Via Negativa

January 20, 2026January 18, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Luxuriant

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

Those slow afternoons, she'd lie 
on the couch and rest her head on its arm, 

then gesture for me to come pluck out the white 
hairs from her head with a pair of tweezers. 

Five centavos for each, she winked. Perhaps 
I earned twenty-five. Her hair, still thick 

and glint-dark then as a tidal pool. 
Sheened with a slick of coconut oil,

it needed no other adornment. But
she tried out trends— pixie cuts, 

kiss-me curls. Now I'm the same age she was 
when she began tinting her hair with henna, 

as the shoreline above her forehead slowly 
receded. I touch the scalloped curve 

on a barette, the crosshatched tuft from 
my own hairbrush, look in the mirror 

at the part resembling a trail as the moon 
raises its tortoiseshell comb into the sky.

January 19, 2026January 19, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 3

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: a hell hole, relearning the world, wormy things from the sea bed, a single blue tree, and much more. Enjoy.

January 19, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Delicacy

Up and to White Hall, and while the Duke is dressing himself I went to wait on my Lord Sandwich, whom I found not very well, and Dr. Clerke with him. He is feverish, and hath sent for Mr. Pierce to let him blood, but not being in the way he puts it off till night, but he stirs not abroad to-day. Then to the Duke, and in his closett discoursed as we use to do, and then broke up. That done, I singled out Mr. Coventry into the Matted Gallery, and there I told him the complaints I meet every day about our Treasurer’s or his people’s paying no money, but at the goldsmith’s shops, where they are forced to pay fifteen or twenty sometimes per cent. for their money, which is a most horrid shame, and that which must not be suffered. Nor is it likely that the Treasurer (at least his people) will suffer Maynell the Goldsmith to go away with 10,000l. per annum, as he do now get, by making people pay after this manner for their money.
We were interrupted by the Duke, who called Mr. Coventry aside for half an hour, walking with him in the gallery, and then in the garden, and then going away I ended my discourse with Mr. Coventry. But by the way Mr. Coventry was saying that there remained nothing now in our office to be amended but what would do of itself every day better and better, for as much as he that was slowest, Sir W. Batten, do now begin to look about him and to mind business. At which, God forgive me! I was a little moved with envy, but yet I am glad, and ought to be, though it do lessen a little my care to see that the King’s service is like to be better attended than it was heretofore.
Thence by coach to Mr. Povy’s, being invited thither by [him] came a messenger this morning from him, where really he made a most excellent and large dinner, of their variety, even to admiration, he bidding us, in a frolique, to call for what we had a mind, and he would undertake to give it us: and we did for prawns, swan, venison, after I had thought the dinner was quite done, and he did immediately produce it, which I thought great plenty, and he seems to set off his rest in this plenty and the neatness of his house, which he after dinner showed me, from room to room, so beset with delicate pictures, and above all, a piece of perspective in his closett in the low parler; his stable, where was some most delicate horses, and the very-racks painted, and mangers, with a neat leaden painted cistern, and the walls done with Dutch tiles, like my chimnies. But still, above all things, he bid me go down into his wine-cellar, where upon several shelves there stood bottles of all sorts of wine, new and old, with labells pasted upon each bottle, and in the order and plenty as I never saw books in a bookseller’s shop; and herein, I observe, he puts his highest content, and will accordingly commend all that he hath, but still they deserve to be so. Here dined with me Dr. Whore and Mr. Scawen.
Therewith him and Mr. Bland, whom we met by the way, to my Lord Chancellor’s, where the King was to meet my Lord Treasurer, &c., many great men, to settle the revenue of Tangier. I staid talking awhile there, but the King not coming I walked to my brother’s, where I met my cozen Scotts (Tom not being at home) and sent for a glass of wine for them, and having drunk we parted, and I to the Wardrobe talking with Mr. Moore about my law businesses, which I doubt will go ill for want of time for me to attend them.
So home, where I found Mrs. Lodum speaking with my wife about her kinswoman which is offered my wife to come as a woman to her.
So to the office and put things in order, and then home and to bed, it being my great comfort that every day I understand more and more the pleasure of following of business and the credit that a man gets by it, which I hope at last too will end in profit.
This day, by Dr. Clerke, I was told the occasion of my Lord Chesterfield’s going and taking his lady (my Lord Ormond’s daughter) from Court. It seems he not only hath been long jealous of the Duke of York, but did find them two talking together, though there were others in the room, and the lady by all opinions a most good, virtuous woman. He, the next day (of which the Duke was warned by somebody that saw the passion my Lord Chesterfield was in the night before), went and told the Duke how much he did apprehend himself wronged, in his picking out his lady of the whole Court to be the subject of his dishonour; which the Duke did answer with great calmness, not seeming to understand the reason of complaint, and that was all that passed but my Lord did presently pack his lady into the country in Derbyshire, near the Peake; which is become a proverb at Court, to send a man’s wife to the Devil’s arse a’ Peake, when she vexes him.
This noon I did find out Mr. Dixon at Whitehall, and discoursed with him about Mr. Wheatly’s daughter for a wife for my brother Tom, and have committed it to him to enquire the pleasure of her father and mother concerning it. I demanded 300l..

blood in the night
the slowest swan

is dinner in a room beset
with delicate pictures

where delicate horses
painted for war

pass with great calmness
into the devil’s wheat

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 19 January 1662/63.

January 19, 2026January 18, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Cold Front

Frost builds up in the freezer
where crinkly bags of peas and blocks 
of butter live next to wrapped and dated
cuts of meat, dumpling wrappers. It's either
because of a faulty door seal, or a problem 
of air circulation: too little, too moist, 
too warm. There are times I am hot and
cold at the same time: icy with rage,
cheeks flushing warm from the snap 
of indignation or curt dismissal. 
As the afternoon grays with sleet,
water boils in the kettle. It's 
the type that doesn't whistle, but 
we're supposed to know the signs.

January 18, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Field hand

(Lord’s day). Up, and after the barber had done, and I had spoke with Mr. Smith (whom I sent for on purpose to speak of Field’s business, who stands upon 250l. before he will release us, which do trouble me highly), and also Major Allen of the Victualling Office about his ship to be hired for Tangier, I went to church, and thence home to dinner alone with my wife, very pleasant, and after dinner to church again, and heard a dull, drowsy sermon, and so home and to my office, perfecting my vows again for the next year, which I have now done, and sworn to in the presence of Almighty God to observe upon the respective penalties thereto annexed, and then to Sir W. Pen’s (though much against my will, for I cannot bear him, but only to keep him from complaint to others that I do not see him) to see how he do, and find him pretty well, and ready to go abroad again.

the field’s business
is red and pleasant

and I
drowsy and worn

in the presence of a god
I cannot keep

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 18 January 1662/63.

January 18, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Fucking around

Waked early with my mind troubled about our law matters, but it came into my mind that ἐκ ἡμῖν καὶ οὐκ &c. of Epictetus, which did put me to a great deal of ease, it being a saying of great reason.
Up to the office, and there sat Mr. Coventry, Mr. Pett, new come to town, and I. I was sorry for signing a bill and guiding Mr. Coventry to sign a bill to Mr. Creed for his pay as Deputy Treasurer to this day, though the service ended 5 or 6 months ago, which he perceiving did blot out his name afterwards, but I will clear myself to him from design in it. Sat till two o’clock and then home to dinner, and Creed with me, and after dinner, to put off my mind’s trouble, I took Creed by coach and to the Duke’s playhouse, where we did see “The Five Hours” entertainment again, which indeed is a very fine play, though, through my being out of order, it did not seem so good as at first; but I could discern it was not any fault in the play. Thence with him to the China alehouse, and there drank a bottle or two, and so home, where I found my wife and her brother discoursing about Mr. Ashwell’s daughter, whom we are like to have for my wife’s woman, and I hope it may do very well, seeing there is a necessity of having one. So to the office to write letters, and then home to supper and to bed.

out of gas on pay day
out of hours

out of a bottle or two
found out

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 17 January 1662/63.

January 18, 2026January 17, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Stay

Certain scents cling 
to your hands, your hair, 
though you've barely touched 

them— citrus spray, garlic 
oil. And there's the way sunlight 
fills a water pitcher at the edge 

of the counter— you wonder at  
that kind of brightness, its taste,  
how you might cup a handful 

before it evaporated. There are 
things whose passing you'll grieve, 
sharp as a shard of laughter 

floating in a hallway long 
after the one who lofted it into 
the air has left. Once, the shape

of the future was a mere speck 
in a wilderness of tomorrows, but
now the light has shifted. Mourn

the wasp that expired to sweeten 
the garden inside the fig, and also
the woolen sock whose mate went

missing. Days later, you find it
tucked into a sheet corner: a message 
saying Not yet gone, not yet gone.

January 17, 2026January 17, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Over the Falls

"I am not of the common daredevil sort..."
                - Annie Edson Taylor, 24 October 1901 



There's a place at the oceanfront 
where you pay sixty dollars to be sucked 

into a vertical wind tunnel simulating free-
fall conditions in a skydive. Or you can find

an instructor to do a tandem jump from a plane
thirteen thousand feet in the air. In 1982,

a man tied forty-five helium balloons to his 
lawn chair and rapidly rose through the air,

disrupting flight traffic near LAX before landing 
in a tangle of power lines. Was it the culmination

of compulsion, a dream he'd always had from 
childhood? I read about Annie, who on her sixty-

third birthday in 1901 thought of going over 
Niagara Falls in a padded barrel with an anvil

for ballast and her cat for company. She lived, 
first human over the falls. Conned by her manager,

she never found fortune and fame, her name 
on a boardwalk tote or trinket, people lining up

for an autograph. Soaked stockings and skirts,
the water's loud hum outpacing her heart, she

walked in a swoon stepping out of that cloister,
the world's drum tumbling as if without end.

January 16, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Addict

Lay long talking in bed with my wife. Up, and Mr. Battersby, the apothecary, coming to see me, I called for the cold chine of beef and made him eat, and drink wine, and talked, there being with us Captain Brewer, the paynter, who tells me how highly the Presbyters do talk in the coffeehouses still, which I wonder at. They being gone I walked two or three hours with my brother Tom, telling him my mind how it is troubled about my father’s concernments, and how things would be with them all if it should please God that I should die, and therefore desire him to be a good husband and follow his business, which I hope he do. At noon to dinner, and after dinner my wife began to talk of a woman again, which I have a mind to have, and would be glad Pall might please us, but she is quite against having her, nor have I any great mind to it, but only for her good and to save money flung away upon a stranger. So to my office till 9 o’clock about my navy manuscripts, and there troubled in my mind more and more about my uncle’s business from a letter come this day from my father that tells me that all his tenants are sued by my uncle, which will cost me some new trouble, I went home to supper and so to bed.

in the pot
cold coffee
I wonder how I should die

I have a mind
to have a mind
but only for a day

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 16 January 1662/63.

January 16, 2026January 16, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Cocktail Hour, Dark Time

Before the small plates even arrive,
one of us asks for recommendations
on who to consult for drawing up  
her will. Another confides: a daughter
urged her to put a Go Bag together. 
What would she put in it? Keys, papers,
meds; snacks, water, change of clothing,
warm jacket, flashlight... But where
would we go? How could we possibly 
rehearse for something we're unsure 
about? The weatherman predicts rain, 
some wind tomorrow. Or it could turn 
into a storm, a blizzard with zero
visibility. I remember the letters
I used to get in the mail from my
mother: thin sheets, blue envelope, 
a little plane aloft in one corner. 
Packed particles of handwriting 
drifting from one line to the next.
They're in my house somewhere.  
How do you leave such things behind? 
When we clink glasses, our sleep-
deprived nights run down our throats.
One of us says, when it's impossible
to go back to bed she gets up and looks 
for something, anything, to do. Fold 
socks, make tea in the kitchen, start 
laundry. Many conditions can exist 
at the same time: terror and wonder, 
heartbreak and hope. Have we always
lived in the flimsy spaces between?