Via Negativa

September 30, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Old soldier

Took two pills more in the morning and they worked all day, and I kept the house. About noon dined, and then to carry several heavy things with my wife up and down stairs, in order to our going to lie above, and Will to come down to the Wardrobe, and that put me into a violent sweat, so I had a fire made, and then, being dry again, she and I to put up some paper pictures in the red chamber, where we go to lie very pretty, and the map of Paris. Then in the evening, towards night, it fell to thunder, lighten, and rain so violently that my house was all afloat, and I in all the rain up to the gutters, and there dabbled in the rain and wet half an hour, enough to have killed a man. That done downstairs to dry myself again, and by and by come Mr. Sympson to set up my wife’s chimney-piece in her closett, which pleases me, and so that being done, I to supper and to bed, shifting myself from top to toe, and doubtful of my doing myself hurt.

I work to carry several
heavy things
a lie the war

that fire-red
map in my gut
enough to have killed me

my wife in bed
shifting
doubtful

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 29 September 1663.

September 30, 2026September 29, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Not Just Suffering

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

It was a time whose fine details are blurred,
like landscape through a window streaked
with rain. The city I grew up in, mirage 

of lights and midnight arrivals, departures.
Who said to me once, You write so well
about suffering? That gave me

pause. And another time, I am so glad
I don't have to think of things like that. 
Trees bent by the long monsoon, 

unceasing eddies in the lake; mildew
collecting intentions on the bathroom
walls— Do these, too, speak of suffering? 

One afternoon we listened to music
composed on the spot, pulled as if silk
out of the air by numinous beings.

Years of training and practice
behind the sureness of the first key
touched, and then the next. Perhaps

this is how the agonies of choice 
and doubt can be haltered. There 
they are, where you've led and left

them in the meadow, quiet now
in the clover. They nuzzle the grass, 
the soil, each other. When you call 

to them, they come. It doesn't
matter if one limps, or if they've 
seen better days.

September 29, 2026September 28, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Prayer Against Approaching Zero

May the falling needle stop short of disaster, and the reaping 
just short of grim. May the curtains open again to let us know 
there is an encore or an interim. 

May the miracle of your blueprint system create a new 
defense against attacking cells, and the lesions on
your back transfigure into a blindingly empty field.

May the atoms of a pure and orderly crystal 
attempt (in theory) to reach precisely zero, but
may this state remain impossible to achieve.

May the many sums subtracted from my life-
time (work, years, tears, failure) build back
an edifice impossible to subdue.

September 28, 2026 by Dave Bonta

All-consuming

Up, though with pain in my head, stomach, and ear, and that deaf so as in my way by coach to White Hall with Sir J. Minnes I called at Mr. Holliard’s, who did give me some pills, and tells me I shall have my hearing again and be well. So to White Hall, where Sir J. Minnes and I did spend an hour in the Gallery, looking upon the pictures, in which he hath some judgment. And by and by the Commissioners for Tangier met: and there my Lord Teviott, together with Captain Cuttance, Captain Evans, and Jonas Moore, sent to that purpose, did bring us a brave draught of the Mole to be built there; and report that it is likely to be the most considerable place the King of England hath in the world; and so I am apt to think it will. After discourse of this, and of supplying the garrison with some more horse, we rose; and Sir J. Minnes and I home again, finding the street about our house full, Sir R. Ford beginning his shrievalty to-day and, what with his and our houses being new painted, the street begins to look a great deal better than it did, and more gracefull.
Home and eat one bit of meat, and then by water with him and Sir W. Batten to a sale of old provisions at Deptford, which we did at Captain Boddily’s house, to the value of 600l. or 700l., but I am not satisfied with the method used in this thing.
Then home again by water, and after a little at my office, and visit Sir W. Pen, who is not very well again, with his late pain, home to supper, being hungry, and my ear and cold not so bad I think as it was. So to bed, taking one of my pills. Newes that the King comes to town for certain on Thursday next from his progresse.

in my stomach I have met
mole-like

most of the world
and I am full

better than full
of meat and visions

but I am not satisfied
again and again

being hungry
and an ogre

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 28 September 1663.

September 28, 2026September 28, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 39

A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere, including Substack, with a commitment to following a somewhat haphazardly chosen selection of poets, poetry lovers, literary critics and publishers over time. 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: September tomatoes, ghost pixels, locoweed, rejection season, an ode to the multiple orgasm, and much more. Enjoy.

September 28, 2026September 28, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

The Entropy of Isolated Systems

The heel that falls clean 
                                       off a shoe. The fray
that begins before the garment's 
                                       final stitch. Shards of torn
underlayment the roofers 
                                       tossed to the ground. 
Massive sheets of ice
                                       and rock that shear
off the mountain, plunging 
                                       7,000 feet into the river 
below. Displacement 
                                       releases energy in all
directions. Then retreat, 
                                       followed by a wave
that knocks down everything
                                       in its path.

September 28, 2026September 27, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

The First Law of Thermodynamics


There is a grief that grieves before it is time to grieve. 
You know it's because love precedes it. You hold the beloved's 

face in your hands and it is both a morning greeting and a prayer
you are beginning to compose. There is weak light spilling

through the blinds, after a week of damp and rain and flood.
The tree outside your window is still fully dressed in green,

though its sleeves are beginning to slowly unravel. Where
have the noisy crows of summer gone? And yet you do not

miss them, their sombre coats, their sharp punctuation
of the air. Of course there is nothing in the world in your

control. Your shadow is longest in the morning and shortest
at noon; it only seems invisible at night. You can't outrun

your shadow. Somehow you know, whatever is taken
from you can still be called to, can still answer.

September 27, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Explorer

(Lord’s day). Lay chatting with my wife a good while, then up and got me ready and to church, without my man William, whom I have not seen to-day, nor care, but would be glad to have him put himself far enough out of my favour that he may not wonder to have me put him away. So home to dinner, being a little troubled to see Pembleton out again, but I do not discern in my wife the least memory of him.
Dined, and so to my office a little, and then to church again, where a drowsy sermon, and so home to spend the evening with my poor wife, consulting about her closett, clothes, and other things. At night to supper, though with little comfort, I finding myself both head and breast in great pain, and what troubles me most my right ear is almost deaf. It is a cold, which God Almighty in justice did give me while I sat lewdly sporting with Mrs. Lane the other day with the broken window in my neck. I went to bed with a posset, being very melancholy in consideration of the loss of my hearing.

far enough out
that wonder is a church

I spend the evening
in her clothes

finding my head
great in a hat

while I net the wind
with a melancholy ear

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 27 September 1663.

September 27, 2026September 27, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Two Moons

              Whatever it was I wanted then, I wanted
fast—too long, couldn't wait, too much desire
                          chalking signposts at every turn.
Those many years ago, not yet
               belonging and not yet leaving,
I touched the surfaces of things,
                           like each was a revelation.
And it was. Water in a tin drum, reflecting
               a face that floated free of rust and
verdigris. All the other little bits, leaf, twig,
                           wire, insect wings held by a buoyant
tension. I cracked an egg on the rim of a bowl
                but did not know yet how to separate
liquid from gold. Ripening fruit bruised
                           under my touch. My hands were clumsy,
my mouth full of hunger; my body, younger,
                unaware of borrowed light or danger. I took
no counsel that I didn't first pass through
                            my teeth. The moon rose, bald 
and unprophetic above the alley where 
                we lived. Does it remember me
and how badly I wished to be borne
                             into a moment no one could deny
was mine? Sometimes there is no moon
                 in the sky, except its absence. New
moon, harvest moon. Now we have news of
                             a second moon, like a quarter
traveling for a while in some loose
                  pocket. I want my ordinary days
to still feel chosen, for me to feel
                             their weight as if the gravity of my life
were tied to a force equal to or greater in magnitude.

September 26, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Cut loose

Up and to my office, and there we sat till noon, and then I to the Exchange, but did little there, but meeting Mr. Rawlinson he would needs have me home to dinner, and Mr. Deane of Woolwich being with me I took him with me, and there we dined very well at his own dinner, only no invitation, but here I sat with little pleasure, considering my wife at home alone, and so I made what haste home I could, and was forced to sit down again at dinner with her, being unwilling to neglect her by being known to dine abroad. My doing so being only to keep Deane from dining at home with me, being doubtful what I have to eat. So to the office, and there till late at night, and so home to supper and bed, being mightily pleased to find my wife so mindful of her house.

no meeting needs me
I dine at no invitation

with pleasure alone
I could sit down

unknown to the office
the tea I might find

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 26 September 1663.