Memoir – Via Negativa

September 14, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Breezy with a chance of showers

(Lord’s day). Up very early, and Mr. Moore taking leave of me the barber came and trimmed me (I having him now to come to me again after I have used a pumice-stone a good while, not but what I like this where I cannot conveniently have a barber, but here I cannot keep my hair dry without one), and so by water to White Hall, by the way hearing that the Bishop of London had given a very strict order against boats going on Sundays, and as I come back again, we were examined by the masters of the company in another boat; but I told them who I was. But the door not being open to Westminster stairs there, called in at the Legg and drank a cup of ale and a toast, which I have not done many a month before, but it served me for my two glasses of wine to-day. Thence to St. James’s to Mr. Coventry, and there staid talking privately with him an hour in his chamber of the business of our office, and found him to admiration good and industrious, and I think my most true friend in all things that are fair. He tells me freely his mind of every man and in every thing.
Thence to White Hall chapel, where sermon almost done, and I heard Captain Cooke’s new musique. This the first day of having vialls and other instruments to play a symphony between every verse of the anthem; but the musique more full than it was the last Sunday, and very fine it is. But yet I could discern Captain Cooke to overdo his part at singing, which I never did before. Thence up into the Queen’s presence, and there saw the Queen again as I did last Sunday, and some fine ladies with her; but, my troth, not many.
Thence to Sir G. Carteret’s, and find him to have sprained his foot and is lame, but yet hath been at chappell, and my Lady much troubled for one of her daughters that is sick. I dined with them, and a very pretty lady, their kinswoman, with them. My joy is, that I do think I have good hold on Sir George and Mr. Coventry. Sir George told me of a chest of drawers that were given Sir W. B. by Hughes the rope-maker, whom he has since put out of his employment, and now the fellow do cry out upon Sir W. for his cabinet. So home again by water and to church, and from church Sir Williams both and Sir John Minnes into the garden, and anon Sir W. Pen and I did discourse about my lodgings and Sir J. Minnes, and I did open all my mind to him, and he told me what he had heard, and I do see that I shall hardly keep my best lodging chamber, which troubles me, but I did send for Goodenough the plasterer, who tells me that it did ever belong to my lodgings, but lent by Mr. Payles to Mr. Smith, and so I will strive hard for it before I lose it.
So to supper with them at Sir W. Batten’s, and do counterfeit myself well pleased, but my heart is troubled and offended at the whole company. So to my office to prepare notes to read to the Duke to-morrow morning, and so to my lodgings and to bed, my mind a little eased because I am resolved to know the worst concerning my lodgings tomorrow.
Among other things Sir W. Pen did tell me of one of my servants looking into Sir J. Minnes’ window when my Lady Batten lay there, which do much trouble them, and me also, and I fear will wholly occasion my loosing the leads. One thing more he told me of my Jane’s cutting off a carpenter’s long mustacho, and how the fellow cried, and his wife would not come near him a great while, believing that he had been among some of his wenches. At which I was merry, though I perceive they discourse of it as a crime of hers, which I understand not.

the stone at my door
called for two glasses of wine
between every verse

joy is a raw rope
no open mind shall keep
my best troubles

I counterfeit myself
a hole in my lodgings
a thin-looking wind

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 14 September 1662.

September 26, 2024January 12, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Better Angels

The section of the woods I call the moss garden was full of death angels today. The camera in my phone doesn’t quite know what to do with them, too deathly pale against the rain-darkened moss — they throw the white balance completely off.

I pass a porcupine just as she’s emerging from her door at the base of an oak. She must’ve heard me coming — her bristles are up. I stop and say Hi in a friendly voice. She gazes back, her beady eyes unreadable, retreating into the tree as I continue past.

I used to say that the porcupine was my totem animal but I don’t make that joke anymore. I let the boutique left convince me that this represented a heinous appropriation of indigenous culture. It’s true that more than once in my life porcupines have appeared like omens or indeed guides precisely when I most needed them. But I am not enough of a narcissist to believe they actually bother about me at all. Occam’s Razor suggests instead that they are simply wild creatures going about their lives, which randomly intersect with our own.

Which is part of the attraction, of course. The ideal guide would ignore me altogether! How dreary to be somebody, as one of my dead role models once said. I just want to vanish like a needle into the world’s haystack.

I should add somewhat parenthetically though that as a poet, one gets used to ascribing meaning to events in nature in a largely playful way, which preserves the autonomy of its actors apart from our narrative webs. This is the power of the lyric mode to elevate meaning without abstracting it from all context in the ummwelt. It’s why I believe everyone should practice poetry. It softens the hard lines between things. Its highest truths always take the form of a paradox.

For twenty minutes after the rain stops, the tree I’m sitting against keeps dripping on my boot. Arching my neck back, I can watch the drop gathering to fall, then feel it on my toes two seconds later: the sort of simple, synesthetic pleasure money can’t buy.

The same tree is dropping acorns, and that too is a pleasure: the minor thrill each time of having been passed over by the angel of hard knocks. Until I’m not, and a lump sprouts atop my head like a lizard’s third eye. I’ll open it every full moon.

May 1, 2024May 1, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Brief

a sky with just one aperture
would fit in a briefcase

you’d hear it in there
clacking its beak

i miss the flesh of my flesh
lost during the pandemic

i have been drowning lady beetles
in the toilet in the sink

the oaks are dangling blossoms
before every passing breeze

green and yellow like snakes
in the old folk song

i argue all sides of a position
and call it prayer

i am sung to daily
by my followers the flies

April 19, 2024January 11, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Stone Aged Man

found in peat
part-way to coal

the hide under his fur
has weathered further than leather

and his rib cage still holds
a deathless canary

he’ll never fix that leaky faucet
you know the one

a chip chip chip
off the old flint

adamant under pressure
something gleams

March 18, 2024March 18, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Greens

the green of moss on an oak
three years dead

the green of greenbriar
on which a deer has grazed

the green of a bench in the woods
where vows were once exchanged

the green of garlic mustard
before it becomes too bitter

the green of ferns that have borne
the weight of snow

the green of winter wheat in the distance
when the sun comes out

the green of lichen on a rock
finding everything it needs

the green of leaves that won’t return
to a toppled witness tree

the old green of trailing arbutus
rushing into bloom for a few cold flies

Plummer’s Hollow, PA
March 17, 2024

December 23, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Winter storm thoughts

It’s below zero Fahrenheit with a howling wind just two nights past the longest of the year. The juniper tree I planted next to the house thumps against the eaves. In my youth I’d be living it up, blasting the stereo while getting roaring drunk and feeding wood to a stove some visitors once dubbed Ol’ Sparky. Now I am apparently grown old, it’s sit hunched over a keypad and worry about what to do if the power goes out.

Every winter I vow to winterize this old plank-wall farmhouse. Every summer, foolish woodrat, I forget. I blame Janus, that two-faced bastard. Resolutions aren’t solutions.

Just about every decade, I re-read the Norse sagas, I’m not sure why. It’s hard to look away from their grimy brutality and insights into human and inhuman character. Today: Eyrbyggja Saga. I’d remembered it had some horror elements but had forgotten just how many walking dead there were—holy hell. It’s the world’s first folk horror novel! Complete with a haunted cow.

October 13, 2022 by Dave Bonta