Via Negativa

November 6, 2024November 5, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

At the office all the morning. At noon comes my brother Tom and Mr. Armiger to dine with me, and did, and we were very merry. After dinner, I having drunk a great deal of wine, I went away, seeming to go about business with Sir W. Pen, to my Lady Batten’s (Sir William being at Chatham), and there sat a good while, and then went away (before I went I called at home to see whether they were gone, and found them there, and Armiger inviting my wife to go to a play, and like a fool would be courting her, but he is an ass, and lays out money with Tom, otherwise I should not think him worth half this respect I shew him). To the Dolphin, where he and I and Captain Cocke sat late and drank much, seeing the boys in the streets flying their crackers, this day being kept all the day very strictly in the City. At last broke up, and called at my Lady Batten’s again and would have gone to cards, but Sir W. Pen was so fuddled that we could not try him to play, and therefore we parted, and I home and to bed.

having drunk a great deal
with one arm

I go like a captain flying
into a fuddle

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 5 November 1661.

November 5, 2024November 3, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

At Any Cost, the Light

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

I am fond of them, love the way they flock 
to the light by the porch, any lantern left

on the patio, the one window which looks
like an orange stamp in the corner of any

dark envelope of a house. Their circling
is insistent; is trance, is lyric in search

of reassuring refrain. Moss darkens 
the backs of trees, so even in daytime, 

they look like they are signalling some
marbled meaning from underneath

the earth. We should be so lucky to be
streaked by their dust—a windfall, when

otherwise the world is over-careful.
Not touching. Not coming too close.

November 4, 2024November 4, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2024, Week 44

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: what worms are eating, invisible dogs, fishing for Leviathan, the presence of birds, and much more. Enjoy.

November 4, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Poet

In the morning, being very rainy, by coach with Sir W. Pen and my wife to Whitehall, and sent her to Mrs. Hunt’s, and he and I to Mr. Coventry’s about business, and so sent for her again, and all three home again, only I to the Mitre (Mr. Rawlinson’s), where Mr. Pierce, the Purser, had got us a most brave chine of beef, and a dish of marrowbones. Our company my uncle Wight, Captain Lambert, one Captain Davies, and purser Barter, Mr. Rawlinson, and ourselves; and very merry. After dinner I took coach, and called my wife at my brother’s, where I left her, and to the Opera, where we saw “The Bondman,” which of old we both did so doat on, and do still; though to both our thinking not so well acted here (having too great expectations), as formerly at Salisbury-court. But for Betterton he is called by us both the best actor in the world. So home by coach, I lighting by the way at my uncle Wight’s and staid there a little, and so home after my wife, and to bed.

the morning rain
a pen in her purse

marrowbone of an inkwell
to bury in the light

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 4 November 1661. An homage to erasure poet Sarah J. Sloat, whose long-running blog on Blogspot was called The Rain in Her Purse.

November 4, 2024November 3, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Prayer for Moths

When is it a haunting, and when a premonition?
I feel more haunted by the ghosts of the present
than the past. Some have stopped responding

when I call; and there are those that message or
text at all hours. After I get off the line with them, 
I am nearly always doubled over with sadness;

their voices carry so much suffering, and I am 
skewered by my inability to make their pain 
go away. This is how I know the ancestors 

do not become gods or angels when they 
pass from our midst— rather, we are warp and
woof in a fabric stretched and threaded through

with our shared griefs. But o, for a hundred moth-
mouths, to work on a rending that admits more light.

November 3, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Re-creational

(Lord’s day). This day I stirred not out, but took physique, and it did work very well, and all the day as I was at leisure I did read in Fuller’s Holy Warr, which I have of late bought, and did try to make a song in the praise of a liberall genius (as I take my own to be) to all studies and pleasures, but it not proving to my mind I did reject it and so proceeded not in it. At night my wife and I had a good supper by ourselves of a pullet hashed, which pleased me much to see my condition come to allow ourselves a dish like that, and so at night to bed.

I work at leisure
a holy war

I have bought a song
to be in my mind

and a good supper
of ash on a dish

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 3 November 1661.

November 3, 2024November 2, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Second Person, First Person

Tensile line, tether— you marvel at how surely
          a spider sends forth filament after filament
and swings its whole body weight into empty 
         space. How do you learn to be brave like that,
learn to trust that something set loose could still
        keep from flying off into the void? You put on
another pair of socks, pour water into the kettle,
        wait for it to boil. And I write “you,” though we  
know it’s just another way we try to keep some
        distance from the self, especially when it looks
at itself and feels too close. But yes,  I’m writing about 
       myself, now;  writing of how sometimes I can’t tell 
a window from a door, can’t tell the difference
       between premonition, undercurrent, a haunting.

November 2, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Boom

At the office all the morning; where Sir John Minnes, our new comptroller, was fetched by Sir Wm. Pen and myself from Sir Wm. Batten’s, and led to his place in the office. The first time that he had come hither, and he seems a good fair condition man, and one that I am glad hath the office.
After the office done, I to the Wardrobe, and there dined, and in the afternoon had an hour or two’s talk with my Lady with great pleasure. And so with the two young ladies by coach to my house, and gave them some entertainment, and so late at night sent them home with Captain Ferrers by coach.
This night my boy Wayneman, as I was in my chamber, I overheard him let off some gunpowder; and hearing my wife chide him below for it, and a noise made, I call him up, and find that it was powder that he had put in his pocket, and a match carelessly with it, thinking that it was out, and so the match did give fire to the powder, and had burnt his side and his hand that he put into his pocket to put out the fire. But upon examination, and finding him in a lie about the time and place that he bought it, I did extremely beat him, and though it did trouble me to do it, yet I thought it necessary to do it. So to write by the post, and to bed.

a new air
after the war

and you and I are a match
give fire to fire

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 2 November 1661.

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

Fault Lines

Trembling, fault lines run through 
everything. You don't see them, but
you know they're there. A yellow chorus 
of sunflowers shouts from the hills; 
the smell of woodsmoke pulls apart 
the curtains. Your heart lies inside a pile 
of bedclothes when it's hard to get up 
and walk outside again into the world. 
It regards the quiet industry of a spider 
and marvels at how surely it sends  
forth filament after filament into 
empty space. How do you learn 
to be brave like that, learn to trust 
that something could carry you?