August 2025 – Page 7 – Via Negativa

August 4, 2025August 4, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 31

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: reading poetry to pigs, yellow stretchy man, the canon of spiteful literature, and much more. Enjoy.

August 4, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Survival

Up by four o’clock in the morning and walked to the Dock, where Commissioner Pett and I took barge and went to the guardships and mustered them, finding them but badly manned; thence to the Sovereign, which we found kept in good order and very clean, which pleased us well, but few of the officers on board. Thence to the Charles, and were troubled to see her kept so neglectedly by the boatswain Clements, who I always took for a very good officer; it is a very brave ship. Thence to Upnor Castle, and there went up to the top, where there is a fine prospect, but of very small force; so to the yard, and there mustered the whole ordinary, where great disorder by multitude of servants and old decrepid men, which must be remedied. So to all the storehouses and viewed the stores of all sorts and the hemp, where we found Captain Cocke’s (which he came down to see along with me) very bad, and some others, and with much content (God forgive me) I did hear by the Clerk of the Ropeyard how it was by Sir W. Batten’s private letter that one parcel of Alderman Barker’s was received.
At two o’clock to dinner to the Hill-house, and after dinner dispatched many people’s business, and then to the yard again, and looked over Mr. Gregory’s and Barrow’s houses to see the matter of difference between them concerning an alteration that Barrow would make, which I shall report to the board, but both their houses very pretty, and deserve to be so, being well kept. Then to a trial of several sorts of hemp, but could not perform it here so well as at Woolwich, but we did do it pretty well.
So took barge at the dock and to Rochester, and there Captain Cocke and I and our two men took coach about 8 at night and to Gravesend, where it was very dark before we got thither to the Swan; and there, meeting with Doncaster, an old waterman of mine above bridge, we eat a short supper, being very merry with the drolling, drunken coachman that brought us, and so took water. It being very dark, and the wind rising, and our waterman unacquainted with this part of the river, so that we presently cast upon the Essex shore, but got off again, and so, as well as we could, went on, but I in such fear that I could not sleep till we came to Erith, and there it begun to be calm, and the stars to shine, and so I began to take heart again, and the rest too, and so made shift to slumber a little.
Above Woolwich we lost our way, and went back to Blackwall, and up and down, being guided by nothing but the barking of a dog, which we had observed in passing by Blackwall, and so…

our mission must go on
brave but decrepit

to see god
in people again

to see the difference between
the well and its water

above us the wind
unacquainted with sex and fear

the stars guided by nothing
but the barking of a dog

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 4 August 1662.

August 3, 2025August 3, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Suffering Feels Long-lasting, and Joy so Fleeting

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

Recently, someone posted a chart 
on the internet meant to illustrate
how suffering, euphoria, and ferret 
all come from the same root: the Proto-
Indian European bhereti, meaning to carry
or bear. Pathos is the quality that arouses 
pity or sorrow. It's related to the word
suffering, in that you feel for the afflicted 
one and would dearly like to bear away what 
wounds them, what stands in the way of their 
transport to a state of blissful elation or 
contentment. But such transport can feel 
ephemeral (from the Greek root meaning short-
lived, lasting but a day). Perhaps that's where 
the ferret connection lies. Ferret, from the Latin 
furritus or little thief: meaning the domestic 
polecat who likes to sneak away with things 
it finds. We would too, wouldn't we? Alone 
or in groups (a busyness of ferrets), what 
we wouldn't give, or take, for the sake of
bearing our sorrows better; withstanding 
more than just surviving, from one 
fleeting moment to the next.

August 3, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Break of day

(Lord’s day). Up early, and with Captain Cocke to the dock-yard, a fine walk, and fine weather. Where we walked till Commissioner Pett come to us, and took us to his house, and showed us his garden and fine things, and did give us a fine breakfast of bread and butter, and sweetmeats and other things with great choice, and strong drinks, with which I could not avoyde making my head ake, though I drank but little. Thither came Captain Allen of the Foresight, and the officers of the yard to see me.
Thence by and by to church, by coach, with the Commissioner, and had a dull sermon. A full church, and some pretty women in it; among others, Beck Allen, who was a bride-maid to a new married couple that came to church to-day, and, which was pretty strange, sat in a pew hung with mourning for a mother of the bride’s, which methinks should have been taken down.
After dinner going out of the church saluted Mrs. Pett, who came after us in the coach to church, and other officers’ wives. The Commissioner staid at dinner with me, and we had a good dinner, better than I would have had, but I saw there was no helping of it. After dinner the Commissioner and I left the company and walked in the garden at the Hill-house, which is very pleasant, and there talked of our businesses and matters of the navy. So to church again, where quite weary, and so after sermon walked with him to the yard up and down and the fields, and saw the place designed for the wet dock. And so to his house, and had a syllabub, and saw his closet, which come short of what I expected, but there was fine modells of ships in it indeed, whose worth I could not judge of. At night walked home to the Hill-house, Mr. Barrow with me, talking of the faults of the yard, walking in the fields an hour or two, and so home to supper, and so Captain Cocke and I to bed.
This day among other stories he told me how despicable a thing it is to be a hangman in Poland, although it be a place of credit. And that, in his time, there was some repairs to be made of the gallows there, which was very fine of stone; but nobody could be got to mend it till the Burgomaster, or Mayor of the town, with all the companies of those trades which were necessary to be used about those repairs, did go in their habits with flags, in solemn procession to the place, and there the Burgomaster did give the first blow with the hammer upon the wooden work; and the rest of the Masters of the Companys upon the works belonging to their trades; that so workmen might not be ashamed to be employed upon doing of the gallows’ works.

how fine a breakfast
of bread and meat
and the void

in mourning
for the ink of night
in our two stories

to be in a body
with all the habits
belonging to gallows

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 3 August1662.

August 2, 2025August 2, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Shadow Play

Horned beetles patrol 
the topmost branches of the fig, 
late sun occasionally glancing off 
their helmets. Surrounding fruit 
near bursting out of their skins, 
they make short work of the sweet 
pulp. At the highest levels, no 
prisoners— barely a carcass 
drops to the ground. Even so, 
I know this is merely one 
of the ways nature cannot help 
being true to what it is.   
We want to say this is ours,
while all of us are caught
in this theatre of limits.

August 2, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Big green

Up early, and got me ready in my riding clothes, and so to the office, and there wrote letters to my father and wife against night, and then to the business of my office, which being done, I took boat with Will, and down to Greenwich, where Captain Cocke not being at home I was vexed, and went to walk in the Park till he come thither to me: and Will’s forgetting to bring my boots in the boat did also vex me, for I was forced to send the boat back again for them. I to Captain Cocke’s along with him to dinner, where I find his lady still pretty, but not so good a humour as I thought she was. We had a plain, good dinner, and I see they do live very frugally. I eat among other fruit much mulberrys, a thing I have not eat of these many years, since I used to be at Ashted, at my cozen Pepys’s. After dinner we to boat, and had a pleasant passage down to Gravesend, but it was nine o’clock before we got thither, so that we were in great doubt what to do, whether to stay there or no; and the rather because I was afeard to ride, because of my pain in my cods; but at the Swan, finding Mr. Hemson and Lieutenant Carteret of the Foresight come to meet me, I borrowed Mr. Hemson’s horse, and he took another, and so we rode to Rochester in the dark, and there at the Crown Mr. Gregory, Barrow, and others staid to meet me. So after a glass of wine, we to our barge, that was ready for me, to the Hill-house, where we soon went to bed, before we slept I telling upon discourse Captain Cocke the manner of my being cut of the stone, which pleased him much. So to sleep.

in the business
of being green

we bring boots
back for dinner

and live frugally
among the graves

in doubt the dark barrow
where we sleep

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 2 August 1662.

August 1, 2025August 1, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Terrible Beauty

Yes, the world is still beautiful 
even while it's burning, or tectonically
sending giant waves across the globe 
that could wipe out entire towns 

including those with prime seafront 
properties vacant most of the year 
except at the peak of summer. I read,
once, about a boatload of souls— 

they too could have been on vacation
in the Mediterranean coast, except they
were refugees fleeing war. Instead of
ornate domes housing mosaic floors, 

a landscape outlined with smoke. A sea 
embroidered with garments of the drowned. 
Some of the bodies were so small. Some bore
scars from bullets, on their chests or foreheads.

August 1, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Setback

Up, my head aching, and to my office, where Cooper read me another lecture upon my modell very pleasant.
So to my business all the morning, which increases by people coming now to me to the office. At noon to the Exchange, where meeting Mr. Creed and Moore we three to a house hard by (which I was not pleased with) to dinner, and after dinner and some discourse ordinary by coach home, it raining hard, and so at the office all the afternoon till evening to my chamber, where, God forgive me, I was sorry to hear that Sir W. Pen’s maid Betty was gone away yesterday, for I was in hopes to have had a bout with her before she had gone, she being very pretty. I had also a mind to my own wench, but I dare not for fear she should prove honest and refuse and then tell my wife.
I staid up late, putting things in order for my going to Chatham to-morrow, and so to bed, being in pain in my cods with the little riding in a coach to-day from the Exchange, which do trouble me.

my head coming off
in an ordinary rain

my foregone mind
should prove honest

up late
putting things in my hat

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 1 August 1662.