Via Negativa

August 31, 2026August 31, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Silent Movie

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

The piano player begins as the grainy black and white
film starts— A wedding! The hero walks out of the church

with his sweet bride on his arm. The world, though silent,
seems their oyster. They have a house to put together 

(by number, like Ikea) and their love will be the glue 
and the finish. But disaster is a spurned, jealous suitor,

switching the plans for doors and windows, tilting
the roof so it sits like a trapezoid opening its mouth

to rain. But our hero is earnest. He believes in ropes
and pulleys, a trusty hammer, a box of nails. He walks

into brick walls, falls from a height, yet he is nothing
but pure conviction. He is unfazed— like a trick 

birthday candle that refuses to be put out,
an optimist with a smacked face and likely

many bruises under the jacket and suspenders. 
They must have an upright piano in the living room! 

A bathtub below a natural skylight—anything
for his love! The train is coming down the tracks 

straight at them, its only thought the decimation of whatever 
is in its path. The girl still believes in him, the way we believe 

goodness is there like a sky which isn't just a painted 
backdrop,  though the world is full of breakable things.

August 31, 2026August 31, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Up and to my office all the morning, where Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes did pay the short allowance money to the East India companies, and by the assistance of the City Marshall and his men, did lay hold of two or three of the chief of the companies that were in the mutiny the other day, and sent them to prison.
This noon came Jane Gentleman to serve my wife as her chamber mayde. I wish she may prove well.
So ends this month, with my mind pretty well in quiett, and in good disposition of health since my drinking at home of a little wine with my beer; but no where else do I drink any wine at all.
My house in a way to be clean again, the Joyners and all having done; but only we lack a Cooke-maid and Jane our chambermaid is but new come to us this day.
The King and Queene and the Court at the Bath. My Lord Sandwich in the country, newly gone, with my doubts concerning him having been debauched by a slut at his lodgings at Chelsy. My brother John with me, but not to my great content, because I do not see him mind his study or give me so good account thereof as I expected.
My Brother embarqued in building, and I fear in no good condition for it, for he sent to me to borrow more money, which I shall not lend him.
Myself in good condition in the office, and I hope in a good way of saving money at home.

money in prison is quiet
a win with no wine

a way to be clean again
having only sand lodgings

brother give me
my fear money

I shall lend myself hope
money at home

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 31 August 1663.

August 31, 2026August 31, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 35

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: the monstrous head of the red ant, clouds like eyelids, inked islands, the fly-leaf of anxiety, and much more. Enjoy.

August 30, 2026August 31, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Sunday Surreal

a crane fly folds  into itself, unmoving in the corner

regulars at the coffee shop, coming in for last-minute orders

rounding shelves stacked with glass noodles, two white boys
check out the Asian candy
 
we lift grocery bags into the trunk: chicken thighs, eggplant, 
okra, onions, potatoes

a woman approaches, points out scratches on the bumper

who even put them there 

she asks if we know who did that

she keeps saying she has a camera on her truck 

we don't respond 

what is that even supposed to mean

August 30, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Toothache

Lords Day. Lay long, then up; and Will being ill of the tooth-ake, I stayed at home and made up my accounts; which to my great content arise to 750l. clear Creditor, the most I have had yet. Dined alone with my wife, my brother dining abroad at my uncle Wights I think. To church, I alone, in the afternoon; and there saw Pembleton come in and look up, which put me into a sweat, and seeing not my wife there, went out again. But Lord — how I was afeared that he might, seeing me at church, go home to my wife; so much it is out of my power to preserve myself from jealousy — and so sat impatient all the sermon. Home and find all well and no sign of anybody being there, and so with great content playing and dallying with my wife; and so to my office, doing a little business there among my papers, and home to my wife to talk — supper and bed.

toothache
on a clear afternoon

I look up
and see no ether

see so much
out of my power

my patient body here
among my papers

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 30 August 1663.

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

Exigency

Profusion of limbs and leaves as the gardener runs 
a hedge trimmer through the jasmine. He follows 
the porch contours—cutting away what obscures 
the view, leaving what climbs two pillars: what's 
allowed to reach toward the edge of the roof. 
There are no blooms, just this economy of green.
As if proliferation can be ordained, and every 
fragrance bottled as proof. Late summer's boiled 
syrup in the South, alternating with drenching rains. 
My body moves between these two frequencies, 
trying to intuit the measure of what still is possible 
amid the wildness of oceans and the deep sorrow 
of the earth, the glacier rush overcoming everything
in its path as if to remind us of who or what we 
would rush toward in the moment before all is lost.

August 29, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Haircut

Up betimes and settled some necessary papers relating to my security in the accounts which I lately passed with my Lord Sandwich; then to the office and there all the morning sitting. So home to dinner and then abroad with my wife by water to Westminster, and there left her at my Lord’s lodgings, talking with Mrs. Harper about her kinswoman’s coming to my wife next week. And I to Jervas the barber’s, and there was trimmed, and did deliver back a periwigg, which he brought by my desire the other day to show me, having some thoughts, though no great desire or resolution yet to wear one, and so I put it off for a while.
Thence to my wife, and calling at both the Exchanges, buying stockings for her and myself, and also at Leadenhall, where she and I, it being candlelight, bought meat for to-morrow, having never a mayde to do it, and I myself bought, while my wife was gone to another shop, a leg of beef, a good one, for six pense, and my wife says is worth my money. So walked home, with a woman carrying our things, and had a very pleasant walk from White-hall home. So to my office and there despatched some business; and so home and to supper and to bed.
We called at Toms as we came by, and saw his new building, which will be very convenient. But I am mightily displeased at a letter he sent me last night, to borrow 20l. more of me, and yet gives me no account, as I have long desired, how matters stand with him in the world. I am troubled also to see how, contrary to my expectation, my brother John neither is the scholler nor minds his studies as I thought would have done, but loiters away his time, so that I must send him soon to Cambridge again.

an account of the morning
sitting at the barber’s

my thoughts wear off
light as thin ice

how matters stand
with the world troubled

how other minds
would loiter

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 29 August 1663.

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

Birthday Song

"...Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?" ~ The Beatles


Back in Liverpool when he was only 14, Paul
McCartney plunked out a melody that would go on
to become When I'm Sixty-Four. I can't remember
what I was doing when I was 14—perhaps hiding 
in my room reading novels or the latest issue of Jingle 
Songbook, lip syncing to Pers Lab on the radio. 
Now I'm 64, on Thursday I'll turn 65. Evenings,
when I come home, all these moths with glitter
on their wings crowd around the porch light. They 
obviously have a better night life than I do. I still have 
most of my hair. I can't mend a fuse, but I installed 
a bidet all by myself during the pandemic, when everyone 
was worried about toilet paper shortages. In my head 
I'm still in my thirties, much of my life ahead of me. 
Time to sing a few more songs around a bonfire, 
remember what it's like to be young and bright 
and reckless, though by now I have a bed I'm always 
being told I should lie in because I made it. I've lost 
more than one of a pair of earrings, and many of those 
I love are gone. There are days  I feel every bit of hard-
earned knowledge wrapped around my bones—
a kind of armor it won't be easy to shrug off  
even if I tried, but I am still tender enough
to want and ask for more.

August 28, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Long haul

At the office betimes (it being cold all night and this morning, and a very great frost they say abroad, which is much, having had no summer at all almost), where we sat, and in the afternoon also about settling the establishment of the number of men borne on ships, &c., till the evening, and after that in my closet till late, and quite tired with business, home to supper and to bed.

all-night road
the numb men borne on it
tire

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 28 August 1663.

August 28, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Veteran

Up, after much pleasant talke with my wife and a little that vexes me, for I see that she is confirmed in it that all that I do is by design, and that my very keeping of the house in dirt, and the doing of this and any thing else in the house, is but to find her employment to keep her within and from minding of her pleasure, in which, though I am sorry to see she minds it, is true enough in a great degree.
To my office, and there we sat and despatched much business. Home and dined with my wife well, and then up and made clean my closet of books, and had my chamber a third time made very clean, so that it is now in a very fine condition.
Thence down to see some good plank in the river with Sir W. Batten and back again, it being a very cold day and a cold wind. Home again, and after seeing Sir W. Pen, to my office, and there till late doing of business, being mightily encouraged by every body that I meet withal upon the ‘Change and every where else, that I am taken notice of for a man that do the King’s business wholly and well. For which the Lord be praised, for I know no honour I desire more.
Home to supper, where I find my house very clean from top to bottom again to my great content. I found a feacho (as he calls it) of fine sugar and a case of orange-flower water come from Mr. Cocke, of Lisbon, the fruits of my last year’s service to him, which I did in great justice to the man, a perfect stranger. He sends it me desiring that I would not let Sir J. Minnes know it, from whom he expected to have found the service done that he had from me, from whom he could expect nothing, and the other failed him, and would have done I am sure to this day had not I brought it to some end.
After supper to bed.

from the river
a cold body

from each flower
a fruit
a perfect stranger

from the service
no one I ought to be

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 27 August 1663.