Via Negativa

August 15, 2024August 14, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Instructions for Daily Life

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

At dusk I try to prune as many leaves
of the persimmon taken over by rot.

I don't remember the last time I scanned
the sky for the evening's first star, 

but I know the moon's rising by heart;
I still look for evidence of order in this 

apron pocket of the universe. I was taught 
it's bad luck if your bed faces the toilet, 

which is where things go down the drain;
it's good luck if your bed faces north and not 

south, because of the star that guides. Don't lie 
with your pillow facing west. Tuck some rice 

grains, a vial of oil, a thimbleful each of salt 
and sugar in the darkest corner of the house.

August 14, 2024January 12, 2025 by Dave Bonta

This morning Sir W. Batten and Sir W. Pen and I waited upon the Duke of York in his chamber, to give him an account of the condition of the Navy for lack of money, and how our own very bills are offered upon the Exchange, to be sold at 20 in the 100 loss. He is much troubled at it, and will speak to the King and Council of it this morning.
So I went to my Lady’s and dined with her, and found my Lord Hinchingbroke somewhat better.
After dinner Captain Ferrers and I to the Theatre, and there saw “The Alchymist;” and there I saw Sir W. Pen, who took us when the play was done and carried the Captain to Paul’s and set him down, and me home with him, and he and I to the Dolphin, but not finding Sir W. Batten there, we went and carried a bottle of wine to his house, and there sat a while and talked, and so home to bed.
At home I found a letter from Mr. Creed of the 15th of July last, that tells me that my Lord is rid of his pain (which was wind got into the muscles of his right side) and his feaver, and is now in hopes to go aboard in a day or two, which do give me mighty great comfort.

I offer up what heat
the alchemist saw

carried home
in a bottle from July
that wind and fever

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 14 August 1661.

August 14, 2024August 14, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Swarm

"Do not fear mystery over precision." ~ Robyn Schiff


All day at the peak of heat, after the crows 
have had their fill, small clouds of dark buzzing 

encircle every limb of the tree. It is the smell 
of fermenting which lures them, of sweetness 

gone beyond what the flesh held in until it could 
no longer. Sweetness bursting out of itself is messy:

fig hips splayed open, garden walls slicked purple 
with juice; dark-armored beetles crowded around 

their task, emerald-tipped flies marking their own 
territories. None are more greedy or villainous 

than the other. They do what they do, trained 
according to their own intelligence; which is to say, 

nothing that we ourselves haven't recognized,
bubbling up out of our own blind appetites.

August 13, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Divisive

To the Privy Seal in the morning, then to the Wardrobe to dinner, where I met my wife, and found my young Lord very ill. So my Lady intends to send her other three sons, Sidney, Oliver, and John, to my house, for fear of the small-pox. After dinner I went to my father’s, where I found him within, and went up to him, and there found him settling his papers against his removal, and I took some old papers of difference between me and my wife and took them away. After that Pall being there I spoke to my father about my intention not to keep her longer for such and such reasons, which troubled him and me also, and had like to have come to some high words between my mother and me, who is become a very simple woman.
By and by comes in Mrs. Cordery to take her leave of my father, thinking he was to go presently into the country, and will have us to come and see her before he do go.
Then my father and I went forth to Mr. Rawlinson’s, where afterwards comes my uncle Thomas and his two sons, and then my uncle Wight by appointment of us all, and there we read the will and told them how things are, and what our thoughts are of kindness to my uncle Thomas if he do carry himself peaceable, but otherwise if he persist to keep his caveat up against us. So he promised to withdraw it, and seemed to be very well contented with things as they are.
After a while drinking, we paid all and parted, and so I home, and there found my Lady’s three sons come, of which I am glad that I am in condition to do her and my Lord any service in this kind, but my mind is yet very much troubled about my Lord of Sandwich’s health, which I am afeard of.

a morning war
in all the papers

some old difference
between such and such

and like high words
we become simple

a country in two
thin thoughts

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 13 August 1661.

August 13, 2024August 12, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

The Heart

Nákem means heart, means not kidney 
or liver or spleen, not dark clotted blood 
combed through with aromatics and spice. 
Nákem means the soft muscle in your chest 
that's finally learned to keep its chambers open
so returning birds might find their way in at dusk,
and small cares fold themselves into drawers.
When you were young, you thought the heart was
weaker than any wind which slashed through 
bamboo groves, that surely it could not withstand  
the onslaughts of water breaching the dams. 
The heart is as large or small  as a handful of rock, 
unmoveable as ice, a soldier in the lonely wilderness 
until it understands how to be true to its own nature.

August 12, 2024August 12, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2024, Week 32

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: seeing the Perseids in the armpit of a lover, lingering at the doors to the spirit world, taking a sledgehammer to the walls of a childhood home, and much more. Enjoy!

August 12, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Plunder

At the office this morning. At home in the afternoon, and had notice that my Lord Hinchingbroke is fallen ill, which I fear is with the fruit that I did give them on Saturday last at my house: so in the evening I went thither and there found him very ill, and in great fear of the smallpox. I supped with my Lady, and did consult about him, but we find it best to let him lie where he do; and so I went home with my heart full of trouble for my Lord Hinchingbroke’s sickness, and more for my Lord Sandwich’s himself, whom we are now confirmed is sick ashore at Alicante, who, if he should miscarry, God knows in what condition would his family be.
I dined to-day with my Lord Crew, who is now at Sir H. Wright’s, while his new house is making fit for him, and he is much troubled also at these things.

this fallen fruit
a small heart

full of trouble for an ant
who should carry it now

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 12 August 1661.

August 12, 2024August 12, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Iemanja

This entry is part 45 of 51 in the series Une Semaine de Bonté

Page 48 from Max Ernst’s *Une Semaine de Bonté*

she dreams an ocean
in the key of D minor
with a heartbeat

she dreams ah
in the lap of waves
the tug of currents and destinies

she dreams her ladyship
and a sea bed spreads its sails
and becomes a reef

her dreams turn pelagic
their strange cries riding the wind
on hollow bones

she dreams a ship so vast
its passengers hardly realize
we’re all at sea

August 12, 2024August 11, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Days Following Days

Our elders used to say, Today is not
the only day. By which they meant there's
tomorrow, and a string of previous days,
years even, against which to reckon
the immeasurable. Call its underlying 
spirit what you want—hope, ambition, 
rue; a rallying—but concede it allows
a kind of ongoing revision. Not the best,
not the worst (not yet); not merely middling 
effort but something that might not even 
have a name. How patient we could be in 
our impatience, how content with our dis-
content. Instead of start completely over,
just rest; then let out a little more thread.

August 11, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Schismatic

(Lord’s day). To our own church in the forenoon, and in the afternoon to Clerkenwell Church, only to see the two fayre Botelers; and I happened to be placed in the pew where they afterwards came to sit, but the pew by their coming being too full, I went out into the next, and there sat, and had my full view of them both, but I am out of conceit now with them, Colonel Dillon being come back from Ireland again, and do still court them, and comes to church with them, which makes me think they are not honest. Hence to Graye’s-Inn walks, and there staid a good while; where I met with Ned Pickering, who told me what a great match of hunting of a stagg the King had yesterday; and how the King tired all their horses, and come home with not above two or three able to keep pace with him. So to my father’s, and there supped, and so home.

church to church
a war coming to the next
full nest

gray and old
a great match
of yes and no

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 11 August 1661.