Via Negativa

January 26, 2025January 26, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Landscape, with Impending Egg Shortage

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

It's Saturday, and the parking lot
at Aldi is full of people rushing in

to buy trays of eggs. The sign says 
Limit 2 per customer. The world is changing 

so fast. The world is almost unrecognizable.
It's become a blur, with patches of burn

and ruin. And yet we crave pancakes and 
omelettes, ramen with pickled mushrooms. 

A boiled potato, a glass of milk. At the end 
of the road near the river, flocks of geese 

congregate. Who knows if the wind carries
particles of scat laced with the bird 

flu virus? To live in this kind of time,
we remind each other: we are not yet dead.

January 26, 2025

January 26, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Winterized

(Lord’s day). To church in the morning, and then home to dinner alone with my wife, and so both to church in the afternoon and home again, and so to read and talk with my wife, and to supper and to bed.
It having been a very fine clear frosty day — God send us more of them, for the warm weather all this winter makes us fear a sick summer.
But thanks be to God, since my leaving drinking of wine, I do find myself much better and do mind my business better, and do spend less money, and less time lost in idle company.

in the fine clear frost
this winter makes us

I find my mind better
spend less time lost

Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 26 January 1661/62.

January 25, 2025January 25, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Zosima, Cresencia

Who chose the name begining with 
the letter Z for my mother? And who 

chose to name my real mother after 
the crescent moon? Growing up

as they did during the war, they lived
during a time of great frugality; and so

the extravagance of their names is both
amazement and mystery. They thought

of wildflowers and rising moons during 
a season of bayonets and stones, funerals

and stale bread. They dreamt of cities rebuilt  
from labyrinths traced by snails. Mother zephyr, 

mother moon, teach us how to train our eyes
to what lasts, even as we inhabit these ruins.

January 25, 2025 by Dave Bonta

(De)composition

At home and the office all the morning. Walking in the garden to give the gardener directions what to do this year (for I intend to have the garden handsome), Sir W. Pen came to me, and did break a business to me about removing his son from Oxford to Cambridge to some private college. I proposed Magdalene, but cannot name a tutor at present; but I shall think and write about it.
Thence with him to the Trinity-house to dinner; where Sir Richard Brown (one of the clerks of the Council, and who is much concerned against Sir N. Crisp’s project of making a great sasse in the King’s lands about Deptford, to be a wett-dock to hold 200 sail of ships. But the ground, it seems, was long since given by the King to Sir Richard) was, and after the Trinity-house men had done their business, the master, Sir William Rider, came to bid us welcome; and so to dinner, where good cheer and discourse, but I eat a little too much beef, which made me sick, and so after dinner we went to the office, and there in a garden I went in the dark and vomited, whereby I did much ease my stomach. Thence to supper with my wife to Sir W. Pen’s, his daughter being come home to-day, not being very well, and so while we were at supper comes Mr. Moore with letters from my Lord Sandwich, speaking of his lying still at Tangier, looking for the fleet; which, we hope, is now in a good way thither.
So home to write letters by the post to-night, and then again to Sir W. Pen’s to cards, where very merry, and so home and to bed.

the gardener is a hand
moving to write

in the ground
given to a garden

my wife and I
lying still

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 25 January 1661/62.

January 24, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Threads

Look at all the potential  
that still exists: a finger-

touch to light the stove, 
a tray of ice you can melt 

then freeze again if you so 
desire. Put the kettle on to boil.

Drink tea; incline your head 
in the direction of hills

where hands gather such leaves
in the first mists of morning.

January 24, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Alteration

This morning came my cozen Thos. Pepys the Executor, to speak with me, and I had much talk with him both about matters of money which my Lord Sandwich has of his and I am bond for, as also of my uncle Thomas, who I hear by him do stand upon very high terms.
Thence to my painter’s, and there I saw our pictures in the frames, which please me well. Thence to the Wardrobe, where very merry with my Lady, and after dinner I sent for the pictures thither, and mine is well liked; but she is much offended with my wife’s, and I am of her opinion, that it do much wrong her; but I will have it altered. So home, in my way calling at Pope’s Head alley, and there bought me a pair of scissars and a brass square. So home and to my study and to bed.

a peak of sand
and I am high

picture me with my altered head
a pair of scissors

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 24 January 1661/62.

January 23, 2025 by Dave Bonta

The odds

All the morning with Mr. Berkenshaw, and after him Mr. Moore in discourse of business, and in the afternoon by coach by invitacon to my uncle Fenner’s, where I found his new wife, a pitiful, old, ugly, illbred woman in a hatt, a midwife. Here were many of his, and as many of her relations, sorry, mean people; and after choosing our gloves, we all went over to the Three Crane Tavern, and though the best room in the house, in such a narrow dogg-hole we were crammed, and I believe we were near forty, that it made me loathe my company and victuals; and a sorry poor dinner it was too.
After dinner, I took aside the two Joyce’s, and took occasion to thank them for their kind thoughts for a wife for Tom: but that considering the possibility there is of my having no child, and what then I shall be able to leave him, I do think he may expect in that respect a wife with more money, and so desired them to think no more of it. Now the jest was Anthony mistakes and thinks that I did all this while encourage him (from my thoughts of favour to Tom) to pursue the match till Will Joyce tells him that he was mistaken. But how he takes it I know not, but I endeavoured to tell it him in the most respectful way that I could.
This done with my wife by coach to my aunt Wight’s, where I left her, and I to the office, and that being done to her again, and sat playing at cards after supper till 12 at night, and so by moonshine home and to bed.

in my ugly hat
choosing love

over a narrow possibility
of having money

thin as the mist
my one playing card

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 23 January 1661/62.

January 23, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Postcard, with bread and rabbits

To walk through the town that keeps reappearing in 
your dreams, you begin at the point where you are. Green 
gate opening out into the alley— one way leading up 
and away into the town, the other leading down the slope 
to where no one you know sleeps in houses you no longer 
recognize. To walk through the town that keeps materializing 
in dreams, you return to the last version that flickered 
in your mind. A daguerrotype which someone has tinted with 
color— a purply sky, inky lines of pine on distant ridges; 
a woman and child walking hand-in-hand down the hill 
to a low building where the local credit union has decided 
to bake and sell loaves of bread, raise and skin rabbits 
in the back lot. The yeasty smell from ovens. 

Rows of overhead lamps, 
the light milky like flesh 
under peeled-back skin.

January 22, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Armed

After musique-practice, to White Hall, and thence to Westminster, in my way calling at Mr. George Montagu’s, to condole him the loss of his son, who was a fine gentleman, and it is no doubt a great discomfort to our two young gentlemen, his companions in France. After this discourse he told me, among other news, the great jealousys that are now in the Parliament House. The Lord Chancellor, it seems, taking occasion from this late plot to raise fears in the people, did project the raising of an army forthwith, besides the constant militia, thinking to make the Duke of York General thereof. But the House did, in very open terms, say, they were grown too wise to be fooled again into another army; and said they had found how that man that hath the command of an army is not beholden to any body to make him King. There are factions (private ones at Court) about Madam Palmer; but what it is about I know not. But it is something about the King’s favour to her now that the Queen is coming.
He told me, too, what sport the King and Court do make at Mr. Edward Montagu’s leaving his things behind him. But the Chancellor (taking it a little more seriously) did openly say to my Lord Chamberlain, that had it been such a gallant as my Lord Mandeville his son, it might have been taken as a frolique; but for him that would be thought a grave coxcomb, it was very strange.
Thence to the Hall, where I heard the House had ordered all the King’s murderers, that remain, to be executed, but Fleetwood and Downes.
So to the Wardrobe and there dined, meeting my wife there, who went after dinner with my Lady to see Mr. George Montagu’s lady, and I to have a meeting by appointment with Tho. Trice and Dr. Williams in order to a treating about the difference between us, but I find there is no hopes of ending it but by law, and so after a pint or two of wine we parted.
So to the Wardrobe for my wife again, and so home, and after writing and doing some things to bed.

the loss of companions
to the raising of an arm

into an army
that command of a body

is coming to make us
such gallant murderers

and oh the difference
between us in the end

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 22 January 1661/62.

January 22, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Herbs are Supposed to be for Healing (a duplex)

I drew a bath with herbs to nurse you back to health.
I had no recipe then, only the deep ache in my gut.

The deep ache in your gut is the oldest map you have.
Cassia bark and stars of anise, stolen laurel leaves.

In the heated water— cassia and anise, fragrance of laurel.
Rain pelted the roof and made the inside of our room a cave.

Rain on the roof, misted walls in our room of a cave.
So many years ago you let me hold your hand like this.

How long it's been since you let me hold your hand like this.
I trusted time; I never thought time could be cruel like this.

I trusted time but never thought it could be cruel like this.
We touched foreheads the way water and shore come close.

We touched foreheads the way water and the shore come close.
There was a time I drew a bath with herbs to nurse you back to health.