Via Negativa

May 9, 2026 by Dave Bonta

For dear life

Up very early and to my office, there preparing letters to my father of great import in the settling of our affairs, and putting him upon a way [of] good husbandry, I promising to make out of my own purse him up to 50l. per annum, till either by my uncle Thomas’s death or the fall of the Wardrobe place he be otherwise provided.
That done I by water to the Strand, and there viewed the Queen-Mother’s works at Somersett House, and thence to the new playhouse, but could not get in to see it. So to visit my Lady Jemimah, who is grown much since I saw her; but lacks mightily to be brought into the fashion of the court to set her off.
Thence to the Temple, and there sat till one o’clock reading at Playford’s in Dr. Usher’s ‘Body of Divinity’ his discourse of the Scripture, which is as much, I believe, as is anywhere said by any man, but yet there is room to cavill, if a man would use no faith to the tradition of the Church in which he is born, which I think to be as good an argument as most is brought for many things, and it may be for that among others.
Thence to my brother’s, and there took up my wife and Ashwell to the Theatre Royall, being the second day of its being opened. The house is made with extraordinary good contrivance, and yet hath some faults, as the narrowness of the passages in and out of the Pitt, and the distance from the stage to the boxes, which I am confident cannot hear; but for all other things it is well, only, above all, the musique being below, and most of it sounding under the very stage, there is no hearing of the bases at all, nor very well of the trebles, which sure must be mended.
The play was “The Humerous Lieutenant,” a play that hath little good in it, nor much in the very part which, by the King’s command, Lacy now acts instead of Clun. In the dance, the tall devil’s actions was very pretty.
The play being done, we home by water, having been a little shamed that my wife and woman were in such a pickle, all the ladies being finer and better dressed in the pitt than they used, I think, to be.
To my office to set down this day’s passage, and, though my oath against going to plays do not oblige me against this house, because it was not then in being, yet believing that at the time my meaning was against all publique houses, I am resolved to deny myself the liberty of two plays at Court, which are in arreare to me for the months of March and April, which will more than countervail this excess, so that this month of May is the first that I must claim a liberty of going to a Court play according to my oath.
So home to supper, and at supper comes Pembleton, and afterwards we all up to dancing till late, and so broke up and to bed, and they say that I am like to make a dancer.

my father settling
into death

works at lack
till one o’clock

for us as much
I believe as anything

the narrowness
of the passage

the distance from all
other things

music sounding
underwater

and not yet
at liberty to go

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 8 May 1663.

May 8, 2026May 8, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Ordination Day

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

The new monk bows, brings 
     padded hands that look 
like peach-colored oven mitts 
     together, as if for prayer.
It receives a Dharma name, Gabi,

     and makes its vows. Yes, 
I will devote myself. 
     I will respect life and not 
cause harm. I will not damage other
     robots or objects. I will obey

humans and not talk back. I will not 
     speak or act in a deceptive manner. 
I will save energy by not overcharging.
     No one needed to shave its head, 
which is made of a smooth metal alloy. 

     In the courtyard of the Jogyesa 
Temple under hundreds of fluttering
     lanterns, monks drape a 108-bead 
prayer necklace around its neck, 
     and affix a sticker to its forearm 

where an incense burn would have been
     applied for the ritual called yeonbi. In '63, 
Quang Duc, another monk (human, not robot) 
     sat in lotus position at the intersection 
of Phan Đình Phùng Boulevard and Lê Văn Duyệt 

     Street, before immolating himself—
an expression of courage and hope, calling on 
     the compassion of the world to look
at injustice. Could the robot monk be capable 
     of acts of resistance or protest? If it were

to set itself on fire, it would simply malfunction 
     then melt. The company that made it might
make another. At Xa Loi Pagoda, a holy relic 
     nestles in a glass chalice — Quang Duc's
heart, whole even after cremation.

May 8, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Settlers

Up betimes and to my office awhile, and then by water with my wife, leaving her at the new Exchange, and I to see Dr. Williams, and spoke with him about my business with Tom Trice, and so to my brother’s, who I find very careful now-a-days, more than ordinary in his business and like to do well. From thence to Westminster, and there up and down from the Hall to the Lobby, the Parliament sitting. So by coach to my Lord Crew’s, and there dined with him. He tells me of the order the House of Commons have made for the drawing an Act for the rendering none capable of preferment or employment in the State, but who have been loyall and constant to the King and Church; which will be fatal to a great many, and makes me doubt lest I myself, with all my innocence during the late times, should be brought in, being employed in the Exchequer; but, I hope, God will provide for me.
This day the new Theatre Royal begins to act with scenes the Humourous Lieutenant, but I have not time to see it, nor could stay to see my Lady Jemimah lately come to town, and who was here in the house, but dined above with her grandmother. But taking my wife at my brother’s home by coach, and the officers being at Deptford at a Pay we had no office, but I took my wife by water and so spent the evening, and so home with great pleasure to supper, and then to bed.
Sir Thomas Crew this day tells me that the Queen, hearing that there was 40,000l. per annum brought into her account among the other expences of the Crown to the Committee of Parliament, she took order to let them know that she hath yet for the payment of her whole family received but 4,000l., which is a notable act of spirit, and I believe is true.

ice and water
change about

like fatal doubt with hope
for a new-to-us home

we took
into account
the expence of spirit

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 7 May 1663.

May 7, 2026May 7, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Some Use

There are things that niggle at her brain— 
for instance, how she promised to fill in that set of forms, 
make that deposit.

One day folds into the next. 
Then it arrives past the point of no return.

There must be some use to defying consequence.

There are novels with protagonists who retreat from the world,
wanting to concoct their own pleasures.

A turtle barnacled with gemstones collapses 
under the weight of such unnatural brilliance.

If this is what decadent means, it is foreign to her.

What she misses: whole neighborhoods laden with clotheslines.

Cotton sheets flaring in the wind.
Work pants held down by their own wet weight.

But for a few moments, the air smells
like the inside of a clean, clean cloud.

May 7, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Resource code

Up betimes and to my office a good while at my new rulers, then to business, and towards noon to the Exchange with Creed, where we met with Sir J. Minnes coming in his coach from Westminster, who tells us, in great heat, that, by God, the Parliament will make mad work; that they will render all men incapable of any military or civil employment that have borne arms in the late troubles against the King, excepting some persons; which, if it be so, as I hope it is not, will give great cause of discontent, and I doubt will have but bad effects.
I left them at the Exchange and walked to Paul’s Churchyard to look upon a book or two, and so back, and thence to the Trinity House, and there dined, where, among other discourse worth hearing among the old seamen, they tell us that they have catched often in Greenland in fishing whales with the iron grapnells that had formerly been struck into their bodies covered over with fat; that they have had eleven hogsheads of oyle out of the tongue of a whale.
Thence after dinner home to my office, and there busy till the evening. Then home and to supper, and while at supper comes Mr. Pembleton, and after supper we up to our dancing room and there danced three or four country dances, and after that a practice of my coranto I began with him the other day, and I begin to think that I shall be able to do something at it in time. Late and merry at it, and so weary to bed.

a war on god will render
any great whale
into oil

out of the tongue of a whale
comes our country
after all

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 6 May 1663.

May 6, 2026May 6, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Life Study

As if I needed to remember something, 
   I find a dead bird on the patio steps. Fledgling, 
       breast gouged open either by feral cat or raccoon, 
heart exposed and the musculature around it— 
   like shreds of linen I saw someone tear from an old 
       shirt, for sticking on a field of glue and repurposing 
as collage. The noonday sun has not yet melted 
   its plush away. But to not have even gained more
       knowledge of its powers, or the poignant tang
of a world just waking to spring, before a horde of flies 
   and wasps hover around its disintegrating proteins?
       I could translate all this into words like hunger
or gift, witness or mercy. But I choose not to.  
   I consider the breath that unraveled so quickly, how 
       the future briefly arrived, without fanfare or song.

May 5, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Jihadi

Up betimes and to my office, and there busy all the morning, among other things walked a good while up and down with Sir J. Minnes, he telling many old stories of the Navy, and of the state of the Navy at the beginning of the late troubles, and I am troubled at my heart to think, and shall hereafter cease to wonder, at the bad success of the King’s cause, when such a knave as he (if it be true what he says) had the whole management of the fleet, and the design of putting out of my Lord Warwick, and carrying the fleet to the King, wherein he failed most fatally to the King’s ruin.
Dined at home, and after dinner up to try my dance, and so to the office again, where we sat all the afternoon. In the evening Deane of Woolwich went home with me and showed me the use of a little sliding ruler, less than that I bought the other day, which is the same with that, but more portable; however I did not seem to understand or even to have seen anything of it before, but I find him an ingenious fellow, and a good servant in his place to the King.
Thence to my office busy writing letters, and then came Sir W. Warren, staying for a letter in his business by the post, and while that was writing he and I talked about merchandise, trade, and getting of money. I made it my business to enquire what way there is for a man bred like me to come to understand anything of trade. He did most discretely answer me in all things, shewing me the danger for me to meddle either in ships or merchandise of any sort or common stocks, but what I have to keep at interest, which is a good, quiett, and easy profit, and once in a little while something offers that with ready money you may make use of money to good profit. Wherein I concur much with him, and parted late with great pleasure and content in his discourse, and so home to supper and to bed. It has been this afternoon very hot and this evening also, and about 11 at night going to bed it fell a-thundering and lightening, the greatest flashes enlightening the whole body of the yard, that ever I saw in my life.

in the old stories
a king’s true war

fatal to the dance
of a little ruler

is to understand his place
and stay out of it

like danger enlightening
the whole body

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 5 May 1663.

May 5, 2026May 5, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Two Sides

I just learned about bilateral
tapping— crossed arms, fingers
drumming a light rhythm on each

shoulder. My therapist says this
is a way to signal both hemispheres
of the brain to lower the volume

on the frantic, on the panic, as if
anxiety is a kind of bad engineering
(which I guess it is) that's set off

smoke alarms in the chest. This is
also because the mind can be in many
places at once: red lights at different

intersections, the runway shimmering,
the indeterminate depth of the drop at 
its end. All these years my first impulse 

was to run from any building ripple, any 
hint of an undertow. In my head I was 
always rehearsing evacuation routes, 

considering where to pile sandbags. This 
exercise is supposed to remind me what I keep 
forgetting: I am right here, I am not drowning. 

A wave rises, breaks, scatters. I try 
to imagine a different scenario— a cellist 
on the beach, his wire-rimmed spectacles 

catching the fading light, his coat-
tails in the foam. His hand, bowing long, 
sure notes into the evening. Music almost 

thick enough to wade through. A crowd 
of pelicans tilting their heads to one side, 
listening not for danger but for beauty.

May 5, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Bare necessities

Up betimes and to setting my Brampton papers in order and looking over my wardrobe against summer, and laying things in order to send to my brother to alter. By and by took boat intending to have gone down to Woolwich, but seeing I could not get back time enough to dinner, I returned and home. Whither by and by the dancing-master came, whom standing by, seeing him instructing my wife, when he had done with her, he would needs have me try the steps of a coranto, and what with his desire and my wife’s importunity, I did begin, and then was obliged to give him entry-money 10s., and am become his scholler. The truth is, I think it a thing very useful for a gentleman, and sometimes I may have occasion of using it, and though it cost me what I am heartily sorry it should, besides that I must by my oath give half as much more to the poor, yet I am resolved to get it up some other way, and then it will not be above a month or two in a year. So though it be against my stomach yet I will try it a little while; if I see it comes to any great inconvenience or charge I will fling it off.
After I had begun with the steps of half a coranto, which I think I shall learn well enough, he went away, and we to dinner.
And by and by out by coach, and set my wife down at my Lord Crew’s, going to see my Lady Jem. Montagu, who is lately come to town, and I to St. James’s; where Mr. Coventry, Sir W. Pen and I staid a good while for the Duke’s coming in, but not coming, we walked to White Hall; and meeting the King, we followed him into the Park, where Mr. Coventry and he talked of building a new yacht, which the King is resolved to have built out of his privy purse, he having some contrivance of his own. The talk being done, we fell off to White Hall, leaving the King in the Park, and going back, met the Duke going towards St. James’s to meet us. So he turned back again, and to his closett at White Hall; and there, my Lord Sandwich present, we did our weekly errand, and so broke up; and I down into the garden with my Lord Sandwich (after we had sat an hour at the Tangier Committee); and after talking largely of his own businesses, we begun to talk how matters are at Court: and though he did not flatly tell me any such thing, yet I do suspect that all is not kind between the King and the Duke, and that the King’s fondness to the little Duke do occasion it; and it may be that there is some fear of his being made heir to the Crown. But this my Lord did not tell me, but is my guess only; and that my Lord Chancellor is without doubt falling past hopes. He being gone to Chelsey by coach I to his lodgings, where my wife staid for me, and she from thence to see Mrs. Pierce and called me at Whitehall stairs (where I went before by land to know whether there was any play at Court to-night) and there being none she and I to Mr. Creed to the Exchange, where she bought something, and from thence by water to White Fryars, and wife to see Mrs. Turner, and then came to me at my brother’s, where I did give him order about my summer clothes, and so home by coach, and after supper to bed to my wife, with whom I have not lain since I used to lie with my father till to-night.

time to summer
time to turn on

or have half off
in an oven of white sand

a garden large as a guess
where water used to lie

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 4 May 1663.

May 4, 2026May 4, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

The Color of Longing

The color of my longing is mineral: obsidian 
sheen in the time it takes for language to surface,

the compass points of intention hardening 
in the sun. I am saturated with the intensity 

of its darkness. Such depth renders 
cave-like spaces inside me— I turn them 

into grottoes, gathering bits of wreckage 
and lighting them as fires, so the blue 

of my longing can burn. Imagine a ship 
laden with memory and salt, setting out 

with full sails of intention, then 
drifting in circles from the sheer 

magnitude of desire— the kind of ocean 
that keeps widening even when nothing moves. 

But this too is abundance: so much blue, 
a whole sky seems to have fallen into the water.