Via Negativa

January 26, 2026January 25, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Memory of Martial Law Years, with Children

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

Philippines


Those were years of darkness and silence
when we learned not to trust anything, 

not even our shadows because they change 
depending on the time of day. The man 

in the clean, pressed shirt who sat 
next to you in the jeepney, the teacher 

who always had the latest hairstyle; 
the auntie who sold rice and swamp spinach 

at the corner, the man who ladled hot 
crisped corn into paper sacks at the edge 

of the school yard— our elders said we 
couldn't trust anyone. Everyone was afraid, 

because everyone could be bribed   
or threatened or bought. We spoke 

with our eyes or through the lean of our 
bodies, taught each other codes for knocking 

that meant friend or relative and not 
foe. When the curfew sounded at nine, 

we sat together with shades drawn, turned 
down the volume on our radios. They seemed

to age before their time, but we helped 
our children with homework and told them 

to say their prayers before going to bed. 
When we put their pencils and crayons away, 

the sight of a brightly drawn yellow sun on
kraft paper was enough to rend our hearts.

January 25, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Crusaders

(Lord’s day). Lay till 9 a-bed, then up, and being trimmed by the barber, I walked towards White Hall, calling upon Mr. Moore, whom I found still very ill of his ague. I discoursed with him about my Lord’s estate against I speak with my Lord this day. Thence to the King’s Head ordinary at Charing Cross, and sent for Mr. Creed, where we dined very finely and good company, good discourse. I understand the King of France is upon consulting his divines upon the old question, what the power of the Pope is? and do intend to make war against him, unless he do right him for the wrong his Embassador received; and banish the Cardinall Imperiall, which I understand this day is not meant the Cardinall belonging or chosen by the Emperor, but the name of his family is Imperial.
Thence to walk in the Park, which we did two hours, it being a pleasant sunshine day though cold. Our discourse upon the rise of most men that we know, and observing them to be the results of chance, not policy, in any of them, particularly Sir J. Lawson’s, from his declaring against Charles Stuart in the river of Thames, and for the Rump.
Thence to my Lord, who had his ague fit last night, but is now pretty well, and I staid talking with him an hour alone in his chamber, about sundry publique and private matters. Among others, he wonders what the project should be of the Duke’s going down to Portsmouth just now with his Lady, at this time of the year: it being no way, we think, to increase his popularity, which is not great; nor yet safe to do it, for that reason, if it would have any such effect. By and by comes in my Lady Wright, and so I went away, end after talking with Captn. Ferrers, who tells me of my Lady Castlemaine’s and Sir Charles Barkeley being the great favourites at Court, and growing every day more and more; and that upon a late dispute between my Lord Chesterfield, that is the Queen’s Lord Chamberlain, and Mr. Edward Montagu, her Master of the Horse, who should have the precedence in taking the Queen’s upperhand abroad out of the house, which Mr. Montagu challenges, it was given to my Lord Chesterfield. So that I perceive he goes down the wind in honour as well as every thing else, every day. So walk to my brother’s and talked with him, who tells me that this day a messenger is come, that tells us how Collonel Honiwood, who was well yesterday at Canterbury, was flung by his horse in getting up, and broke his scull, and so is dead. So home and to the office, despatching some business, and so home to supper, and then to prayers and to bed.

who is against divine power
to make war or banish the day

imperial sunshine
though cold to any laws

is alone in sundry wonders
going down just now

his castle growing every day
more of the horse

taking a road
given to the wind

we talk with his messenger
a skull dead to prayers

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 25 January 1662/63.

January 25, 2026January 25, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Returns

You show up late to a wedding
reception, missing not only the Chicken
Dance and all the versions of the Electric 
Slide, but also the moment when the bride
and groom cut the cake and try to cram
the largest morsel into each others' 
mouths. All the slices have been served; 
only a few mangled pieces are left, thick
with buttercream and too little cake.
You think about your youth, that sequence
of finish school early, marry early, 
for fear of missing the train called 
adulthood. Should you have waited, gone 
to more parties, hung out with the shinier
and more ambitious crowd, focused on those 
with one eye on real estate and the other 
on trading futures? Now, approaching
the later threshold of life, you take
stock of what you have and what you 
can leave behind; some kind of bequest 
or legacy. Have you told your daughters 
your most important stories, what they 
should do with all these books and all 
the trinkets you saved from your other 
lives? You've never had a financial 
adviser but now you're standing in
the lobby of his building, about to take 
the elevator up to your appointment. Perhaps 
this means something in you still believes
in the future, something now willing
to join the game of risk and gain.

January 24, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Widower

Lay pretty long, and by lying with my sheet upon my lip, as I have of old observed it, my upper lip was blistered in the morning. To the office all the morning, sat till noon, then to the Exchange to look out for a ship for Tangier, and delivered my manuscript to be bound at the stationer’s. So to dinner at home, and then down to Redriffe, to see a ship hired for Tangier, what readiness she was in, and found her ready to sail. Then home, and so by coach to Mr. Povy’s, where Sir W. Compton, Mr. Bland, Gawden, Sir J. Lawson and myself met to settle the victualling of Tangier for the time past, which with much ado we did, and for a six months’ supply more.
So home in Mr. Gawden’s coach, and to my office till late about business, and find that it is business that must and do every day bring me to something. So home to supper and to bed.

my old upper lip
is red in the morning

I change the station
and land in the past

which must every day
bring something up

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 24 January 1662/63.

January 24, 2026January 24, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Tending Grief

Sometimes it is small 
as a moth folded in the hollow

of my chest. Sometimes it circles
my wrists and ladders up my spine,

then takes hold of my shoulders 
to twist them into ache. Sometimes 

it has the heft of stone and I 
no longer remember when exactly  

it grew more weighted, or when 
I thought the body could make a little 

more room for what it can't actually hold. 
Though I want to forget, it shapeshifts. 

My only hope is that in staying and not 
simply passing through, it becomes 

the kind of root which remembers 
it can grow into something green.

January 23, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Culture worker

Up and hastened him in despatching some business relating to Tangier, and I away homewards, hearing that my Lord had a bad fit to-night, called at my brother’s, and found him sick in bed, of a pain in the sole of one of his feet, without swelling, knowing not how it came, but it will not suffer him to stand these two days. So to Mr. Moore, and Mr. Lovell, our proctor, being there, discoursed of my law business. Thence to Mr. Grant, to bid him come for money for Mr. Barlow, and he and I to a coffee-house, where Sir J. Cutler was; and in discourse, among other things, he did fully make it out that the trade of England is as great as ever it was, only in more hands; and that of all trades there is a greater number than ever there was, by reason of men taking more ‘prentices, because of their having more money than heretofore. His discourse was well worth hearing.
Coming by Temple Bar I bought “Audley’s Way to be Rich,” a serious pamphlett and some good things worth my minding. Thence homewards, and meeting Sir W. Batten, turned back again to a coffee-house, and there drunk more till I was almost sick, and here much discourse, but little to be learned, but of a design in the north of a rising, which is discovered, among some men of condition, and they sent for up. Thence to the ‘Change, and so home with him by coach, and I to see how my wife do, who is pretty well again, and so to dinner to Sir W. Batten’s to a cod’s head, and so to my office, and after stopping to see Sir W. Pen, where was Sir J. Lawson and his lady and daughter, which is pretty enough, I came back to my office, and there set to business pretty late, finishing the margenting my Navy-Manuscript. So home and to bed.

at night feet know
other things

hands house my head

a pen is finishing
my manuscript

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 23 January 1662/63.

January 23, 2026January 23, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Landscape, with Lake and Pleasure Boats

A salt lick, a watering hole, a thumbprint 
embossed on a clearing in the dusty hills. How 
did it become this fantasy of paradise, willows
weeping with the weight of untrimmed blooms 
as flat-bottomed boats circle the surface of 
a manmade lake? At first, only a handful 
of them. And then, more tourists clamoring for 
a turn. Now there are too many concessions, 
crowding the water that merely flows around 
and around itself. Concession, from the Latin
con + cedere: the grant of privilege by 
a government to individuals to engage 
in some enterprise. Or, the act of allowing 
or conceding. Who gave the first permission? 
They fight among themselves for the right
to the largest fleet. They name ghosts on 
business permits as their children intermarry. 
They forget the history of ruin, how the most 
accurate ledger is the one kept by rain.

January 22, 2026January 22, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Self-Portrait with Glass Squid

Have you ever wanted to be more 
seen but at the same time blend 
into the background, a shadow 
capable of erasing itself until all 
that's left is a bioluminescent outline, 
mercurial tentacles flashing in and out 
of the depths? I've learned about things 
like camouflage, hiding in plain sight 
while carrying a bright orange lantern 
in a transparent bell. You'd think darkness 
itself was passing through me. But it's 
ammonium that fills my body cavity, lighter 
and more buoyant than seawater. Threatened, 
I retreat: pulling my head and arms into 
my own cloud cover, changing into an enigma 
the ocean still can't figure out. Does it 
pay off to be my own galaxy, sometimes 
discoverable and sometimes not?

January 22, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Afterwarden

To the office, where Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes are come from Portsmouth. We sat till dinner time. Then home, and Mr. Dixon by agreement came to dine, to give me an account of his success with Mr. Wheatly for his daughter for my brother; and in short it is, that his daughter cannot fancy my brother because of his imperfection in his speech, which I am sorry for, but there the business must die, and we must look out for another.
There came in also Mrs. Lodum, with an answer from her brother Ashwell’s daughter, who is likely to come to me, and with her my wife’s brother, and I carried Commissioner Pett in with me, so I feared want of victuals, but I had a good dinner, and mirth, and so rose and broke up, and with the rest of the officers to Mr. Russell’s buriall, where we had wine and rings, and a great and good company of aldermen and the livery of the Skinners’ Company. We went to St. Dunstan’s in the East church, where a sermon, but I staid not, but went home, and, after writing letters, I took coach to Mr. Povy’s, but he not within I left a letter there of Tangier business, and so to my Lord’s, and there find him not sick, but expecting his fit to-night of an ague. Here was Sir W. Compton, Mr. Povy, Mr. Bland, Mr. Gawden and myself; we were very busy about getting provisions sent forthwith to Tangier, fearing that by Mr. Gawden’s neglect they might want bread. So among other ways thought of to supply them I was empowered by the Commissioners of Tangier that were present to write to Plymouth and direct Mr. Lanyon to take up vessels great or small to the quantity of 150 tons, and fill them with bread of Mr. Gawden’s lying ready there for Tangier, which they undertake to bear me out in, and to see the freight paid. This I did. About 10 o’clock we broke up, and my Lord’s fit was coming upon him, and so we parted, and I with Mr. Creed, Mr. Pierce, Wm. Howe and Captn. Ferrers, who was got almost drunk this afternoon, and was mighty capricious and ready to fall out with any body, supped together in the little chamber that was mine heretofore upon some fowls sent by Mr. Shepley, so we were very merry till 12 at night, and so away, and I lay with Mr. Creed at his lodgings, and slept well.

a mouth can die
for want of mirth

and the skin for want
of a mouth to read it

we part with a capricious body
to be some owl at night

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 22 January 1662/63.

January 21, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Time-sensitive

Up early leaving my wife very ill in bed de ses Moi and to my office till eight o’clock, there coming Ch. Pepys to demand his legacy of me, which I denied him upon good reason of his father and brother’s suing us, and so he went away. Then came Commissioner Pett, and he and I by agreement went to Deptford, and after a turn or two in the yard, to Greenwich, and thence walked to Woolwich. Here we did business, and I on board the Tangier-merchant, a ship freighted by us, that has long lain on hand in her despatch to Tangier, but is now ready for sailing. Back, and dined at Mr. Ackworth’s, where a pretty dinner, and she a pretty, modest woman; but above all things we saw her Rocke, which is one of the finest things done by a woman that ever I saw. I must have my wife to see it. After dinner on board the Elias, and found the timber brought by her from the forest of Deane to be exceeding good. The Captain gave each of us two barrels of pickled oysters put up for the Queen mother.
So to the Dock again, and took in Mrs. Ackworth and another gentlewoman, and carried them to London, and at the Globe tavern, in Eastcheap, did give them a glass of wine, and so parted. I home, where I found my wife ill in bed all day, and her face swelled with pain. My Will has received my last two quarters salary, of which I am glad. So to my office till late and then home, and after the barber had done, to bed.

my clock is after me
that long hand

now sailing above
the finest forest

I go for another gentle
glass of pain

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 21January 1662/63.