Via Negativa

November 4, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Peripatetic

Up, and by coach to White Hall, and there in the long Matted Gallery I find Sir G. Carteret, Sir J. Minnes, and Sir W. Batten — and by and by comes the King to walk there with three or four with him; and soon as he saw us, says he, “Here is the Navy Office,” and there walked twenty turns the length of the gallery, talking, methought, but ordinary talke. By and by came the Duke, and he walked, and at last they went into the Duke’s lodgings. The King staid so long that we could not discourse with the Duke, and so we parted. I heard the Duke say that he was going to wear a perriwigg; and they say the King also will. I never till this day observed that the King is mighty gray.
Thence, meeting with Creed, walked with him to Westminster Hall, and thence by coach took up Mrs. Hunt, and carried her towards my house, and we light at the ‘Change, and sent her to my house, Creed and I to the Coffeehouse, and then to the ‘Change, and so home, and carried a barrel of oysters with us, and so to dinner, and after a good dinner left Mrs. Hunt and my wife making marmalett of quinces, and Creed and I to the perriwigg makers, but it being dark concluded of nothing, and so Creed went away, and I with Sir W. Pen, who spied me in the street, in his coach home.
There found them busy still, and I up to my vyall. Anon, the comfiture being well done, my wife and I took Mrs. Hunt at almost 9 at night by coach and carried Mrs. Hunt home, and did give her a box of sugar and a haunch of venison given me by my Lady the other day. We did not ‘light, but saw her within doors, and straight home, where after supper there happening some discourse where my wife thought she had taken Jane in a lie, she told me of it mighty triumphantly, but I, not seeing reason to conclude it a lie, was vexed, and my wife and I to very high words, wherein I up to my chamber, and she by and by followed me up, and to very bad words from her to me, calling me perfidious and man of no conscience, whatever I pretend to, and I know not what, which troubled me mightily, and though I would allow something to her passion, yet I see again and again that she spoke but somewhat of what she had in her heart. But I tempered myself very well, so as that though we went to bed with discontent she yielded to me and began to be fond, so that being willing myself to peace, we did before we sleep become very good friends, it being past 12 o’clock, and so with good hearts and joy to rest.

I walk off my coffee
on Nothing Street

the night coach
a box of light

doors happening
into high words

I follow whatever I see
of myself in sleep

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 2 November 1663.

November 3, 2026November 3, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Blue Haiku

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

They're calling them in
                  State after state for the win
                                        Majority wins

November 2, 2026November 2, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Ode to the Sound Machine

White noise is the crackly noise a radio makes
when you can't quite find the station you want.
It thrums at a lower frequency than pink noise, 
an example of which might be light to medium
rainfall. I turn on a sound machine shaped 
like a wooden egg and click through crickets,
single raindrops, birds cawing through the forest
cover. Maybe there are frogs in there somewhere,
a chorus of coquís singing all night without need for 
a conductor. I've come to like the setting turned
to ocean sounds—the whoosh of water as if just 
under my window, the surf coming in and out. 
I can pretend I could walk down to the shore 
in the moonlight, fall asleep on beach, wonder why
my sheets are flecked with sand in the morning.

November 2, 2026November 2, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 44

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: papery interlunations of literary history, the fading brightness of the dead, the weight of the sky, cows in the wilderness, and much more. Enjoy.

November 1, 2026 by Dave Bonta

For the dead

(Lord’s day). This morning my brother’s man brought me a new black baize waistecoate, faced with silke, which I put on from this day, laying by half-shirts for this winter. He brought me also my new gowne of purple shagg, trimmed with gold, very handsome; he also brought me as a gift from my brother, a velvet hat, very fine to ride in, and the fashion, which pleases me very well, to which end, I believe, he sent it me, for he knows I had lately been angry with him.
Up and to church with my wife, and at noon dined at home alone, a good calves head boiled and dumplings, an excellent dinner methought it was.
Then to church again, whither Sir W. Pen came, the first time he has been at church these several months, he having been sicke all the while.
Home and to my office, where I taught my wife some part of subtraction, and then fell myself to set some papers of my last night’s accounts in order, and so to supper home, and after supper another bout at arithmetique with my wife, and then to my office again and made an end of my papers, and so home to prayers, and then to read my vowes, and to bed.

my new face
is for winter

my new hands
fashion a calf’s head

I am sick
of subtraction

night counts
in the arithmetic of prayer

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 1 November 1663.

November 1, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Mother oak

Up and to the office, where we sat all the morning, and at noon home to dinner, where Creed came and dined with me, and after dinner he and I upstairs, and I showed him my velvet cloake and other things of clothes, that I have lately bought, which he likes very well, and I took his opinion as to some things of clothes, which I purpose to wear, being resolved to go a little handsomer than I have hitherto.
Thence to the office; where busy till night, and then to prepare my monthly account, about which I staid till 10 or 11 o’clock at night, and to my great sorrow find myself 43l. worse than I was the last month, which was then 760l., and now it is but 717l.. But it hath chiefly arisen from my layings-out in clothes for myself and wife; viz., for her about 12l., and for myself 55l., or thereabouts; having made myself a velvet cloake, two new cloth suits, black, plain both; a new shagg gowne, trimmed with gold buttons and twist, with a new hat, and, silk tops for my legs, and many other things, being resolved henceforward to go like myself. And also two perriwiggs, one whereof costs me 3l., and the other 40s. — I have worn neither yet, but will begin next week, God willing. So that I hope I shall not need now to lay out more money a great while, I having laid out in clothes for myself and wife, and for her closett and other things without, these two months, this and the last, besides household expenses of victuals, &c., above 110l.. But I hope I shall with more comfort labour to get more, and with better successe than when, for want of clothes, I was forced to sneake like a beggar. Having done this I went home, and after supper to bed, my mind being eased in knowing my condition, though troubled to think that I have been forced to spend so much.
Thus I end this month worth 717l., or thereabouts, with a good deal of good goods more than I had, and a great deal of new and good clothes.
My greatest trouble and my wife’s is our family, mighty out of order by this fellow Will’s corrupting the mayds by his idle talke and carriage, which we are going to remove by hastening him out of the house, which his uncle Blackburne is upon doing, and I am to give him 20l. per annum toward his maintenance.
The Queene continues lightheaded, but in hopes to recover.
The plague is much in Amsterdam, and we in fears of it here, which God defend.
The Turke goes on mightily in the Emperor’s dominions, and the Princes cannot agree among themselves how to go against him.
Myself in pretty good health now, after being ill this month for a week together, but cannot yet come to shit well, being so costive, but for this month almost I have not had a good natural stool, but to this hour am forced to take physic every night, which brings me neither but one stool, and that in the morning as soon as I am up, all the rest of the day very costive.
My father has been very ill in the country, but I hope better again now.
I am lately come to a conclusion with Tom Trice to pay him 100l., which is a great deale of money, but I hope it will save a great deal more.
But thus everything lessens, which I have and am like to have, and therefore I must look about me to get something more than just my salary, or else I may resolve to live well and die a beggar.

all the airs
that clothe the great oak
go trimmed with gold

but will go a great while
in want like a beggar
having to move on

and the queen continues
lightheaded to lessen
just to live

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 31 October 1663.

November 1, 2026October 31, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

40,000 Tons

"Roughly 40,000 metric tons (about 44,000 U.S. tons) of 
cosmic dust and meteoroid material enter Earth’s 
atmosphere every year." ~ World Atlas

~ and after Katrina Bello

Nearly twice the Statue of Liberty

400 times heavier than a blue whale
which can eat only small fry like krill
and 15,000 times heavier than a blue 
whale's tongue  

60,000 times heavier than a cow, including
the Holstein cow that William Howard Taft
named Pauline Wayne and kept on the White
House grounds

Back to the blue whale— 200,000 times
heavier than its heart

700 million times heavier than a single
tennis ball, the kind that Alex Eala lobs across 
the net or the spare she keeps in her hip pocket

5,500 billion times heavier than the human eye
which cannot on its own see the cosmic dust
in the aftermath of asteroids and comets colliding
in space

That outer space vs. this inner space, large scale
vs. small scale  

A hand smearing graphite powder and sand, soft
pastels and bark, touching a universe into being

October 31, 2026November 2, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Recognition

Teachers and students come out of the building after the last
late night class. They’re spooked by a cop skulking around the front
doors, cellphone in hand.

In the morning, all the memorials have been taken down: the notes
of care, the posters and open letters of outrage at the university.

Chalk messages power-washed away.

The eight faded flowers duct-taped on the brick entryway—one for each
floor a student fell to his death a week before.

In my office on the fourth floor, once, in a conference—

Mid-sentence, my student looked suddenly at the window
from where he sat in a cheerful yellow director’s chair.

What? I said. A hawk, he said. I thought I saw a hawk.

At best, we get a flash. A signal from the optic nerve to the brain.

Recognition of the image in as little as thirteen milliseconds—
before the eyes even have time to blink.

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

Remainders

"If we can’t have everything what is the closest amount to everything we can have?"
                                                                                                                                                    ~ Emily Berry                                                                                                                                                                                                                 


I keep receipts from trips to the Asian market, because they list
what I've craved like a poem. Bitter melon, mustard greens, beef 
shank with marrow bone. Freckled pear and kabocha, sweet
tocino patties, head-on shrimp. Jacobina crackers like miniature 
squares of clay: two could shingle your tongue. At home, I pour 
short-grain rice into a clear plastic storage box. I pour slowly, 
to invoke the sound of rain. A bottle of wild lime juice goes into
the fridge; the seal remains unbroken, but I can almost feel
the pucker and how my eyes squint as if from too much sun.
When we come indoors one afternoon, the power is out.
The vegetables would be fine, but I worry that the tray of fish 
we bought would go bad. The power comes back in two hours. 
Days later, news reports say a raccoon  made contact with
electric wires at the substation. I wonder what it saw, 
what it thought, when the life went out of him.

October 30, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Paired

Lay long in bed with my wife, and then up and a while at my office, and so to the Change, and so again, and there I found my wife in a great passion with her mayds. I upstairs to set some things in order in our chamber and wardrobe, and so to dinner upon a good dish of stewed beef, then up again about my business. Then by coach with my wife to the New Exchange, and there bought and paid for several things, and then back, calling at my periwigg-makers, and there showed my wife the periwigg made for me, and she likes it very well, and so to my brother’s, and to buy a pair of boddice for her, and so home, and to my office late, and then home to my wife, purposing to go on to a new lesson in arithmetique with her. So to supper and to bed. The Queen mends apace, but her head still light.
My mind very heavy thinking of my great layings out lately, and what they must still be for clothes, but I hope it is in order to getting of something the more by it, for I perceive how I have hitherto suffered for lack of going as becomes my place.
After a little discourse with my wife upon arithmetique, to bed.

my ice and her passion
her stairs and my back

wed like
a pair of dice

her home a lesson
in light

my mind heavy
with arithmetic

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 30 October 1663, a mere rearrangement of my first draft.