Via Negativa

January 14, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Coal country

So my poor wife rose by five o’clock in the morning, before day, and went to market and bought fowls and many other things for dinner, with which I was highly pleased, and the chine of beef was down also before six o’clock, and my own jack, of which I was doubtfull, do carry it very well. Things being put in order, and the cook come, I went to the office, where we sat till noon and then broke up, and I home, whither by and by comes Dr. Clerke and his lady, his sister, and a she-cozen, and Mr. Pierce and his wife, which was all my guests.
I had for them, after oysters, at first course, a hash of rabbits, a lamb, and a rare chine of beef. Next a great dish of roasted fowl, cost me about 30s., and a tart, and then fruit and cheese. My dinner was noble and enough. I had my house mighty clean and neat; my room below with a good fire in it; my dining-room above, and my chamber being made a withdrawing-chamber; and my wife’s a good fire also. I find my new table very proper, and will hold nine or ten people well, but eight with great room. After dinner the women to cards in my wife’s chamber, and the Dr. and Mr. Pierce in mine, because the dining-room smokes unless I keep a good charcoal fire, which I was not then provided with. At night to supper, had a good sack posset and cold meat, and sent my guests away about ten o’clock at night, both them and myself highly pleased with our management of this day; and indeed their company was very fine, and Mrs. Clerke a very witty, fine lady, though a little conceited and proud. So weary, so to bed. I believe this day’s feast will cost me near 5l..

to an owl
doubtful of noon

the first rabbit is a fire
and a raw rope

an old mine smokes
night and day

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 13 January 1662/63.

January 14, 2026January 13, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

In a Future Where the Sky will not be So Tired

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

I want to get to a future
where we'll worry more about  
patching cracks in the drywall 
than the collapsing of foundations, 
where our neighbors don't leave 
their houses for work with the fear 
they might not be able to return.

I want to get to a future 
where disagreement is just a sign
that there are many interesting paths 
to the same clearing, but each of us 
could still find the road, giving 
friendly recommendations for snack 
and dimsum stops along the way.

I want to know there's someone
who'll agree to come fix the broken
gate or help cut the grass, in the same 
way I'll gladly pick up groceries or send
a package for them in the mail. Aren't there 
those who have willingly and without question 
donated a kidney to save someone in need?

When we arrive at that future,
I want it to be a place where apology walks
hand in hand with repair of the splintered, 
with return of what was taken by force. Under 
that sky, perhaps we'll finally understand 
how to write history without muzzling 
the tribunes and chroniclers in our midst.

January 13, 2026January 12, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

The Benguet Road

(1900-1905)

What did it take to turn
      puny horse trails into a road
             cutting through the Bued river
and up raw mountainsides, make 
      rock surrender to pickaxe, dynamite, 
             brute force? In unyielding rain,
soldiers' boots filled with mud.
      When scaffolds snapped, they and native
             laborers tumbled over the cliffs,
disappearing into a green but forlorn silence.
      In this land now the empire's new
             possession, what was it they signed up 
for, here so far away from their fathers' 
      farms in the midwest, the jobs turned down 
             at the glassworks factory in Poughkeepsie? 
Promise of a cool Eden in the northern pastures,
      a map drawn on top of existing landscape.
             Commerce arriving after dispossession.

January 12, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Nouveau riche

Up, and to Sir W. Batten’s to bid him and Sir J. Minnes adieu, they going this day towards Portsmouth, and then to Sir W. Pen’s to see Sir J. Lawson, who I heard was there, where I found him the same plain man that he was, after all his success in the Straights, with which he is come loaded home. Thence to Sir G. Carteret, and with him in his coach to White Hall, and first I to see my Lord Sandwich (being come now from Hinchingbrooke), and after talking a little with him, he and I to the Duke’s chamber, where Mr. Coventry and he and I into the Duke’s closett and Sir J. Lawson discoursing upon business of the Navy, and particularly got his consent to the ending some difficulties in Mr. Creed’s accounts.
Thence to my Lord’s lodgings, and with Mr. Creed to the King’s Head ordinary, but people being set down, we went to two or three places; at last found some meat at a Welch cook’s at Charing Cross, and here dined and our boys.
After dinner to the ‘Change to buy some linen for my wife, and going back met our two boys. Mine had struck down Creed’s boy in the dirt, with his new suit on, and the boy taken by a gentlewoman into a house to make clean, but the poor boy was in a pitifull taking and pickle; but I basted my rogue soundly. Thence to my Lord’s lodging, and Creed to his, for his papers against the Committee. I found my Lord within, and he and I went out through the garden towards the Duke’s chamber, to sit upon the Tangier matters; but a lady called to my Lord out of my Lady Castlemaine’s lodging, telling him that the King was there and would speak with him. My Lord could not tell what to bid me say at the Committee to excuse his absence, but that he was with the King; nor would suffer me to go into the Privy Garden (which is now a through-passage, and common), but bid me to go through some other way, which I did; so that I see he is a servant of the King’s pleasures too, as well as business. So I went to the Committee, where we spent all this night attending to Sir J. Lawson’s description of Tangier and the place for the Mole, of which he brought a very pretty draught. Concerning the making of the Mole, Mr. Cholmely did also discourse very well, having had some experience in it.
Being broke up, I home by coach to Mr. Bland’s, and there discoursed about sending away of the merchant ship which hangs so long on hand for Tangier.
So to my Lady Batten’s, and sat with her awhile, Sir W. Batten being gone out of town; but I did it out of design to get some oranges for my feast to-morrow of her, which I did.
So home, and found my wife’s new gown come home, and she mightily pleased with it. But I appeared very angry that there were no more things got ready against to-morrow’s feast, and in that passion sat up long, and went discontented to bed.

I was the same plain man
with a king’s head

ordinary as dirt
and pitiful in the papers

but my lady would not pass
on a king’s pleasures

in her hand one orange
for my feast

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 12 January 1662/63.

January 12, 2026January 12, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 2

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 murdered poet, a wild god, the silence of pine forests, squawks, trills, and yodels, and much more. Enjoy.

January 12, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Unimpressed

(Lord’s day). Lay long talking pleasant with my wife, then up and to church, the pew being quite full with strangers come along with Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes, so after a pitifull sermon of the young Scott, home to dinner. After dinner comes a footman of my Lord Sandwich’s (my Lord being come to town last night) with a letter from my father, in which he presses me to carry on the business for Tom with his late mistress, which I am sorry to see my father do, it being so much out of our power or for his advantage, as it is clear to me it is, which I shall think of and answer in my next. So to my office all the afternoon writing orders myself to have ready against to-morrow, that I might not appear negligent to Mr. Coventry.
In the evening to Sir W. Pen’s, where Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten, and afterwards came Sir G. Carteret. There talked about business, and afterwards to Sir W. Batten’s, where we staid talking and drinking Syder, and so I went away to my office a little, and so home and to bed.

o my letterpress
I am so out of order

to have read the pen’s art
out of bed

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 11 January 1662/63.

January 12, 2026January 11, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Deadheading

This cloudy day, you do 
deadheading of the brown and 
brittle blooms that never let go 
even as the cold strikes down all 
other vegetation. This small violence 
is supposed to encourage denser growth 
after winter, make vengeance out of 
luxuriant comeback. But this and other 
ordinary chores seem weightier or more 
premonitory than usual. The blades, 
precise but indifferent. On the stove, 
the kettle's strident hiss. In the mail, 
not a letter in flowing script but bill 
after bill, cramped with figures spelling 
out debt. You put away the shears, pour 
hot water into a mug for tea which you 
will drink with lemon and honey. 
You water the drooping pilea and 
in half an hour see it visibly revive. 
The laundry you fold smells of clean 
sunlight. Through the window, you see 
that the sky is still not blue, 
though it is still the sky.

January 11, 2026January 11, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Lament, with Prayer for Green

 
Our mothers' tears pool under the very 
bridges. In every pot, their griefs melt clean  
with marrow bones. They want to make

us strong, and so, feed fronds of torment 
to the fire, drop sacs of bile and muscled 
strips into the soup. Did you find a clutch 

of red roses bleeding on the snow, crickets 
interrogating piles of stuffed animals? Such 
are the times we live in. Not atria or cool, 

vaulted ceilings, no warm glow in windows 
but vigils lit by candle-flame. Oak, sycamore 
and pine line the avenues. Willow-braid 

and damask magnolia, pale fronds of grass along 
the shore. O moon floating detached above the broken 
skyline, will you not promise even one green leaf?

January 10, 2026 by Dave Bonta

‘Those who would give up essential liberty…’

Up and to the office. From thence, before we sat, Sir W. Pen sent for me to his bedside to talk (indeed to reproach me with my not owning to Sir J. Minnes that he had my advice in the blocking up of the garden door the other day, which is now by him out of fear to Sir J. Minnes opened again), to which I answered him so indifferently that I think he and I shall be at a distance, at least to one another, better than ever we did and love one another less, which for my part I think I need not care for.
So to the office, and sat till noon, then rose and to dinner, and then to the office again, where Mr. Creed sat with me till late talking very good discourse, as he is full of it, though a cunning knave in his heart, at least not to be too much trusted, till Sir J. Minnes came in, which at last he did, and so beyond my expectation he was willing to sign his accounts, notwithstanding all his objections, which really were very material, and yet how like a doting coxcomb he signs the accounts without the least satisfaction, for which we both sufficiently laughed at him and Sir W. Batten after they had signed them and were gone, and so sat talking together till 11 o’clock at night, and so home and to bed.

blocking up the door
out of fear

indifferent at a distance
to one another

we love a king
full of cunning

heart not to be trusted
like a sign for a sign

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 10 January 1662/63.

January 10, 2026January 9, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

River of Grief

It takes centuries for water to carve
      shelves into canyons, for time to show 
           a landscape different from the ones 
scarred with rusted gradations of color,  
      etched with marks from some previous 
           inundation. But aren't we always
rivered by grief? And the hollows in
      our collarbones, petaled with thorns 
           and gashed with flowers; the last 
to the last press of cold clay lips before the body 
      sank into the layer where other bodies
           were dumped, where a beast kicked
its overburden of dirt and soil. There
      they sleep surrounded by slate and 
           flagstone, dolomite, granite, 
veined marble. Every place that bears a wound
      simmers with the mineral trace of explosions,
           echo of voices torn from bewildered 
throats. If we are to rise from out of this 
      basin's sullied hem, somehow we must believe  
           what the water says: how the depth of our
grief is equal to how much we remember from when   
      we dressed each other's hurts, from when
           our mouths carried each other's names.