Via Negativa

March 4, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Break

At the office all the morning, dined at home at noon, and then to the office again in the afternoon to put things in order there, my mind being very busy in settling the office to ourselves, I having now got distinct offices for the other two.
By and by Sir W. Pen and I and my wife in his coach to Moore Fields, where we walked a great while, though it was no fair weather and cold; and after our walk we went to the Pope’s Head, and eat cakes and other fine things, and so home, and I up to my chamber to read and write, and so to bed.

off at the office
mind settling

off to the fields
where I weather

and walk the head
home to be read to

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 4 March 1661/62.

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

On Loveliness

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

I forget to write the letter Y 
in correct sequence to spell "psychology"
so I wind up second in the spelling bee. 

Psychology, the study of the mind and human 
behavior, is related to the word for essence 
and spirit. Say I am beautiful, say I am 

worthy, stop saying I'm sorry. Who made you 
feel less than? In the Greek myth, Psyche 
is another of those beautiful mortals 

for whom a goddess devises punishment, 
envious of her beauty. But Cupid wounds 
himself with his own arrow, and falls 

in love with her. The catch? a marriage 
consummated, but never in full light 
of day. When you look upon the face

of your beloved, are you singed with flame
and oil? For what is loveliness but a state 
of being beheld in the gaze of another.

March 3, 2025March 3, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 9

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: when the egg is already broken, when women were birds, when everything seems a little closer, and when poetry makes us squirm. Enjoy.

March 3, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Decomposer

All the morning at home about business with my brother Tom, and then with Mr. Moore, and then I set to make some strict rules for my future practice in my expenses, which I did bind myself in the presence of God by oath to observe upon penalty therein set down, and I do not doubt but hereafter to give a good account of my time and to grow rich, for I do find a great deal more of content in these few days, that I do spend well about my business, than in all the pleasure of a whole week, besides the trouble which I remember I always have after that for the expense of my money.
Dined at home, and then up to my chamber again about business, and so to the office about despatching of the East India ships, where we staid till 8 at night, and then after I had been at Sir W. Pen’s awhile discoursing with him and Mr. Kenard the joiner about the new building in his house, I went home, where I found a vessel of oysters sent me from Chatham, so I fell to eat some and then to supper, and so after the barber had done to bed.
I am told that this day the Parliament hath voted 2s. per annum for every chimney in England, as a constant revenue for ever to the Crown.

a home with rot for a god
I do not doubt

here to grow
on my insides

the ember in my chamber
and the night old as a crow

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 3 March 1661/62.

March 2, 2025March 3, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

On Civil Disobedience

Some things will easily snap 
in half at the slightest pressure—

toothpicks, dry twigs, pasta, 
crackers. Clumped together, they're

harder to break. Researchers who studied 
social actions over the last hundred years 

saw that nonviolent campaigns are twice 
as likely to achieve their goals. 

They conclude, most movements mobilizing 
3.5% of the population succeed. But civil 

disobedience isn't just a matter of statistics. 
When people come together in great numbers, 

it should be because at last, they're fueled 
by conscience and their great desperation 

for change. What is fidelity to the law, when laws 
have been twisted into funnels whose ends lead 

to the mouths and pockets of dictators and their 
puppets? A great wave begins with small 

particles— the woman who refuses to sit 
at the back of the bus, the man who stands

in front of a column of tanks where a massacre
has just taken place in the square. Students

raising pastel umbrellas against clouds 
of pepper spray. Nuns and ordinary housewives 

before a wall of soldiers. Holding the line. 
Pushing flowers into the barrels of guns.

March 2, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Soteriology

(Lord’s day). With my mind much eased talking long in bed with my wife about our frugall life for the time to come, proposing to her what I could and would do if I were worth 2,000l., that is, be a knight, and keep my coach, which pleased her, and so I do hope we shall hereafter live to save something, for I am resolved to keep myself by rules from expenses.
To church in the morning: none in the pew but myself. So home to dinner, and after dinner came Sir William and talked with me till church time, and then to church, where at our going out I was at a loss by Sir W. Pen’s putting me upon it whether to take my wife or Mrs. Martha (who alone was there), and I began to take my wife, but he jogged me, and so I took Martha, and led her down before him and my wife. So set her at home, and Sir William and my wife and I to walk in the garden, and anon hearing that Sir G. Carteret had sent to see whether we were at home or no, Sir William and I went to his house, where we waited a good while, they being at prayers, and by and by we went up to him; there the business was about hastening the East India ships, about which we are to meet to-morrow in the afternoon.
So home to my house, and Sir William supped with me, and so to bed.

in a lifetime I could save
myself from myself

going out
alone to walk

and hearing a prayer
in the hips

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 2 March 1661/62.

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

The Right to Happiness

"He that gathered a Hundred Bushels of Acorns or Apples, 
had thereby a Property in them; they were his Goods 
as soon as gathered. He was only to look that he 
used them before they spoiled; else he took more 
than his share, and robb'd others." 
         ~ John Locke, Second Treatise, Chapter V, 46


Everyone claims the right 
         to happiness; the proverbial 
plot of land to develop, on which
         to build a mansion or luxury 
condo. Panoramic water views, marble 
         tile, juliette balconies, concierge;
small but tasteful servants' quarters.
         Everyone claims the right to go
after pleasure, by which is meant generally 
         things of short duration, acquired
mostly through the use of Money, some lasting 
         thing that Men might keep without 
spoiling. The fly wants its morsel of decay; 
         the spider, cunning exercise of its 
silk. After desire is fed, does happiness
         ensue? Does contentment follow? 
In the dark, it's hard to tell what birds sing
         brightest at dawn's approach. The poor 
also have the right to happiness. But
         is the weight of their hunger 
equal to the weight of what, for others, 
         is merely desire? A whale's heart
is the size of a compact car; its mouth
         could easily hold a hundred humans,
though it prefers to feed on troughs of herring  
         and krill. You might say the earth,
too, desires happiness: the happiness of 
         seasons alternating without conflict, 
the happiness of water flooding only to fill. Two 
         by two, the earth's threatened creatures 
filed into a transport vessel. After forty days and
         nights of rain, a dove returned with an olive
leaf in its beak. You too would be happy to set foot
         again on land, to see an end to rain or
fire, or war and the endless lamenting of the dead.

March 1, 2025January 4, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Opus

This morning I paid Sir W. Batten 40l., which I have owed him this half year, having borrowed it of him.
Then to the office all the morning, so dined at home, and after dinner comes my uncle Thomas, with whom I had some high words of difference, but ended quietly, though I fear I shall do no good by fair means upon him.
Thence my wife and I by coach, first to see my little picture that is a drawing, and thence to the Opera, and there saw “Romeo and Juliet,” the first time it was ever acted; but it is a play of itself the worst that ever I heard in my life, and the worst acted that ever I saw these people do, and I am resolved to go no more to see the first time of acting, for they were all of them out more or less. Thence home, and after supper and wrote by the post, I settled to what I had long intended, to cast up my accounts with myself, and after much pains to do it and great fear, I do find that I am 500l. in money beforehand in the world, which I was afraid I was not, but I find that I had spent above 250l. this last half year, which troubles me much, but by God’s blessing I am resolved to take up, having furnished myself with all things for a great while, and to-morrow to think upon some rules and obligations upon myself to walk by.
So with my mind eased of a great deal of trouble, though with no great content to find myself above 100l. worse now than I was half a year ago, I went to bed.

having some high words
is raw opera

I play myself
and find the world

furnished with all things
to trouble my ear

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 1 March 1661/62.

February 28, 2025February 28, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Abecedarian with Many English Non-English Words

Algebra, for starters— whose origins go 
       back to ancient Babylon. It's still used for

calculating basic numbers, management and financial 
       data. Democracy itself— origin, Greek dēmokratia:

exercise of government by the people, of the people,
       for the people. My (always eloquent) sister-in-law 

got placed in ESL class when she got here, not even
       having the benefit of assessment. Fluency 

is the ability to read and speak with accuracy, trade 
       jokes and puns, correctly place an Oxford comma.

Kleptocracy is another word borrowed from not-English:
       literally, it means the rule of thieves. Klepto-

mania bends the laws so the poor are punished, while
       nincompoop billionaires snicker. Oval, from

ovum and ovalis, as in the Oval Office— where much
       posturing happens these days. Fellow peons, let's be

quick to praise the beautiful work of our hands, the
       riches loaned by so many beautiful tongues. Let's 
       
sabotage the spiel that madmen know better
       than scientists and scholars. How did we wind up so   

unbelieving, undone yet on the shores of further undoing?    
       Vaccines, conservation, diversity, inclusion. Who's in your  
       
wallet, that's trying to scrub these or make them go away? 
       Xerox your sensitive information, guard it from the

yes-man, pelotero, ball-kisser, duckmäuser—
      Zasa, said the assassin before he shot the mobster. Zasa. Zasa.

February 28, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Cracker

The boy failing to call us up as I commanded, I was angry, and resolved to whip him for that and many other faults, to-day. Early with Sir W. Pen by coach to Whitehall, to the Duke of York’s chamber, and there I presented him from my Lord a fine map of Tangier, done by one Captain Beckman, a Swede, that is with my Lord. We staid looking it over a great while with the Duke after he was ready.
Thence I by water to the Painter’s, and there sat again for my face in little, and thence home to dinner, and so at home all the afternoon. Then came Mr. Moore and staid and talked with me, and then I to the office, there being all the Admiralty papers brought hither this afternoon from Mr. Blackburne’s, where they have lain all this while ever since my coming into this office.
This afternoon Mr. Hater received half a year’s salary for me, so that now there is not owing me but this quarter, which will be out the next month.
Home, and to be as good as my word, I bade Will get me a rod, and he and I called the boy up to one of the upper rooms of the Comptroller’s house towards the garden, and there I reckoned all his faults, and whipped him soundly, but the rods were so small that I fear they did not much hurt to him, but only to my arm, which I am already, within a quarter of an hour, not able to stir almost. After supper to bed.

white as my face
black as my whip

all the hurt I am
able to stir up

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 28 February 1661/62.