard and my brother Tom dined with me, and he did give me good advice about my health. In the afternoon at the office, and at night to Sir W. Batten, and there saw him and Captain Cock and Stokes play at cards, and afterwards supped with them. Stokes told us, that notwithstanding the country of Gambo is so unhealthy, yet the people of the place live very long, so as the present king there is 150 years old, which they count by rains: because every year it rains continually four months together. He also told us, that the kings there have above 100 wives a-piece, and offered him the choice of any of his wives to lie with, and so he did Captain Holmes. So home and to bed.

a cheap churchyard
funeral for me

I rot in the office
in the long rains

so old that I have
the choice of any lie

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 16 January 1661/62.

January 16, 2025January 16, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Fairy Lantern

(Thismia rodwayi) 


There's a small, red-orange flower
that pokes up like a tongue from under
damp forest cover, as if without 
stem and leaves. 

The plant guides say it doesn't 
have any green pigment allowing 
absorption of energy from light— 
Perhaps it was born under 

a serious star, on a broody 
night. Perhaps it gets by 
through a kind of ironic 
detachment: wanting 

little, often overlooked 
despite its lightbearing 
name. Like it, I wish I could 
slip, subterranean, through life.

So far below, as if in a well,
how can our cracked, exhausted
hearts brave the elements? Above,  
bits of blue show through clouds.

January 15, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Split

This morning Mr. Berkenshaw came again, and after he had examined me and taught me something in my work, he and I went to breakfast in my chamber upon a collar of brawn, and after we had eaten, asked me whether we had not committed a fault in eating to-day; telling me that it is a fast day ordered by the Parliament, to pray for more seasonable weather; it having hitherto been summer weather, that it is, both as to warmth and every other thing, just as if it were the middle of May or June, which do threaten a plague (as all men think) to follow, for so it was almost the last winter; and the whole year after hath been a very sickly time to this day. I did not stir out of my house all day, but conned my musique, and at night after supper to bed.

after break-up we pray
for more warmth

as if it were a threat
to the winter of us

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 15 January 1661/62.

January 15, 2025January 14, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Fern Frost

        With our little nephew, in December 
we cut out dozens of paper snowflakes 
               and taped them to the front windows. 
Where he lives, they get real snow 
        in winter— like, more than seven inches, 
whereas we on the coast are lucky to get 
               a dusting. I was today years old when I 
remembered, after rereading Dante, 
        that the lowest circle of hell is not 
actually a blazing inferno but a frozen  
               tundra where hundreds of sinners 
are buried up to their necks in ice.  
         And the coldest of them is Satan, of course— 
having fallen from such a great height, he caused 
               such rapid cooling in the atmosphere 
which followed him into the deepest circle of hell.
         There he is, the central cooling system where 
the sun never shines, beating gigantic bat-like wings.
               Hell must be anywhere or anytime you feel
stuck without sight of reprieve— Thinking about that
         makes my heart constrict. Water bubbles dropped
on ice, swirling with crystal dendrites and fern frost,
               are sharp with beauty at the edge of grief.

January 14, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Ordnance

All the morning at home, Mr. Berkenshaw by appointment yesterday coming to me, and begun composition of musique, and he being gone I to settle my papers and things in my chamber, and so after dinner in the afternoon to the office, and thence to my chamber about several businesses of the office and my own, and then to supper and to bed. This day my brave vellum covers to keep pictures in, come in, which pleases me very much.

all the gun
music gone

I settle into the chamber
of my own day

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 14 January 1661/62.

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

Being told you can’t have sex

            after sixty is like when a poet of a certain
age is told they shouldn't expect to have work
       picked up by the hottest magazines or
journals, or land in those Best of...
            lists. My muscles are fine, 
thank you. I appreciate both the power
       of restraint and the joy of 
spontaneity, the frisson of a seductive
            opening (perhaps like the title  
of this poem). Once, I entered an epic-
       poem writing competition, mostly
from irritation; some male poets I knew 
            were going on and on about how
it was all a matter of length and 
       endurance. Really. I scoffed. I could  
tell you about endurance, and about how sexy
            is perhaps one of the most 
misunderstood of qualities we like to lob
       around in this late-twenty-first-
century-nearing-apocalypse period. I've heard
             that Barrel Woman is one variation of
the carved Barrel Man souvenir sold to tourists
       in the Cordillera: instead of a phallus, 
breasts spring out to titillate. Scholars say this 
             is really a product of colonization, 
since indigenous sensibility saw no shame in going 
       around clad only in loincloths and woven 
skirts. Back in the nineteenth century, we 
              were seen only as dark and exotic.
From there, connect the dots. How many times  
       have we walked unblinking past catcalls and  
Hey, ma-GAN-da ka (accent totally on the wrong 
               syllable)? In 1565, Spanish explorers  
thought Syquijor island was on fire; it was the light
        from clouds of fireflies in the molave 
trees. It's said the slightest look or brush 
               of a hand while walking in the town
could mean hex or enchantment. That's sexy.

January 13, 2025January 13, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 2

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: ravaged days, a faint buzzing, a dead boy’s imagined journey, a night pure and thick as a womb, and much more. Enjoy.

January 13, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Communion

All the morning at home, and Mr. Berkenshaw (whom I have not seen a great while), came to see me, who staid with me a great while talking of musique, and I am resolved to begin to learn of him to compose, and to begin to-morrow, he giving of me so great hopes that I shall soon do it.
Before twelve o’clock comes, by appointment, Mr. Peter and the Dean, and Collonel Honiwood, brothers, to dine with me; but so soon that I was troubled at it. But, however, I entertained them with talk and oysters till one o’clock, and then we sat down to dinner, not staying for my uncle and aunt Wight, at which I was troubled, but they came by and by, and so we dined very merry, at least I seemed so, but the dinner does not please me, and less the Dean and Collonel, whom I found to be pitiful sorry gentlemen, though good-natured, but Mr. Peter above them both, who after dinner did show us the experiment (which I had heard talk of) of the chymicall glasses, which break all to dust by breaking off a little small end; which is a great mystery to me. They being gone, my aunt Wight and my wife and I to cards, she teaching of us how to play at gleeke, which is a pretty game; but I have not my head so free as to be troubled with it. By and by comes my uncle Wight back, and so to supper and talk, and then again to cards, when my wife and I beat them two games and they us one, and so good night and to bed.

who am I talking to
all alone with nature

in the dust
of great mystery
how to lay my head

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 13 January 1661/62.