Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Crows land on the roof and make
the shingles rattle. Echoes
run down the walls and into
the foundation. If the beams
aren't well-placed, a feather
could tilt the balance. Their coats
are so black, they're almost blue.
They preen in the sun with no need
for combs, pearls, or buttons.
Every day is black tie day.
You would not know, unless
you too were invited.
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 magic baby, the local megaliths, over two million lights, the way a poet blinks, and much more. Enjoy! See you in 2026.
Continue reading “Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 52”
Up and walked to Whitehall, where the Duke and Mr. Coventry being gone forth I went to Westminster Hall, where I staid reading at Mrs. Mitchell’s shop, and sent for half a pint of sack for her. Here she told me what I heard not of before, the strange burning of Mr. De Laun, a merchant’s house in Loathbury, and his lady (Sir Thomas Allen’s daughter) and her whole family; not one thing, dog nor cat, escaping; nor any of the neighbours almost hearing of it till the house was quite down and burnt. How this should come to pass, God knows, but a most strange thing it is! Hither came Jack Spicer to me, and I took him to the Swan, where Mr. Herbert did give me my breakfast of cold chine of pork; and here Spicer and I talked of Exchequer matters, and how the Lord Treasurer hath now ordered all monies to be brought into the Exchequer, and hath settled the King’s revenue, and given to every general expence proper assignments; to the Navy 200,000l. and odd. He also told me of the great vast trade of the goldsmiths in supplying the King with money at dear rates.
Thence to White Hall, and got up to the top gallerys in the Banquetting House, to see the audience of the Russia Embassadors; which after long waiting and fear of the falling of the gallery (it being so full, and part of it being parted from the rest, for nobody to come up merely from the weakness thereof): and very handsome it was. After they were come in, I went down and got through the croude almost as high as the King and the Embassadors, where I saw all the presents, being rich furs, hawks, carpets, cloths of tissue, and sea-horse teeth. The King took two or three hawks upon his fist, having a glove on, wrought with gold, given him for the purpose. The son of one of the Embassadors was in the richest suit for pearl and tissue, that ever I did see, or shall, I believe. After they and all the company had kissed the King’s hand, then the three Embassadors and the son, and no more, did kiss the Queen’s. One thing more I did observe, that the chief Embassador did carry up his master’s letters in state before him on high; and as soon as he had delivered them, he did fall down to the ground and lay there a great while. After all was done, the company broke up; and I spent a little while walking up and down the gallery seeing the ladies, the two Queens, and the Duke of Monmouth with his little mistress, which is very little, and like my brother-in-law’s wife. So with Mr. Creed to the Harp and Ball, and there meeting with Mr. How, Goodgroom, and young Coleman, did drink and talk with them, and I have almost found out a young gentlewoman for my turn, to wait on my wife, of good family and that can sing. Thence I went away, and getting a coach went home and sat late talking with my wife about our entertaining Dr. Clerke’s lady and Mrs. Pierce shortly, being in great pain that my wife hath never a winter gown, being almost ashamed of it, that she should be seen in a taffeta one; when all the world wears moyre; so to prayers and to bed, but we could not come to any resolution what to do therein, other than to appear as she is.
we hear nothing of the vast trade
in money at dear rates
the falling of weak hands
and teeth wrought with gold
fall down to the ground
sing a winter prayer
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 29 December 1662.
(Lord’s day). Up and, with my wife to church, and coming out, went out both before my Lady Batten, he not being there, which I believe will vex her. After dinner my wife to church again, and I to the French church, where I heard an old man make a tedious, long sermon, till they were fain to light candles to baptize the children by. So homewards, meeting my brother Tom, but spoke but little with him, and calling also at my uncle Wight’s, but met him and her going forth, and so I went directly home, and there fell to the renewing my last year’s oaths, whereby it has pleased God so much to better myself and practise, and so down to supper, and then prayers and bed.
out out
for a bat
in which I believe
in the church where
I heard an old man
make light
children call
for a new god
to act up
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 28 December 1662.
In the upper room of a house roofed
with terracotta tile, two figures
move into an embrace. They fling
the sheet from the bed, which unfurls
over the window sill to spill across
a courtyard in which a copper samovar
presides, next to a plate of pomegranates.
Someone sinks into a velvet-upolstered
armchair, grateful for tea. The scrolled
metal arms of the chandelier can only predict
one kind of weather though there is, of course,
always the opposite of any condition. And so
then clouds could gather in your cup.
The moon could crack like an egg against
the rim of the world. The sea could slip
through the keyhole a child once fit his whole
arm into. But the bees, the bees still make
their perfect rooms of gold and honey.
Up, and while I am dressing I sent for my boy’s brother, William, that lives in town here as a groom, to whom and their sister Jane I told my resolution to keep the boy no longer. So upon the whole they desire to have him stay a week longer, and then he shall go. So to the office, and there Mr. Coventry and I sat till noon, and then I stept to the Exchange, and so home to dinner, and after dinner with my wife to the Duke’s Theatre, and saw the second part of “Rhodes,” done with the new Roxalana; which do it rather better in all respects for person, voice, and judgment, then the first Roxalana. Home with great content with my wife, not so well pleased with the company at the house to-day, which was full of citizens, there hardly being a gentleman or woman in the house; a couple of pretty ladies by us that made sport in it, being jostled and crowded by prentices. So home, and I to my study making up my monthly accounts, which is now fallen again to 630l. or thereabouts, which not long since was 680l., at which I am sorry, but I trust in God I shall get it up again, and in the meantime will live sparingly. So home to supper and to bed.
I sing for my keep
stay a week
in the second person
voice of the crowd
fallen into rust
I shall live sparingly
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 27 December 1662.
"... I watch the fields
their leased light
the fox at play"
~ D. Bonta
How it was late, and no one had started
to chop the mushrooms for the one intricate
main dish. And there was the log of meat
resting on the counter, waiting to be rolled
and wrapped in a stretch of pastry. Seeing
the helpless desperation in her eyes I said,
Tell me what you would like me to do— knowing
another pair of hands rushing the potatoes
along or frothing oil and lemon together
to glisten the snipped greens might not
ease her sadness, only serve as delegated
distraction. I have been her, this
very moment at a different time, mourning
for a different child, but all the same.
The grief isn't for death, not simply
that matter of leaving the body, the body
of the world, but perhaps keener in its
own way. We are so grateful for
the smallest signs of warming. For the bubble
lifting from the bottom of the glass. For
the sound of a door opening after long silence.
Up, my wife to the making of Christmas pies all day, being now pretty well again, and I abroad to several places about some businesses, among others bought a bake-pan in Newgate Market, and sent it home, it cost me 16s. So to Dr. Williams, but he is out of town, then to the Wardrobe. Hither come Mr. Battersby; and we falling into a discourse of a new book of drollery in verse called Hudebras, I would needs go find it out, and met with it at the Temple: cost me 2s. 6d. But when I came to read it, it is so silly an abuse of the Presbyter Knight going to the warrs, that I am ashamed of it; and by and by meeting at Mr. Townsend’s at dinner, I sold it to him for 18d. Here we dined with many tradesmen that belong to the Wardrobe, but I was weary soon of their company, and broke up dinner as soon as I could, and away, with the greatest reluctancy and dispute (two or three times my reason stopping my sense and I would go back again) within myself, to the Duke’s house and saw “The Villaine,” which I ought not to do without my wife, but that my time is now out that I did undertake it for. But, Lord! to consider how my natural desire is to pleasure, which God be praised that he has given me the power by my late oaths to curb so well as I have done, and will do again after two or three plays more. Here I was better pleased with the play than I was at first, understanding the design better than I did. Here I saw Gosnell and her sister at a distance, and could have found it in my heart to have accosted them, but thought not prudent. But I watched their going out and found that they came, she, her sister and another woman, alone, without any man, and did go over the fields a foot. I find that I have an inclination to have her come again, though it is most against my interest either of profit or content of mind, other than for their singing.
Home on foot, in my way calling at Mr. Rawlinson’s and drinking only a cup of ale there. He tells me my uncle has ended his purchase, which cost him 4,500l., and how my uncle do express his trouble that he has with his wife’s relations, but I understand his great intentions are for the Wights that hang upon him and by whose advice this estate is bought. Thence home, and found my wife busy among her pies, but angry for some saucy words that her mayde Jane has given her, which I will not allow of, and therefore will give her warning to be gone. As also we are both displeased for some slight words that Sarah, now at Sir W. Pen’s, hath spoke of us, but it is no matter. We shall endeavour to joyne the lion’s skin to the fox’s tail.
So to my office alone a while, and then home to my study and supper and bed. Being also vexed at my boy for his staying playing abroad when he is sent of errands, so that I have sent him to-night to see whether their country carrier be in town or no, for I am resolved to keep him no more.
going to war again
within myself
understanding better at a distance
I watch the fields
their leased light
the fox at play
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 26 December 1662.
"To move along the earth without keeping a ledger."
~ Jenny Xie
Without reaching for a rolled-up magazine to swat
at a spider, maundering across the floor.
Show me a perfectly seamless surface with not
a cloud, not a groove, not a tongue.
Without forcing the prisoner's head between
his knees, lead him into a room for unholding.
In sleep, watch what shape the body curls into.
What it mouths, without grinding
molars into chalk.
Without holding the reflex to the memory
of what caused it.
Untether the dream horse from its post
so where it goes, the gleam returns to the grass.
Unsour the milk and release the butter
churn from its crock.
Without begrudging the custard another egg,
give the day its long-owed due of sweetness.
No more, no less.
~ after Hieronymous Bosch, 1494
An alchemy of vision for the coming times—
Gifts studded with precious ore and pearls, yes,
enough perhaps to pay their passage into Egypt.
But gifts, too, adorned with scenes of
sacrifice.
And bitter myrrh,
herb used to prepare the body for embalming. Gold
from the mines of Africa and Arabia.
Frankincense,
burnt in thuribles to accompany
souls to the afterlife.
In the distance, armies ride, combing the countryside
for male infants under the age of two.
But evil
already lurks closer. We can see its naked
form, adorned with gilt and chains
and a toad-
encrusted bell. Joseph tends to the swaddling
clothes near a warming fire.
In the fields,
a wolf devours a human and no one comes
to his aid.
Only the woman
with the child on her lap
looks unperturbed, or she has understood
her part.
Such a small figure, thrust into the maw
of mortal time.
And under a pendulous star, a city
which will endure
countless instances of fire and siege.