Via Negativa

February 4, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Snow job

Early up to Court with Sir W. Pen, where, at Mr. Coventry’s chamber, we met with all our fellow officers, and there after a hot debate about the business of paying off the Fleet, and how far we should join with the Commissioners of Parliament, which is now the great business of this month more to determine, and about which there is a great deal of difference between us, and then how far we should be assistants to them therein. That being done, he and I back again home, where I met with my father and mother going to my cozen Snow’s to Blackwall, and had promised to bring me and my wife along with them, which we could not do because we are to go to the Dolphin to-day to a dinner of Capt. Tayler’s. So at last I let my wife go with them, and I to the tavern, where Sir William Pen and the Comptroller and several others were, men and women; and we had a very great and merry dinner; and after dinner the Comptroller begun some sports, among others the naming of people round and afterwards demanding questions of them that they are forced to answer their names to, which do make very good sport. And here I took pleasure to take the forfeits of the ladies who would not do their duty by kissing of them; among others a pretty lady, who I found afterwards to be wife to Sir W. Batten’s son.
Home, and then with my wife to see Sir W. Batten, who could not be with unces this day being ill, but we found him at cards, and here we sat late, talking with my Lady and others and Dr. Whistler, who I found good company and a very ingenious man. So home and to bed.

a hot debate about
the difference

between us and the snow
unnaming people

after questions
that they are forced to take

I kiss my cards and whistle
home to bed

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 4 February 1660/61.

February 3, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Dream speech

(Lord’s day). This day I first begun to go forth in my coat and sword, as the manner now among gentlemen is. To Whitehall. In my way heard Mr. Thomas Fuller preach at the Savoy upon our forgiving of other men’s trespasses, shewing among other things that we are to go to law never to revenge, but only to repayre, which I think a good distinction. So to White Hall; where I staid to hear the trumpets and kettle-drums, and then the other drums, which are much cried up, though I think it dull, vulgar musique. So to Mr. Fox’s, unbid; where I had a good dinner and special company. Among other discourse, I observed one story, how my Lord of Northwich, at a public audience before the King of France, made the Duke of Anjou cry, by making ugly faces as he was stepping to the King, but undiscovered. And how Sir Phillip Warwick’s lady did wonder to have Mr. Darcy send for several dozen bottles of Rhenish wine to her house, not knowing that the wine was his.
Thence to my Lord’s; where I am told how Sir Thomas Crew’s Pedro, with two of his countrymen more, did last night kill one soldier of four that quarrelled with them in the street, about 10 o’clock. The other two are taken; but he is now hid at my Lord’s till night, that he do intend to make his escape away.
So up to my Lady, and sat and talked with her long, and so to Westminster Stairs, and there took boat to the bridge, and so home, where I met with letters to call us all up to-morrow morning to Whitehall about office business.

a first word is a wing
among kettle-drums

the king of France
making ugly faces at the wine

as the night clock talked on
and took us to morning

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 3 February 1660/61.

February 3, 2024February 3, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Zero Sums

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

Driving back from the gym, I listen to
a radio program where two mathematicians

are talking about zero. I'm parked in front
of my house, but their conversation keeps me

glued to the seat. One of them says in math,
whatever operation you do, you need to also be 

able to undo—just like with multiplication and
division. Unless you divide by zero, in which case

you get the impossible. Or you get a row of
mechanical calculators which get crazy hot

and perhaps catch fire, because the numbers
just go on looping. To divide by zero results in

infinity, because infinity in mathematics isn't
actually a number, it's a direction. You could move

in that direction, but never get there. Which is
to say, if you broke the logic within the known 

world of numbers and divided by zero, then all
numbers become the same number. One is two

is three is seventy; everything squares out 
the same. Does this mean all we have equates 

to nothingness, or does it mean  none of our 
differences matter or exist? On the radio,

one mathematician says, sure there's logic 
in supposing a world where everything is zero. 

But it's self-contained: it has no birthdays 
or anniversaries, whether ten or a hundred. 

Perhaps, then, the porcupine wouldn't have its pin-
cushion coat of spangles, or the octopus its eight

jelly arms. There'd be no trains or airplanes, olympic 
sprints, or medals for lifting, since every distance, lap, 

and weight would be zero. What else is there beyond  what
we already know? the other mathematician is dying to know. 

I think his question is kind of like the one my students 
often pose in challenging the old binary oppositions: 

can't it be both/and, since multiple things can be 
true at the same time in our complicated, paradoxical

lives? I feel lucky to "own" a home, but we don't
really own it (the bank does). I feel lucky to have had

children, but even now feel overwhelmed by 
the obligations of parenthood. I love this life 

with its bright days and summertime fig harvests,
and I hate the daily news of war and violence. I hate it 

more when I'm told to count my blessings, since there 
are so many others so clearly worse off than me.

February 2, 2024February 2, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Possessions

At the end of the revolutionary war,  
           we were merely spoils handed over 

to another 
master. A twenty million 
           dollar transfer. Our war of independence, 

renamed 
an insurrection. Our first 
           Republic, disavowed.
 Broken bells, 

blood and bolos. The order to 
kill anyone 
           over the age of ten and make of the island 

a howling wilderness.
 Humid clouds blanket
           the trenches, 
hide piles of bodies twisted 

like 
bits of rusted candelabra.
  Up north in 
           the Cordillera, green earth also changed 

hands—the terraced hills, their hidden 
           veins of gold and silver. 
     The treasures 

are real; no need to check If your teeth 
           leave dents on ore. The lizard clicks 

its tongue and hisses. Trickster, lure 
          the unsuspecting. 

Drown them in a sea of fog.

February 2, 2024February 2, 2024 by Dave Bonta

This Land is No-Man’s Land

a clarinetist crossing
the country by bus

gives his instrument
the window seat

locked in its case
dreaming of a sea of reeds

old ice dull as the eye
of a dead turtle

yellow stumps of alders
carved by yellow teeth

where waterlogged oaks
grow skirts of moss

and a thorn forest reclaims
an abandoned pasture

a school bus has graduated
it sports a satellite dish

encircled by the sighs
of half-dead pines

the musician’s fingers
grow restless on his lap

caught in the clarinet’s
clear net

February 2, 2024January 11, 2025 by Dave Bonta

War of words

Early to Mr. Moore, and with him to Sir Peter Ball, who proffers my uncle Robert much civility in letting him continue in the grounds which he had hired of Hetley who is now dead.
Thence home, where all things in a hurry for dinner, a strange cook being come in the room of Slater, who could not come.
There dined here my uncle Wight and my aunt, my father and mother, and my brother Tom, Dr. Fairbrother and Mr. Mills, the parson, and his wife, who is a neighbour’s daughter of my uncle Robert’s, and knows my Aunt Wight and all her and my friends there; and so we had excellent company to-day.
After dinner I was sent for to Sir G. Carteret’s, where he was, and I found the Comptroller, who are upon writing a letter to the Commissioners of Parliament in some things a rougher stile than our last, because they seem to speak high to us.
So the Comptroller and I thence to a tavern hard by, and there did agree upon drawing up some letters to be sent to all the pursers and Clerks of the Cheques to make up their accounts. Then home; where I found the parson and his wife gone. And by and by the rest of the company, very well pleased, and I too; it being the last dinner I intend to make a great while, it having now cost me almost 15l. in three dinners within this fortnight. In the evening comes Sir W. Pen, pretty merry, to sit with me and talk, which we did for an hour or two, and so good night, and I to bed.

who offers ground
who is now dead

who could father
another arson

who is a neighbor
who a parliament

in a rougher style
they speak to us

an account
of great cost

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 2 February 1660/61.

February 1, 2024February 1, 2024 by Dave Bonta

The Day Before Groundhog Day

(Friday). A full office all this morning, and busy about answering the Commissioners of Parliament to their letter, wherein they desire to borrow two clerks of ours, which we will not grant them.
After dinner into London and bought some books, and a belt, and had my sword new furbished. To the alehouse with Mr. Brigden and W. Symons and drank together. At night home. So after a little music to bed, leaving my people up getting things ready against to-morrow’s dinner.

ice is an answer
to desire we will
not grant

I don new fur
den up
against tomorrow’s din

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 1 February 1660/61, slightly revised from ten years ago.

February 1, 2024January 31, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Chaos Theory

Chaos: When the present determines the future, 
but the approximate present does not approximately 
determine the future. ~ Edward Lorenz



A lifetime seems unimaginable. A long time,
         best read about in stories (been in some of those).

Can you believe I, too, promised a lifetime, un-
         dated until the universal endpoint (death)?

Every mother with a child in her arms rushes out
         from the baptistry, wanting to get to heaven first—

Groupthink in another one of its forms, masquerading as
          history. How susceptible we are, because we aren't 

invulnerable. If only we could promise the dusky blue 
         Javan rhino it doesn't need to fear extinction; or the 

kakapo, the Irawaddy dolphin, the leatherback and  
         loggerhead turtle. An owl flew into the room where 

mother was on her sickbed, and this was how she knew 
         no one could pull her back into the earthly world. 

O feathered trail with its retinue of ghosts and 
         phantoms to walk with in passage. O sad, 

querulous heart, forever wanting to be held and yet 
         ravenous for solitude—have faith in the leaping 

salmon: they navigate upstream currents, return  
         to the places of their birth. Of great 

upheavals, what happens on the cellular level 
         vies for significance with mountain fires and  

winds whipping across the wilderness. If only 
         xylographs in rings of ancient trees could speak, 

yarrow-bright and healing. If only there were more 
        zones we could shelter with cascades of wings.

January 31, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Bad faith

This morning with Mr. Coventry at Whitehall about getting a ship to carry my Lord’s deals to Lynne, and we have chosen the Gift. Thence at noon to my Lord’s, where my Lady not well, so I eat a mouthfull of dinner there, and thence to the Theatre, and there sat in the pit among the company of fine ladys, &c.; and the house was exceeding full, to see Argalus and Parthenia, the first time that it hath been acted: and indeed it is good, though wronged by my over great expectations, as all things else are. Thence to my father’s to see my mother, who is pretty well after her journey from Brampton. She tells me my aunt is pretty well, yet cannot live long. My uncle pretty well too, and she believes would marry again were my aunt dead, which God forbid. So home.