Via Negativa

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

Kiki and Bouba and the Terrible Boss

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

My student shows pictures of two 
shapes on a slide: one spiky and 

shuriken-like, a ninja star that might 
be used as distraction, to inflict 

poison or a minor wound. The other has 
juicy, rounded edges, somewhat resembling 

the poppy which is the signature of 
a famous Finnish designer. One of these
 
is Kiki and the other Bouba, used in cross-
cultural language research since the 1920s. 

But have you ever been in a situation in which
all you work so hard to do seems to merit 

only Kiki sounds, every day? They sputter
from the mouth of the fault-finding boss, 

who can't even remember what she said
yesterday. Not even the smallest Bouba-

shaped grace note crosses her lips. She
probably wouldn't know one if she saw it.

I think about her and the word slap 
when a roach skitters across linoleum tile, 

antennas, forelegs, hind legs bristling. Outside, 
Kiki-shaped leaves begin to change color. Then 

they fall, pointy fingers splayed out against 
the sky's round basin of cool, metallic blue.

October 1, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Propagandized

Up with my mind pretty well at rest about my accounts and other business, and so to my house and there put my work to business, and then down to Deptford to do the same there, and so back and with my workmen all the afternoon, and my wife putting a chamber in order for us to lie in. At night to look over some Brampton papers against the Court which I expect every day to hear of, and that done home and with my wife to bed, the first time I have lain there these two months and more, which I am now glad to do again, and do so like the chamber as it is now ordered that all my fear is my not keeping it. But I hope the best, for it would vex me to the heart to lose it.

up and down
the same lie

night papers every day
like snow in the heart

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 1 October 1662.

September 30, 2025September 30, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

An earthquake topples the bell tower

 
of the oldest church on Bantayan island.
It was built in 1839, in Spanish times,

with coral-flecked stones that local
fishermen mortared with a paste of lime,
water, sand, and egg whites. This  

has always been a country of calamities 
both natural and human-made: every  
typhoon a dervish unhinged, every road 
 
and bridge swept away by floods let loose 
as pockets of politicians fill with obscene 
gain. Perhaps we've put too much trust 

in catechisms of reward in some afterlife. 
Perhaps we keep turning the other cheek 
for the same hand to slap again. 

Mouths open in ejaculations— O God, why 
have you abandoned us? —short, spontaneous 
prayers flung skyward (but also, the release 

of semen— milky, viscous liquid that can bind 
one body to another). When we say history,  
then, we also mean the chronicle of every 

tremor felt in time. Gulfs breached, 
channels entered; flags planted in the sand. 
Plaster saints, halos flickering in the fire.

September 30, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Theolocation

We rose, and he about his business, and I to my house to look over my workmen; but good God! how I do find myself by yesterday’s liberty hard to be brought to follow business again, but however, I must do it, considering the great sweet and pleasure and content of mind that I have had since I did leave drink and plays, and other pleasures, and followed my business.
So to my office, where we sat till noon, and then I to dinner with Sir W. Pen, and while we were at it coming my wife to the office, and so I sent for her up, and after dinner we took coach and to the Duke’s playhouse, where we saw “The Duchess of Malfy” well performed, but Betterton and Ianthe to admiration. That being done, home again, by coach, and my wife’s chamber got ready for her to lie in to-night, but my business did call me to my office, so that staying late I did not lie with her at home, but at my lodgings.
Strange to see how easily my mind do revert to its former practice of loving plays and wine, having given myself a liberty to them but these two days; but this night I have again bound myself to Christmas next, in which I desire God to bless me and preserve me, for under God I find it to be the best course that ever I could take to bring myself to mind my business.
I have also made up this evening my monthly ballance, and find that, notwithstanding the loss of 30l. to be paid to the loyall and necessitous cavaliers by act of Parliament, yet I am worth about 680l., for which the Lord God be praised. My condition at present is this:—
I have long been building, and my house to my great content is now almost done. But yet not so but that I shall have dirt, which troubles me too, for my wife has been in the country at Brampton these two months, and is now come home a week or two before the house is ready for her.
My mind is somewhat troubled about my best chamber, which I question whether I shall be able to keep or no. I am also troubled for the journey which I must needs take suddenly to the Court at Brampton, but most of all for that I am not provided to understand my business, having not minded it a great while, and at the best shall be able but to make a bad matter of it, but God, I hope, will guide all to the best, and I am resolved to-morrow to fall hard to it. I pray God help me therein, for my father and mother and all our well-doings do depend upon my care therein.
My Lord Sandwich has lately been in the country, and very civil to my wife, and hath himself spent some pains in drawing a plot of some alterations in our house there, which I shall follow as I get money.
As for the office, my late industry hath been such, as I am become as high in reputation as any man there, and good hold I have of Mr. Coventry and Sir G. Carteret, which I am resolved, and it is necessary for me, to maintain by all fair means.
Things are all quiett, but the King poor, and no hopes almost of his being otherwise, by which things will go to rack, especially in the Navy.
The late outing of the Presbyterian clergy by their not renouncing the Covenant as the Act of Parliament commands, is the greatest piece of state now in discourse. But for ought I see they are gone out very peaceably, and the people not so much concerned therein as was expected.
My brother Tom is gone out of town this day, to make a second journey to his mistress at Banbury, of which I have good expectations, and pray God to bless him therein. My mind, I hope, is settled to follow my business again, for I find that two days’ neglect of business do give more discontent in mind than ten times the pleasure thereof can repair again, be it what it will.

over God the sweet ink
of a loving night

under God I find myself
in the loyal dirt

under God I get high
out of my mind

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 30 September 1662.

September 30, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Dramaturgy

(Michaelmas day). This day my oaths for drinking of wine and going to plays are out, and so I do resolve to take a liberty to-day, and then to fall to them again. Up and by coach to White Hall, in my way taking up Mr. Moore, and walked with him, talking a good while about business, in St. James’s Park, and there left him, and to Mr. Coventry’s, and so with him and Sir W. Pen up to the Duke, where the King came also and staid till the Duke was ready. It being Collarday, we had no time to talk with him about any business. They went out together. So we parted, and in the park Mr. Cooke by appointment met me, to whom I did give my thoughts concerning Tom’s match and their journey tomorrow, and did carry him by water to Tom’s, and there taking up my wife, maid, dog, and him, did carry them home, where my wife is much pleased with my house, and so am I fully. I sent for some dinner and there dined, Mrs. Margaret Pen being by, to whom I had spoke to go along with us to a play this afternoon, and then to the King’s Theatre, where we saw “Midsummer’s Night’s Dream,” which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life. I saw, I confess, some good dancing and some handsome women, which was all my pleasure.
Thence set my wife down at Madam Turner’s, and so by coach home, and having delivered Pegg Pen to her father safe, went home, where I find Mr. Deane, of Woolwich, hath sent me the modell he had promised me; but it so far exceeds my expectations, that I am sorry almost he should make such a present to no greater a person; but I am exceeding glad of it, and shall study to do him a courtesy for it.
So to my office and wrote a letter to Tom’s mistress’s mother to send by Cooke to-morrow. Then came Mr. Moore thinking to have looked over the business of my Brampton papers against the Court, but my mind was so full of other matters (as it is my nature when I have been a good while from a business, that I have almost forgot it, I am loth to come to it again) that I could not set upon it, and so he and I past the evening away in discourse, and to my lodgings and to bed.

going out to fall
together in a play

we dream a never-
again life

dancing so far so full
I forgot the way

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 29 September 1662.

September 29, 2025September 29, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 39

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: an imagined history of the Green Man, anti-capitalist work poetry, the dactylic hexameter line, and much more. Enjoy.

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

Landscape, with a View of Robots and Sheep

The little food delivery robot pauses
on the corner of campus to cross the street. 
     Its body is a white rectangular box the size 
of a child's toy wagon. It has a lid that locks, 

ultrasonic sensors, a curb-climbing system,
a message flag. Czech writer Karel Čapek's 1920 
     science fiction play "R.U.R." was the first 
to use the word robota, Slavonic for servitude

or forced labor. Slave, in other words. A company 
creates a cadre of robota from organic matter— the play 
     describes vats of bones and brains, funnels with 
skin; nerves, arteries, intestines (whose?) 

and soon, the world economy is fully robot-based. 
But just like in many fantasies about artificial life, 
     the robots turn against the humans, until only one 
is left: the clerk of works, who works with his hands 

like a robot. What happens next? The human clerk
tells a pair of gendered robots that they are 
     the new Adam and Eve, and must go forth 
to remake the world. One problem: they don't

have the formula for manufacturing more of
themselves. I saw an ad in which delivery 
      robots, named after interplanetary
spacecraft, deliver factory samples as well

as food orders. One cuts through a brick court-
yard, leaf-dappled. Another runs along a raised
      path perhaps with a tray of broccoli and
beef while below, sheep run through a field.

September 28, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Wild faith

(Lord’s day). Waked early, and fell talking one with another with great pleasure of my house at Brampton and that here, and other matters. She tells me what a rogue my boy is, and strange things he has been found guilty of, not fit to name, which vexes [me], but most of all the unquiett life that my mother makes my father and herself lead through her want of reason.
At last I rose, and with Tom to the French Church at the Savoy, where I never was before — a pretty place it is — and there they have the Common Prayer Book read in French, and, which I never saw before, the minister do preach with his hat off, I suppose in further conformity with our Church.
So to Tom’s to dinner with my wife, and there came Mr. Cooke, and Joyce Norton do also dine there, and after dinner Cooke and I did talk about his journey and Tom’s within a day or two about his mistress. And I did tell him my mind and give him my opinion in it.
So I walked home and found my house made a little clean, and pleases me better and better, and so to church in the afternoon, and after sermon to my study, and there did some things against to-morrow that I go to the Duke’s, and so walked to Tom’s again, and there supped and to bed with good content of mind.

a rogue as unquiet as a rose

never a prayer
never a hat off to joy

the mind I found in my mind

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 28 September 1662.

September 27, 2025September 27, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Hometowns

They start talking about who they were
before they became what they are today.

They say they feel so lucky to have made it
out, given how life is terrible there today.

There are no more trees on the hillsides;
only new construction everywhere today.

And the graft! The corruption! Even the dead
can be unearthed from their resting places today,

after their skin and bones have melted away.
Even a mausoleum niche can be resold today. 

You pay to be interred only to find out more fees
are due— for final burial in the soil another day. 

A man hands out shiny half dollar coins and crisp
two dollar bills as if he's running for office today.

Outside, rain batters the coast. With rising winds,
not even the biggest umbrellas give shelter today.

September 27, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Handed gentry

Up betimes and among my workmen, and with great pleasure see the posts in the entry taken down beyond expectation, so that now the boy’s room being laid into the entry do make my coming in very handsome, which was the only fault remaining almost in my house.
We sat all the morning, and in the afternoon I got many jobbs done to my mind, and my wife’s chamber put into a good readiness against her coming, which she did at night, for Will did, by my leave to go, meet her upon the road, and at night did bring me word she was come to my brother’s, by my order. So I made myself ready and put things at home in order, and so went thither to her. Being come, I found her and her maid and dogg very well, and herself grown a little fatter than she was. I was very well pleased to see her, and after supper to bed, and had her company with great content and much mutual love, only I do perceive that there has been falling out between my mother and she, and a little between my father and she; but I hope all is well again, and I perceive she likes Brampton House and seat better than ever I did myself, and tells me how my Lord hath drawn a plot of some alteracions to be made there, and hath brought it up, which I saw and like well. I perceive my Lord and Lady have been very kind to her, and Captn. Ferrers so kind that I perceive I have some jealousy of him, but I know what is the Captain’s manner of carriage, and therefore it is nothing to me. She tells me of a Court like to be in a little time, which troubles me, for I would not willingly go out of town.

my hands all morning meet
to put things in order

grow to be a company
with great hope

like the lord and lady
of a nothing little town

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 27 September 1662.