Via Negativa

September 17, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Hobbyhorse

And the next morning got up, telling my wife of my journey, and she with a few words got me to hire her a horse to go along with me. So I went to my Lady’s and elsewhere to take leave, and of Mr. Townsend did borrow a very fine side-saddle for my wife; and so after all things were ready, she and I took coach to the end of the town towards Kingsland, and there got upon my horse and she upon her pretty mare that I hired for her, and she rides very well. By the mare at one time falling she got a fall, but no harm; so we got to Ware, and there supped, and to bed very merry and pleasant.

a morning journey
she on her fine saddle

and I the horse
that she rides

we are one falling oh
we are up

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 17 September 1661.

September 17, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

J

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

- after Claire Wahmanholm

J is for the first letter in the names of each of my three 
older daughters, whose father wanted to continue his family's 
tradition of naming. J has no equivalent letter in baybayin,
nor in the Filipino abakada or the Ilocano kinur-it. In Spanish,
J sounds breathy and open, unlike the hard consonant we think
it is. Jamón, jéfe, juego, jóya, jardín; even jubílo, which in English
we know as joy. I was just eighteen, had just started wearing
jeans, was jittery around students on campus (more hip, already
jaded). Marrying young, perhaps I jettisoned my better judgment 
into the bushes; but I promise, it was no jezebel that stepped out. 
When I juxtapose that time against this, I still sometimes hear
the quiet ping of jackstones on porch tile and the children's
voices counting; the clink of jade bangles around their wrists.

September 16, 2024September 16, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

The hummingbird says I can fly into the smallest places to heal

This late in our lives, the sugar still draws
us to its source. 

This side of it, I look into the rain 
and my thoughts are always and to the end, 
of you.

Can someone tell me what rain is
besides weeping? 

Precipitate
means both the cause of falling and flowing, 
as well as headlong, hasty. 

In his room, your sister's child is reading 
the first of a long series of novels 
aloud to himself. He is still 
unhurried; he tells himself
he will finish.

There are many bright pictures
when I think of you at that age—
so many more than the ones
brushed with rain.

September 16, 2024September 16, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2024, Week 37

A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond. 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: trusting the unsaid, questions for trees, beautiful birds of thought, hearing singing through the walls at night, and much more. Enjoy!

September 16, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Assets

This morning I was busy at home to take in my part of our freight of Coles, which Sir G. Carteret, Sir R. Slingsby, and myself sent for, which is 10 Chaldron, 8 of which I took in, and with the other to repay Sir W. Pen what I borrowed of him a little while ago. So that from this day I should see how long 10 chaldron of coals will serve my house, if it please the Lord to let me live to see them burned.
In the afternoon by appointment to meet Dr. Williams and his attorney, and they and I to Tom Trice, and there got him in discourse to confess the words that he had said that his mother did desire him not to see my uncle about her 200l. bond while she was alive. Here we were at high words with T. Trice and then parted, and we to Standing’s, in Fleet Street, where we sat and drank and talked a great while about my going down to Gravely Court, which will be this week, whereof the Doctor had notice in a letter from his sister this week. In the middle of our discourse word was brought me from my brother’s that there is a fellow come from my father out of the country, on purpose to speak to me, so I went to him and he made a story how he had lost his letter, but he was sure it was for me to go into the country, which I believed, and thought it might be to give me notice of Gravely Court, but I afterwards found that it was a rogue that did use to play such tricks to get money of people, but he got none of me. At night I went home, and there found letters from my father informing me of the Court, and that I must come down and meet him at Impington, which I presently resolved to do…

I take my part
of our freight

coal to burn
words to live with
art to talk to

gravely
in the middle of the night

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 16 September 1661.

September 16, 2024September 16, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Bad Faith

from fact to faction
a gathering of teeth

the jaw with its standing stones
like a henge on hinges

offerings of food reduced
to a few hard words

for a songless tongue
is heavier than the devil

and unkissed lips miss
that lipstickiness

glossy as sunlit moss
scarlet as a cardinal flower

on the opposite bank of a creek
choked with rhododendron

and you lose shoes and socks
wade into the cold current

and later when you’re stumped
by a freshly cut ring of wood

where a hollow white oak
has gone missing

you recall all you’ve learned
in watercourses

step inside that chalk outline
and channel a storm

September 15, 2024September 15, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

To Human

" Over one hundred thousand humanoid robots will be deployed 
in the real world." - "5 AI Predictions For The Year 2030," Forbes,
March 10, 2024



They are in warehouses, moving crates 
and boxes; or in assembly lines, flipping 

cars over with one arm then welding, painting, 
sealing. In Japan, there's a robot whose out-

stretched arms help lift residents in a care home 
out of bed and into their walkers. Little round

vacuum cleaners spin all over the floors
of houses, only occasionally bumping into

corners or falling down the stairs. At a marina
country club in Singapore, robot waiters bring 

chicken rice or chilli crab to your table. They're here 
now, but nothing ever completely surrenders. 

Our hearts still ache when we look into the vastness 
of space or hear water lapping against the shore at night.

September 15, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Earth-bound

(Lord’s day). To my aunt Kite’s in the morning to help my uncle Fenner to put things in order against anon for the buriall, and at noon home again; and after dinner to church, my wife and I, and after sermon with my wife to the buriall of my aunt Kite, where besides us and my uncle Fenner’s family, there was none of any quality, but poor rascally people. So we went to church with the corps, and there had service read at the grave, and back again with Pegg Kite who will be, I doubt, a troublesome carrion to us executors; but if she will not be ruled, I shall fling up my executorship. After that home, and Will Joyce along with me where we sat and talked and drank and ate an hour or two, and so he went away and I up to my chamber and then to prayers and to bed.

at the burial of a kite
we who will be carrion

but will not be up long
with our prayers

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 15 September 1661.

September 14, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Choose

I want to be able to say as you say 
              that something has purpose, 
is needed, will come to no harm.
               I think that rather than belief,
this is called active hope—action
               being a setting forth in 
motion, the carrying out of an act,
               a deed. As when a father
wraps himself around his child 
               as they cross the border, 
hiding in the boot of a car; as when 
              a guard peers in then shuts 
the trunk, waves to the sentry 
              at the gate as he yells All clear, 
nothing here! and we know that each 
              of them carried such a seed, 
each one had a moment to decide 
              what he could do with it.

September 14, 2024September 14, 2024 by Dave Bonta

The Lost Circus

The circus comes to town because it’s lost. When the raven croaks my name—Dov, Dov—I have just drunk the last drop from my thermos and am staring at my reflection in the mug’s glossy black plastic. I can make out the sunlit tip of my nose like a shark’s fin rising from the murk. Strike any key and continue, I tell the oaks playing percussion with their acorns. Blood blossoms on my arm when I crush a mosquito. The circus comes to town because we’ve all seen too much blood: in headlines and classrooms, in AI-generated images and looped videos. The circus tent keeps growing like a tumor. Political parties party in it. Who are the freaks and geeks now? The sun circles its tree like a chained dog and the tree in turn circles the sun, along with the rest of us, who are not privy to whatever might be happening underground. Especially since bulldozers invaded the cemeteries to dislodge all the names of the occupants. Which must be where the raven picked them up—shiny things. Dā’ūd, Dā’ūd, it calls. I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me. Like a lily among thorns.

Public-domain image by Linnea Mallette.