Via Negativa

May 22, 2025 by Dave Bonta

The Times

This morning comes an order from the Secretary of State, Nicholas, for me to let one Mr. Lee, a Councellor, to view what papers I have relating to passages of the late times, wherein Sir H. Vane’s hand is employed, in order to the drawing up his charge; which I did, and at noon he, with Sir W. Pen and his daughter, dined with me, and he to his work again, and we by coach to the Theatre and saw “Love in a Maze.” The play hath little in it but Lacy’s part of a country fellow, which he did to admiration. So home, and supped with Sir W. Pen, where Sir W. Batten and Captn. Cocke came to us, to whom I have lately been a great stranger. This night we had each of us a letter from Captain Teddiman from the Streights, of a peace made upon good terms, by Sir J. Lawson, with the Argier men, which is most excellent news. He hath also sent each of us some anchovies, olives, and muscatt; but I know not yet what that is, and am ashamed to ask.
After supper home, and to bed, resolving to make up this week in seeing plays and pleasure, and so fall to business next week again for a great while.

this morning paper
ages at noon
in the heat

a maze of a country
where I have been
a stranger

in the news each of us
lives now
week to week

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 22 May 1662.

May 21, 2025May 21, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Milflores, I say—

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

hydrangea, hortensia. Blue that I love
         to snip this time of year, stems
I plunge in water collected in mason
         jars. Blue like the blue of sweet
pea flowers; blue from weeks of heavy 
         rain, decomposing matter, somewhere 
perhaps a chain of chemical rot. I have no
         word for my satisfaction in this  
planetary network I carry indoors in my hands,  
         after I've shorn off its protective  
ruff of green hearts— They fall on sunken slate,  
         my careless discards. Perhaps they'll  
return to haunt me in the fade of night. Or
         perhaps even now the wind has lofted  
them out to a different sea where they'll float
         and sink, free of prayer or offering.

May 21, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Unsettler

My wife and I by water to Westminster, and after she had seen her father (of whom lately I have heard nothing at all what he does or her mother), she comes to me to my Lord’s lodgings, where she and I staid walking in White Hall garden. And in the Privy-garden saw the finest smocks and linnen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine’s, laced with rich lace at the bottom, that ever I saw; and did me good to look upon them. So to Wilkinson’s, she and I and Sarah to dinner, where I had a good quarter of lamb and a salat. Here Sarah told me how the King dined at my Lady Castlemaine’s, and supped, every day and night the last week; and that the night that the bonfires were made for joy of the Queen’s arrivall, the King was there; but there was no fire at her door, though at all the rest of the doors almost in the street; which was much observed: and that the King and she did send for a pair of scales and weighed one another; and she, being with child, was said to be heaviest. But she is now a most disconsolate creature, and comes not out of doors, since the King’s going.
But we went to the Theatre to “The French Dancing Master,” and there with much pleasure gazed upon her (Lady Castlemaine); but it troubles us to see her look dejectedly and slighted by people already. The play pleased us very well; but Lacy’s part, the Dancing Master, the best in the world.
Thence to my brother Tom’s, in expectation to have met my father to-night come out of the country, but he is not yet come, but here we found my uncle Fenner and his old wife, whom I had not seen since the wedding dinner, nor care to see her. They being gone, my wife and I went and saw Mrs. Turner, whom we found not well, and her two boys Charles and Will come out of the country, grown very plain boys after three years being under their father’s care in Yorkshire. Thence to Tom’s again, and there supped well, my she cozen Scott being there and my father being not come, we walked home and to bed.

water comes to my garden
in the finest coat
laced with rich lace

and on the night of the fire
all the doors in the street
dancing with light

the world is a wife
not seen since the wedding

we turn a country into a cot
and not a bed

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 21 May 1662.

May 20, 2025May 20, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Self-portrait, with One-eyed Daruma

When my student said she prayed to the universe 
for a sign— something specific but random, like 2 

red feathers— I remembered a gift I received 
some years ago. A red daruma doll, eyeless

and round, modeled after the monk Bodhidharma
who made a vow to sit zazen for nine years.

On this quest for enlightenment, he fell 
asleep on the seventh year; and out of remorse, 

cut off his own eyelids so he would never close
his eyes again. Because we are all looking for some 

sign that we're on the right path, I took a permanent 
marker and inked in his left eye, then made my own 

wish. Only when it came true could I give him his other
eye. I'm not sure now if he has the power to make my

desire come true, or if I've simply learned to trust that
given time, the universe will answer. He sits on a corner 

of my bookshelf, waiting. Outside, birds in a bevy of colors 
dart in and out of willow oaks and crepe myrtle: crows, jays, 

cardinals; black-crowned night herons whose droppings 
make nearly indelible marks on car roofs and windows.

May 20, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Bonding

Sir W. Pen and I did a little business at the office, and so home again. Then comes Dean Fuller after we had dined, but I got something for him, and very merry we were for an hour or two, and I am most pleased with his company and goodness. At last parted, and my wife and I by coach to the Opera, and there saw the 2nd part of “The Siege of Rhodes,” but it is not so well done as when Roxalana was there, who, it is said, is now owned by my Lord of Oxford. Thence to Tower-wharf, and there took boat, and we all walked to Halfeway House, and there eat and drank, and were pleasant, and so finally home again in the evening, and so good night, this being a very pleasant life that we now lead, and have long done; the Lord be blessed, and make us thankful. But, though I am much against too much spending, yet I do think it best to enjoy some degree of pleasure now that we have health, money, and opportunity, rather than to leave pleasures to old age or poverty, when we cannot have them so properly.

sin comes with company
few being
against too much

now that we leave
pleasure to
the rope

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 20 May 1662.

May 19, 2025May 19, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

To the Future, Sending Signals in the Dark

"...whenever the winebowl emptied, it 
refilled of its own accord." 
        ~ Ovid, Metamorphoses Book VIII, 616-724



In Café Stella, over at the next table, 
the medical students have their textbooks 

open and are comparing notes on neuroanatomy 
in a clinical context. For memory: the amygdala,

the hippocampus, the neocortex. I want to ask 
them: if clairvoyance were a thing, what part 

of the brain is responsible, and how can that
ability be cultivated? Regardless of how ready

we might be, all that we learn from the sum
of hard years and rare moments of feathered 

joy line the bowl into which we dip our faces 
each day— Which one now, which one tomorrow?

In the future, when it's time, will one of us
turn into a linden and the other into an oak, 

braiding our limbs even as leaves fall to mark 
the seasons? Across lifetimes, eternity sends 

signals. Sometimes, we think we can decipher them;
then they turn into the haloed green of fireflies.

May 19, 2025May 20, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 20

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: grief and blossoms, poems about frogs, purposeful loafing, the crosshairs of the present, and much more. Enjoy.

May 19, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Stolen time

Long in bed, sometimes scolding with my wife, and then pleased again, and at last up, and put on my riding cloth suit, and a camelott coat new, which pleases me well enough. To the Temple about my replication, and so to my brother Tom’s, and there hear that my father will be in town this week. So home, the shops being but some shut and some open. I hear that the House of Commons do think much that they should be forced to huddle over business this morning against the afternoon, for the King to pass their Acts, that he may go out of town. But he, I hear since, was forced to stay till almost nine o’clock at night before he could have done, and then he prorogued them; and so to Gilford, and lay there. Home, and Mr. Hunt dined with me, and were merry. After dinner Sir W. Pen and his daughter, and I and my wife by coach to the Theatre, and there in a box saw “The Little Thief” well done. Thence to Moorefields, and walked and eat some cheesecake and gammon of bacon, but when I was come home I was sick, forced to vomit it up again. So my wife walking and singing upon the leads till very late, it being pleasant and moonshine, and so to bed.

bed time again
riding to replication

we shut the clock
in a box

the little thief
of home and moons

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 19 May 1662.

May 18, 2025May 19, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Poem with Amphora, Showing a Hero’s End

         Who are we to know what role
we get to play in life— whether
    hero or foil, or character 
meant to swell a scene or take
         
         the fall for someone else— before
we're unremembered? On the surface of   
    Exekias' amphora, the warrior bends,  
preparing to fall on his own sword.  

         Is it shame from dishonor, every  
battle fought well and bravely but still
    coming in only second best? One of
my college professors said the idea

         of an afterlife that's nothing 
but liminal space (impenetrable 
    fog between here and there, 
with neither joy nor pain) might be

         enough to goad even the stoic 
to some kind of action. But reward  
    is never the kind we expect, nor is 
punishment. The goal could be noble 

        (unless feigned), when putting 
collective interest ahead of individual 
    gain. Why did Ajax want that shield 
so much, and why would that kind 

         of desire be too excessive? 
Today the invocation of his name 
      brings to mind a character 
in the Marvel universe; or a popular 

         powder cleanser whose main
ingredients are calcium and sodium 
      carbonate. Yet Ajax bore Achilles'
body off the battlefield and fought

         for his friend's armor. Down
the centuries, though, it's the beautiful  
     favored ones always striking poses, 
their oiled bodies gleaming in the sun.

May 18, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Negotiations

(Whitsunday). By water to White Hall, and there to chappell in my pew belonging to me as Clerk of the Privy Seal; and there I heard a most excellent sermon of Dr. Hacket, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, upon these words: “He that drinketh this water shall never thirst.” We had an excellent anthem, sung by Captain Cooke and another, and brave musique. And then the King came down and offered, and took the sacrament upon his knees; a sight very well worth seeing. Hence with Sir G. Carteret to his lodging to dinner with his Lady and one Mr. Brevin, a French Divine, we were very merry, and good discourse, and I had much talk with my Lady. After dinner, and so to chappell again; and there had another good anthem of Captain Cooke’s. Thence to the Councell-chamber; where the King and Councell sat till almost eleven o’clock at night, and I forced to walk up and down the gallerys till that time of night. They were reading all the bills over that are to pass to-morrow at the House, before the King’s going out of town and proroguing the House.
At last the Councell risen, and Sir G. Carteret telling me what the Councell hath ordered about the ships designed to carry horse from Ireland to Portugall, which is now altered. I got a coach and so home, sending the boat away without me. At home I found my wife discontented at my being abroad, but I pleased her. She was in her new suit of black sarcenet and yellow petticoat very pretty. So to bed.

sun belonging to the sea
the field shall thirst

the king on his knees
before a risen horse

his red road
her yellow coat

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 18 May 1662.