Via Negativa

August 22, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Tourists, trapped

To the Privy Seal, and sealed; so home at noon, and there took my wife by coach to my uncle Fenner’s, where there was both at his house and the Sessions, great deal of company, but poor entertainment, which I wonder at; and the house so hot, that my uncle Wight, my father and I were fain to go out, and stay at an alehouse awhile to cool ourselves. Then back again and to church, my father’s family being all in mourning, doing him the greatest honour, the world believing that he did give us it: so to church, and staid out the sermon, and then with my aunt Wight, my wife, and Pall and I to her house by coach, and there staid and supped upon a Westphalia ham, and so home and to bed.

the sea is great company
but poor entertainment
and so hot

we cool ourselves in a church
mourn the world
give the land up

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 22 August 1661.

August 22, 2024August 21, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Intentional—

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

as in purposeful, deliberate. With foreknowledge, rather than
by accident. In Metaphysics, however, pertaining to the capacity

of the mind to refer to an existent or non-existent object. In other
words, what one means to do doesn't necessarily yield the intended

outcome. In which case, the mind might be said to produce a series
of beautiful mirages: well-meaning, even ideally proportioned;

the very thing that would have satisfied, if the outcome had equated
to whatever wish set it in motion. Prometheus, whose name means

foresight, stole one flint of fire for humankind from the gods and hid it
in the hollow of a fennel stalk. Didn't the gods mean to bind him to

a granite cliff and make the vultures feed on his liver as he watched?
We're told his ravished body healed each day, only to be ready for

the next assault. This too is intention—the punishments designed
to be more intricate, more excruciatingly terrible than the crime.

August 21, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Efficiency

This morning by appointment I went to my father, and after a morning draft he and I went to Dr. Williams, but he not within we went to Mrs. Terry, a daughter of Mr. Whately’s, who lately offered a proposal of her sister for a wife for my brother Tom, and with her we discoursed about and agreed to go to her mother this afternoon to speak with her, and in the meantime went to Will. Joyce’s and to an alehouse, and drank a good while together, he being very angry that his father Fenner will give him and his brother no more for mourning than their father did give him and my aunt at their mother’s death, and a very troublesome fellow I still find him to be, that his company ever wearys me. From thence about two o’clock to Mrs. Whately’s, but she being going to dinner we went to Whitehall and there staid till past three, and here I understand by Mr. Moore that my Lady Sandwich is brought to bed yesterday of a young Lady, and is very well. So to Mrs. Whately’s again, and there were well received, and she desirous to have the thing go forward, only is afeard that her daughter is too young and portion not big enough, but offers 200l. down with her. The girl is very well favoured, and a very child, but modest, and one I think will do very well for my brother: so parted till she hears from Hatfield from her husband, who is there; but I find them very desirous of it, and so am I. Hence home to my father’s, and I to the Wardrobe, where I supped with the ladies, and hear their mother is well and the young child, and so home.

by appointment we rot
in the meantime

death to the clock
not on the field of war

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 21 August 1661.

August 21, 2024August 20, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Prescience

"My spirit moves to tell of shapes transformed..." 
                                                              Ovid, Metamorphosis


The body knows before you do.
The body rouses in the early hours 
to empty what it can no longer 
accommodate. How long did it believe 
—not in its invincibility, but in the dream 
of absolution? Now the summer winds
itself around a spool. Now the long 
rains come, and the body knows
how shadows pool like grief 
in the throats of anemones, press
down the length of reeds. The body
fears how much it feels, even as light
shapes a film like armor around 
each object in the world

August 20, 2024August 20, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Downward Mobility

This entry is part 47 of 51 in the series Une Semaine de Bonté

Page 50 from Max Ernst’s *Une Semaine de Bonté*

All winter in your garden the tea rose went on blooming even with the sun so cold and distant. I didn’t realize I was on a pilgrimage until I arrived, still dripping and possibly drowned from crossing the river/channel/sea. You slept like an officiant, giving yourself up to dreams you knew you’d forget the moment you awoke. From time to time your mouthparts moved as if in speech. I eventually relocated to the garden and became its folly. When the sun appeared, I tried to trace my shadow’s outline on the flagstones with chalk, but it wouldn’t stay still. This is what it means to live on nothing.

August 20, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Collation

At the office in the morning and all the afternoon at home to put my papers in order. This day we come to some agreement with Sir R. Ford for his house to be added to the office to enlarge our quarters.

office afternoon
a home to paper

order is a meagre
use of our art

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 20 August 1661.

August 20, 2024August 19, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Scale is the Insistence of Small Movements Against a More Dramatic Backdrop

I know someone who has watched the movie
Titanic at least 18 times, on the big screen, in
a movie theatre. He loves the ridiculous drama 
of that scene where Jack tells Rose to close 
her eyes as he leads her to the bow of the ship. 
She flings her arms wide and exclaims she is flying. 
The opening bars of Celine Dion's My Heart Will 
Go On crescendo in the background, as first class 
passengers lift wineglasses to their lips and push 
small, expensive morsels around their gilt-edged 
plates. The skin of the sea is faceted with diamond
shimmer. No one knows yet about the impending 
disaster and the cold ocean bed. The septet plays 
a requiem even as the ship sinks into the depths.

August 19, 2024August 19, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2024, Week 33

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: little bits of deformed plastic, the work of imagining the impossible, a postcard from Mars, the names of things on the verge of disappearing, and much more. Enjoy.

August 19, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Holiday park

At the office all the morning; at noon the children are sent for by their mother my Lady Sandwich to dinner, and my wife goes along with them by coach, and she to my father’s and dines there, and from thence with them to see Mrs. Cordery, who do invite them before my father goes into the country, and thither I should have gone too but that I am sent for to the Privy Seal, and there I found a thing of my Lord Chancellor’s to be sealed this afternoon, and so I am forced to go to Worcester House, where severall Lords are met in Council this afternoon. And while I am waiting there, in comes the King in a plain common riding-suit and velvet cap, in which he seemed a very ordinary man to one that had not known him. Here I staid till at last, hearing that my Lord Privy Seal had not the seal here, Mr. Moore and I hired a coach and went to Chelsy, and there at an alehouse sat and drank and past the time till my Lord Privy Seal came to his house, and so we to him and examined and sealed the thing, and so homewards, but when we came to look for our coach we found it gone, so we were fain to walk home afoot and saved our money.
We met with a companion that walked with us, and coming among some trees near the Neate houses, he began to whistle, which did give us some suspicion, but it proved that he that answered him was Mr. Marsh (the Lutenist) and his wife, and so we all walked to Westminster together, in our way drinking a while at my cost, and had a song of him, but his voice is quite lost.
So walked home, and there I found that my Lady do keep the children at home, and lets them not come any more hither at present, which a little troubles me to lose their company. This day my aunt Fenner dyed.

all morning for the sand
and the afternoon for the sea

but when we came to look
we found it gone

among trees
a song of lost children

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 19 August 1661.

August 19, 2024August 18, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

The Only Dance

In a movie by a Dutch filmmaker, the central protagonist
declares one morning: it is time to die. The film has been

described as a feminist fable, because the woman Antonia
is so strong and stands up for the marginalized and down-

trodden in her village. She takes them in and celebrates
community at a long table in her garden, where they eat

bread and cheese and pass hot covered casseroles around.
Though she's had a long life, is not unwell, and believes that life

wants to live, she's decided. Nothing dies forever, she tells her
granddaughter. Which must be true, because the grandmother

they're burying has the uncanny ability to sit up in her coffin and
belt just a few bars of My Blue Heaven. The sureness of her will

is a marvel—she seems to know exactly how to touch the mystery
of the universe, and wrap it like a curtain sash around her hand.