Via Negativa

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

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

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

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.

August 27, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Nouveau riche

Up, and after doing something in order to the putting of my house in order now the joynery is done, I went by water to White Hall, where the Court full of waggons and horses, the King and Court going this day out towards the Bath, and I to St. James’s, where I spent an hour or more talking of many things to my great content with Mr. Coventry in his chamber, he being ready to set forth too with the Duke to-day, and so left him, and I meeting Mr. Gauden, with him to our offices and in Sir W. Pen’s chamber did discourse by a meeting on purpose with Mr. Waith about the victualling business and came to some issue in it.
So home to dinner, and Mr. Moore came and dined with me, and after dinner I paid him some money which evened all reckonings between him and me to this day, and for my Lord also I paid him some money, so that now my Lord owes me, for which I have his bond, just 700l..
After long discourse with him of the fitness of his giving me a receipt for this money, which I for my security think necessary and he otherwise do not think so, at last, after being a little angry, and I resolving not to let go my money without it, he did give me one.
Thence I took him, and he and I took a pleasant walk to Deptford and back again, I doing much business there. He went home and I home also, indoors to supper, being very glad to see my house begin to look like itself again, hoping after this is over not to be in any dirt a great while again, but it is very handsome, and will be more when the floors come to be of one colour.
So weary to bed.
Pleased this day to see Captain Hickes come to me with a list of all the officers of Deptford Yard, wherein he, being a high old Cavalier, do give me an account of every one of them to their reproach in all respects, and discovers many of their knaverys; and tells me, and so I thank God I hear every where, that my name is up for a good husband for the King, and a good man, for which I bless God; and that he did this by particular direction of Mr. Coventry.

a house full of horse discourse
meeting about business

money giving me
money for my money

like hands of one color
for every knavery

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 26 August 1663.

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

Devotion

Every night for a week now,
some creature digs through the soil 

in the largest planter on the deck, flinging sod, 
trailing earth. What it's looking for, we're not 

quite sure. But it comes back to the same scene,
bringing the energy of its need like an offering.

Nothing gets left or buried there. Only the traces
of a small frenzy of overturning, which a trowel

gathers up and returns in the morning. Clearly,
whatever it seeks has not been found. This

may not be a kind of love, but it looks like 
devotion. A prayer, which is what it is despite

(or because of) the absence of an answer. 
And me? I've held out my love like a lamp

in loamy darkness, hoping it's bright enough 
to be seen. If I have a face that looks as if

it could not be moved, it's only because 
I'm holding my breath, waiting for what 

has not yet broken through, believing
it should only be a matter of time.

August 26, 2026August 26, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Returning to the Body

Allow yourself time to return to that
borrowed house, your body—

crumpling into itself if not now then
decades ahead. Pull the shades down,

ease into the interregnum between
faith and despair: just a quiet

giving no more to one than to the other.
Harbor no grief that isn’t yours to keep, or

isn’t anyone’s judgment to give. Is it possible to feel
joy without paying for it with coin or

kingdom, without giving up the texture of
laughter pearling in the mouth? Your

many avatars are known to pursue light equally.
Normally shy, they’ve learned hunger is not

opposite to need, nor agency to hesitation.
People stand in loose circles in a room, dis-

quiet soothed by chatter, wine, crackers with cheese.
Remember you’re all here by chance, even if

summoned by invitation. Far away, glacial
torrents sweep through villages, markets, homes.

Under the rubble, how many hearts and singing bowls?
Vast is the universe, and you are in it: rejoicing or

weeping, bending toward what bends to you
exactly as it should, as the light flickers no or maybe or

yes. The body remembers both the sweetness and the ache,
zones of seeming emptiness filled with ordinary awe.