Via Negativa

November 17, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Castle on sand

To the Duke’s to-day, but he is gone a-hunting, and therefore I to my Lord Sandwich’s, and having spoke a little with him about his businesses, I to Westminster Hall and there staid long doing many businesses, and so home by the Temple and other places doing the like, and at home I found my wife dressing by appointment by her woman that I think is to be, and her other sister being here to-day with her and my wife’s brother, I took Mr. Creed, that came to dine, to an ordinary behind the Change, and there dined together, and after dinner home and there spent an hour or two till almost dark, talking with my wife, and making Mrs. Gosnell sing; and then, there being no coach to be got, by water to White Hall; but Gosnell not being willing to go through bridge, we were forced to land and take water, again, and put her and her sister ashore at the Temple. I am mightily pleased with her humour and singing. At White Hall by appointment, Mr. Creed carried my wife and I to the Cockpitt, and we had excellent places, and saw the King, Queen, Duke of Monmouth, his son, and my Lady Castlemaine, and all the fine ladies; and “The Scornfull Lady,” well performed. They had done by eleven o’clock, and it being fine moonshine, we took coach and home, but could wake nobody at my house, and so were fain to have my boy get through one of the windows, and so opened the door and called up the maids, and went to supper and to bed, my mind being troubled at what my wife tells me, that her woman will not come till she hears from her mother, for I am so fond of her that I am loth now not to have her, though I know it will be a great charge to me which I ought to avoid, and so will make it up in other things. So to bed.

sand like a dress
to change into

the dark water
ashore by appointment

to a castle
and a fine full moon

windows open
to the void

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 17 November 1662.

November 16, 2025November 16, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Raw

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

The woman in the video cuts a head of cabbage 
into wedges, sears them in a skillet. 

Butter browns and sizzles. She flips them over 
and waits for the other side to char.

Some aromas from the kitchen take me back to another time.

Memory is a slow cooker sometimes; and at other times
a deep fryer.

If you rub a lemon slice across your fingers it takes
away the garlic smell. 

Pour water into the half-shell of durian and wash 
your hands in that basin.

I have heard groups of women whispering about another
woman using words for musk and stink, flesh and fruit.

They're the type who warn that certain fruits, when eaten 
during your period, tinge your blood foul and sour.

In the foothills of Mt. Banahaw, there are legends 
of a woodland deity. During a famine, she gently pinched 
the sides of poisonous fruit and made them sweet. 

The anthropologist who did field work in the heart 
of the rainforest proposed that cooking food marked 
the difference between nature and culture.

When we are children, we taste the world in what we
pick up with our fingers— dandelion leaf, serviceberry,
green plum, water from the rust-slicked mouth of garden 
hose pressed against our own.

November 16, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Church of sleep

(Lord’s day). About 3 o’clock in the morning waked with a rude noise among Sir J. Minnes his servants (he not being yet come to his lodgings), who are the rudest people but they that lived before, one Mrs. Davis, that ever I knew in my life.
To sleep again, and after long talking pleasantly with my wife, up and to church, where Mrs. Goodyer, now Mrs. Buckworth, was churched. I love the woman for her gravity above any in the parish. So home and to dinner with my wife with great content, and after dinner walked up and down my house, which is now almost finished, there being nothing to do but the glazier and furniture to put up. By and by comes Tom, and after a little talk I with him towards his end, but seeing many strangers and coaches coming to our church, and finding that it was a sermon to be preached by a probationer for the Turkey Company, to be sent to Smyrna, I returned thither. And several Turkey merchants filled all the best pews (and some in ours) in the Church, but a most pitiful sermon it was upon a text in Zachariah, and a great time he spent to show whose son Zachary was, and to prove Malachi to be the last prophet before John the Baptist.
Home and to see Sir W. Pen, who gets strength, but still keeps his bed. Then home and to my office to do some business there, and so home to supper and to bed.

I wake to sleep again
after love is finished

nothing to do
but put up with an ache

finding that it filled
all the pews in church

whose last prophet
still keeps his bed

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 16 November 1662. (For yesterday’s erasure, see “Living art” from 2015.)

November 15, 2025November 15, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Rattus Rattus

(Roof rat)


They run rampant in these coastal neighborhoods. 
We heard scratching within the walls, saw droppings 

beneath the kitchen sink and in the damp basement 
the landlord doesn't bother to light properly. 

We found a bag of scones on the floor, chewed 
clean through. We're told to get rat poison 

and see if that will fix the problem. Some 
come in tubs labeled Just One Bite. Active 

ingredient, either bromethalin or warfarin. 
Up until the turn of the last century, arsenic 

and thallium were also used. A skull and cross-
bones sticker indicates lethality: Danger! Fatal

if swallowed, inhaled, or absorbed through skin.
The poison causes internal bleeding, nerve damage, 

pulmonary edema. Death can follow: not immediately
but fairly quickly or it might take a few days. 

We found it twitching in the corner, making sounds
that might be interpreted as both snarl and shriek. 

Not us but pest control came to take it off 
our hands. Meaning a dispatch, or a deposition.

November 14, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Shooting up

She begun to talk in the morning and to be friends, believing all this while that I had read her letter, which I perceive by her discourse was full of good counsel, and relating the reason of her desiring a woman, and how little charge she did intend it to be to me, so I begun and argued it as full and plain to her, and she to reason it highly to me, to put her away, and take one of the Bowyers if I did dislike her, that I did resolve when the house is ready she shall try her for a while; the truth is, I having a mind to have her come for her musique and dancing. So up and about my papers all the morning, and her brother coming I did tell him my mind plain, who did assure me that they were both of the sisters very humble and very poor, and that she that we are to have would carry herself so. So I was well contented and spent part of the morning at my office, and so home and to dinner, and after dinner, finding Sarah to be discontented at the news of this woman, I did begin in my wife’s chamber to talk to her and tell her that it was not out of unkindness to her, but my wife came up, and I perceive she is not too reconciled to her whatever the matter is, that I perceive I shall not be able to keep her, though she is as good a servant (only a little pettish) that ever I desire to have, and a creditable servant. So she desired leave to go out to look [for] a service, and did, for which I am troubled, and fell out highly afterwards with my wife about it. So to my office, where we met this afternoon about answering a great letter of my Lord Treasurer’s, and that done to my office drawing up a letter to him, and so home to supper.

that little gun as full
and plain as the truth

is dancing in my mind
to the morning news

not out of unkindness
but a desire to go off

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 14 November 1662.

November 14, 2025November 14, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

The Grief of Angels

- after “The Fall of the Rebel Angels,” 
Peter Breughel the Elder, 1562
and “The Lamentation of Christ,” 
Giotto, 1305

Sprouting gills and lizards’ tails, rebel angels 
change in their fall from the shining walls of heaven— 
becoming horned and feathered beasts, hybrids 
of irregular size. Poisons of the puffer fish, the scaled, 
the seven-headed; and though they’re meant to stand for
what is dark and evil, their beauty still is terrible
to behold. Pistil or tulip bulb, zebra swallowtail 
butterfly with a body of burnished hair; the gleam
of shields and swords raised for lethal strike. In Giotto’s
“Lamentation of Christ,” more notable than the mourners
who have taken the body of Christ down from the cross
is the army of cherubs hovering like small planes, their grief
becoming blur against a thick impasto of clouds and sky.
Once I heard a sermon which said sacred scripture shows 
God and the angels have feelings, but more intensely 
than those of humans. Never fear, said the announcing  
angel to Mary— which meant his countenance was far 
from benign, even if he was holy. In the depths of our own 
grief as we wring our hands and rend our hair, our keening
ascends into the air as if, too, from the mouths of angels.

November 13, 2025November 13, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

Why Not Up the Ante

"US Mint presses final pennies as 
production ends after more than 230 
years." - Associated Press, 12 Nov. 2025


Penny wise, pound foolish; earner of an honest penny
yet you swear you don't have a penny to your name. 
Won't you buy hot cross buns, one a penny, two 
a penny— too proud to pinch a penny yet you'd wager 
someone a pound to a penny. Pretty penny, clean 
and shiny as a new penny, have you ever felt like 
a penny waiting for change? Me too. A penny saved, 
a penny earned, but now there are no thoughts you 
can buy with one penny. Somewhere in the world 
there are bathroom floors and kitchen floors tiled 
entirely in copper pennies. Those take a long time 
to complete, but once you start, it's in for a penny, 
in for a pound. The gleam's as good as gold, even 
brighter— for every single time a penny drops, 
a lightbulb still goes off in someone's head.

November 13, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Anger management

Up and began our discontent again and sorely angered my wife, who indeed do live very lonely, but I do perceive that it is want of work that do make her and all other people think of ways of spending their time worse, and this I owe to my building, that do not admit of her undertaking any thing of work, because the house has been and is still so dirty.
I to my office, and there sat all the morning and dined with discontent with my wife at noon, and so to my office, and there this afternoon we had our first meeting upon our commission of inspecting the Chest, and there met Sir J. Minnes, Sir Francis Clerke, Mr. Heath, Atturney of the Dutchy, Mr. Prinn, Sir W. Rider, Captn. Cocke, and myself. Our first work to read over the Institution, which is a decree in Chancery in the year 1617, upon an inquisition made at Rochester about that time into the revenues of the Chest, which had then, from the year 1588 or 1590, by the advice of the Lord High Admiral and principal officers then being, by consent of the seamen, been settled, paying sixpence per month, according to their wages then, which was then but 10s. which is now 24s.
We adjourned to a fortnight hence. So broke up, and I to see Sir W. Pen, who is now pretty well, but lies in bed still; he cannot rise to stand. Then to my office late, and this afternoon my wife in her discontent sent me a letter, which I am in a quandary what to do, whether to read it or not, but I purpose not, but to burn it before her face, that I may put a stop to more of this nature. But I must think of some way, either to find her some body to keep her company, or to set her to work, and by employment to take up her thoughts and time. After doing what I had to do I went home to supper, and there was very sullen to my wife, and so went to bed and to sleep (though with much ado, my mind being troubled) without speaking one word to her.

anger is building
an office in my chest
out of lies and discontent

I am in a quandary
whether to burn or to sleep
with a troubled word

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 13 November 1662.

November 12, 2025November 14, 2025 by Luisa A. Igloria

You Think You Hear a Ladybug Cry for Help

(an emoji poem)

If small insects like the jeweled 
ladybug sent out a cry for help,
would you hear it? You remember a nursery
rhyme from childhood about a king who stuck
a fork into his dessert, releasing four and 
twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. But if they
were truly baked and done for, they wouldn't
be able to fly out of their tomb of shortcut
pastry, would they? And since they began
to sing in chorus, they must have had nine
lives or there was some wizardry involved— 
the type that sets off snare drums, broomsticks 
falling briskly in line to empty trash bins 
and carry buckets of water. What padlocked 
the doors to bewilderment and surprise in your
blood and held up a stop sign every time you saw 
a swan and recalled tales of transfiguration?
The snake doesn't whisper Sit in the corner 
like a good child. In that kind of story, it urges 
you to take a big bite out of the shiny apple, bets 
you could steal cheese from a mousetrap or filch 
a smoke without being caught. People have lost big 
in TV shows where the host asks you to choose between
wads of money or a taped-up mystery box containing...
what exactly? Perhaps you are the insect— just a small
creature, and not large as allegory like the one 
in a Kafka story. You do your everyday things: fry
and eat an egg for breakfast, swim a couple of laps 
at the gym, dutifully take out the recycling.
You squint up at the fading light one evening, 
and remember how in your teens you really wanted 
to learn the bass guitar, rack up enough
points to join the local Mensa club, or train
as a long-distance runner if not for being flat-
footed. No, none of those, to your dismay. 
But the voice of some wise sage says in your ear
that it's alright. Neither you nor the barnyard
creatures nor the bright blue Morpho butterflies
nor the earthworms churning up the soil older
than all of us necessarily need saving all the time. 
Your daughter texts you to say that one day, when she 
took her second-grader to the park, she was feeling 
so burned out from work. She joined him on the slides
a couple of times, and felt a little better. 
You tell her— next time they visit, you'll drop 
everything you're doing so you can go to the teahouse 
you enjoyed so much the last time, to drink oolong, 
eat finger sandwiches, popcorn chicken, and scones.

November 12, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Voice lesson

At my office most of the morning, after I had done among my painters, and sent away Mr. Shaw and Hawly, who came to give me a visit this morning. Shaw it seems is newly re-married to a rich widow. At noon dined at home with my wife, and by and by, by my wife’s appointment came two young ladies, sisters, acquaintances of my wife’s brother’s, who are desirous to wait upon some ladies, and proffer their service to my wife. The youngest, indeed, hath a good voice, and sings very well, besides other good qualitys; but I fear hath been bred up with too great liberty for my family, and I fear greater inconveniences of expenses, and my wife’s liberty will follow, which I must study to avoid till I have a better purse; though, I confess, the gentlewoman, being pretty handsome, and singing, makes me have a good mind to her.
Anon I took them by coach and carried them to a friend’s of theirs, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and there I left them and I to the Temple by appointment to my cousin Roger’s chamber, where my uncle Thomas and his son Thomas met us, I having hoped that they would have agreed with me to have had [it] ended by my cozen Roger, but they will have two strangers to be for them against two others of mine, and so we parted without doing any thing till the two send me the names of their arbiters. Thence I walked home, calling a little in Paul’s Churchyard, and, I thank God, can read and never buy a book, though I have a great mind to it. So to the Dolphin Tavern near home, by appointment, and there met with Wade and Evett, and have resolved to make a new attempt upon another discovery, in which God give us better fortune than in the other, but I have great confidence that there is no cheat in these people, but that they go upon good grounds, though they have been mistaken in the place of the first.
From thence, without drinking a drop of wine, home to my office and there made an end, though late, of my collection of the prices of masts for these twelve years to this day, in order to the buying of some of Wood, and I bound it up in painted paper to lie by as a book for future use. So home and to supper and to bed, and a little before and after we were in bed we had much talk and difference between us about my wife’s having a woman, which I seemed much angry at, that she should go so far in it without consideration and my being consulted with. So to bed.

you who are my voice
must avoid singing

in a strange church
without a drop of wine

a mad collection of ears
bound up in a book

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 12 November 1662.