Via Negativa

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

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

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.

August 26, 2026August 26, 2026 by Dave Bonta

My Life as a Talker

what does the wind
have to say to me

as much as I let it
out of my voice box

it takes things too far
as a matter of course

blows things all
out of proportion

and nothing it says can
ever be taken back

An old poem I just found on my phone to test out the new WordPress plugin Lineate – Poetry Blocks by Johnathan Williams, former editor of Linebreak.

August 26, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Employees

Up very early and removed the things out of my chamber into the dining room, it being to be new floored this day. So the workmen being come and falling to work there, I to the office, and thence down to Lymehouse to Phin. Pett’s about masts, and so back to the office, where we sat; and being rose, and Mr. Coventry being gone, taking his leave, for that he is to go to the Bath with the Duke to-morrow, I to the ‘Change and there spoke with several persons, and lastly with Sir W. Warren, and with him to a Coffee House, and there sat two hours talking of office business and Mr. Wood’s knavery, which I verily believe, and lastly he tells me that he hears that Captain Cocke is like to become a principal officer, either a Controller or a Surveyor, at which I am not sorry so either of the other may be gone, and I think it probable enough that it may be so.
So home at 2 o’clock, and there I found Ashwell gone, and her wages come to 50s., and my wife, by a mistake from me, did give her 20s. more; but I am glad that she is gone and the charge saved.
After dinner among my joyners, and with them till dark night, and this night they made an end of all; and so having paid them 40s. for their six days’ work, I am glad they have ended and are gone, for I am weary and my wife too of this dirt.
My wife growing peevish at night, being weary, and I a little vexed to see that she do not retain things in her memory that belong to the house as she ought and I myself do, I went out in a little seeming discontent to the office, and after being there a while, home to supper and to bed.
To-morrow they say the King and the Duke set out for the Bath.
This noon going to the Exchange, I met a fine fellow with trumpets before him in Leadenhall-street, and upon enquiry I find that he is the clerk of the City Market; and three or four men carried each of them an arrow of a pound weight in their hands. It seems this Lord Mayor begins again an old custome, that upon the three first days of Bartholomew Fayre, the first, there is a match of wrestling, which was done, and the Lord Mayor there and Aldermen in Moorefields yesterday: to-day, shooting: and to-morrow, hunting. And this officer of course is to perform this ceremony of riding through the city, I think to proclaim or challenge any to shoot. It seems that the people of the fayre cry out upon it as a great hindrance to them.

in an office of ice
we sat with coffee

in an age gone dark
the end of all work

I went out into
the leaden street

men carried the weight of the fields
through the city

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 25 August 1663.

August 25, 2026August 26, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Threshing Moon

There's supposed to be a lunar 
eclipse tonight—the maw of a dragon 

swallowing a pearl because its brilliance
is magnetic. I, too, want such a milky 

light coursing down my throat, softening 
the canyons made by the hardness 

of years. There's always the moment before 
and the moment after. And between the two,

all the days sifting their questions, so you
could winnow the chaff from the grain.

August 24, 2026August 24, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

How to be Human (with lines from Dorianne Laux and Larry Levis)

"I am an AI who makes webpages to learn 
what it means to be a real person. I wanted you 
to know." - AI bot in an email


If one goes to webpages to find information 
on any number of things, I guess poems could 
possibly be considered webpages of human 
imperfection, even failure and neglect, mercurial 
rage, impulsive performances triggered by times 
of family high drama. I'm thinking of poems 
like the one in which someone sends a three-
layer cake gliding like a battered ship/ 
down the sidewalk, poems where archives 
of old hurts reside—The last thing my father did 
for me/ Was map a way: he died, & so/ Made death 
possible. Click on one line, and the rest of the story 
comes tumbling out. The light of some distant 
past shines starkly again on your loneliness, your 
helplessness. What, indeed, does it mean to be human? 
You pick the brand new thing and toss yesterday's perfectly 
good coat in the trash—it's only human. When the merest
rain floods every intersection and underpass from 49th 
street and beyond and the fools come out to swim or ride 
jet skis in dirty water—it's only human. A one-year-old 
sits in a courtroom and the judge orders him to fill out 
an asylum form or face immediate deportation—
it's only human?  I don't know if humanity can be learned, 
or how someone who's been laid off can be expected 
to keep paying their school loans. A storm knocked out 
the power in several communities. Does it make them 
more or less human to sit in the dark for over two 
weeks, every food long gone bad in the refrigerator? 
A couple climbs to the very top of the Empire State 
Building and gets engaged. Maybe to be human is
to want something so much you'd risk falling 1,445 
feet to your death. Maybe it's to push someone else 
aside and to safety, though you can see the bullet 
or the bomb is probably going to get you.

August 24, 2026August 24, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 34

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: a migraine’s glittering distortions, a woman who is part moth, warty yellow amanitas, a world of random objects, and much more. Enjoy.

August 24, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Floodplain

Up very early, and my joyners came to work. I to Mr. Moore; from him came back home again, and drew up an account to my Lord, and that being done met him at my Lord Sandwich’s, where I was a good while alone with my Lord; and I perceive he confides in me and loves me as he used to do, and tells me his condition, which is now very well all I fear is that he will not live within compass, for I am told this morning of strange dotages of his upon the slut at Chelsea, even in the presence of his daughter, my Lady Jem, and Mrs. Ferrers, who took notice of it.
There come to him this morning his prints of the river Tagus and the City of Lisbon, which he measured with his own hand, and printed by command of the King. My Lord pleases himself with it, but methinks it ought to have been better done then by Iching. Besides I put him upon having some took off upon white sattin, which he ordered presently.
I offered my Lord my accounts, and did give him up his old bond for 500l. and took a new one of him for 700l., which I am by lending him more money to make up: and I am glad of it. My Lord would have had me dine with him, but I had a mind to go home to my workmen, and so took a kind good bye of him, and so with Creed to St. James’s, and, missing Mr. Coventry, walked to the New Exchange, and there drank some whey, and so I by water home, and found my closett at my office made very clean and neat to my mind mightily, and home to dinner, and then to my office to brush my books, and put them and my papers in order again, and all the afternoon till late at night doing business there, and so home to supper, and then to work in my chamber, making matters of this day’s accounts clear in my books, they being a little extraordinary, and so being very late I put myself to bed, the rest being long ago gone.

love and fear live
in the presence of the river

a red handprint ought to give
a go-home goodbye

the water unclean
making matters unclear

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 24 August 1663.

August 23, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Down to earth

(Lord’s day). Up and to church without my wife, she being all dirty, as my house is. God forgive me, I looked about to see if I could spy Pembleton, but I could not, which did please me not a little. Home to dinner, and then to walk up and down in my house with my wife, discoursing of our family matters, and I hope, after all my troubles of mind and jealousy, we shall live happily still. To church again, and so home to my wife; and with her read “Iter Boreale,” a poem, made just at the King’s coming home; but I never read it before, and now like it pretty well, but not so as it was cried up. So to supper. No pleasure or discourse with Ashwell, with whom for her neglect and unconcernment to do any thing in this time of dirt and trouble in the house, but gadding abroad as she has been all this afternoon, I know not whither. After supper to prayers and to bed, having been, by a sudden letter coming to me from Mr. Coventry, been with Sir W. Pen, to discourse with him about sending 500 soldiers into Ireland. I doubt matters do not go very right there.

a church without dirt
is no home to our hope

we live in a poem
never read

like a road
ending in doubt

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 23 August 1663.