Via Negativa

Down to earth

Dave Bonta — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 20:18:11 +0000

(Lord’s day). Up and to church without my wife, she being all dirty, as my house is. God forgive me, I looked about to see if I could spy Pembleton, but I could not, which did please me not a little. Home to dinner, and then to walk up and down in my house with my wife, discoursing of our family matters, and I hope, after all my troubles of mind and jealousy, we shall live happily still. To church again, and so home to my wife; and with her read “Iter Boreale,” a poem, made just at the King’s coming home; but I never read it before, and now like it pretty well, but not so as it was cried up. So to supper. No pleasure or discourse with Ashwell, with whom for her neglect and unconcernment to do any thing in this time of dirt and trouble in the house, but gadding abroad as she has been all this afternoon, I know not whither. After supper to prayers and to bed, having been, by a sudden letter coming to me from Mr. Coventry, been with Sir W. Pen, to discourse with him about sending 500 soldiers into Ireland. I doubt matters do not go very right there.

a church without dirt
is no home to our hope

we live in a poem
never read

like a road
ending in doubt

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 23 August 1663.

Where it Hurts, Slow Down

Dave Bonta — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 19:08:59 +0000

Sometimes the body
is a house with many doors

and many drawers, most of them
locked. Someone barred access

who knows how long ago—
with a padlock and key, a sign

to not go there, a pile of heavy
furniture clogging the hallway.

It may not be the drama of some
tyrant hiding the bodies of all

the wives that did not work out
in an upper room, or the story

of a curse handed down from one
age to another, for anyone who dares

transgress the boundary. But this is how
ghosts are born— or where they continue

to re-live hurts, walking barefoot over the same
gravel roads year after year. I want to take their hands

in mine and lead them to a space looking out
onto water or the hills, comb their matted hair, wipe

the grime off their cheeks. I want to sit down beside them
doing nothing, really—and just let the evening wash over us.

Broody

Dave Bonta — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 12:20:12 +0000

Up by four o’clock to go with Sir W. Batten to Woolwich and Sir J. Minnes, which we did, though not before 6 or 7 by their laying a-bed. Our business was to survey the new wharf building there, in order to the giving more to him that do it (Mr. Randall) than contracted for, but I see no reason for it, though it be well done, yet no better than contracted to be.
Here we eat and drank at the Clerke of the Cheques, and in taking water at the Tower gate, we drank a cup of strong water, which I did out of pure conscience to my health, and I think is not excepted by my oaths, but it is a thing I shall not do again, hoping to have no such occasion. After breakfast Mr. Castle and I walked to Greenwich, and in our way met some gypsys, who would needs tell me my fortune, and I suffered one of them, who told me many things common as others do, but bade me beware of a John and a Thomas, for they did seek to do me hurt, and that somebody should be with me this day se’nnight to borrow money of me, but I should lend him none. She got ninepence of me. And so I left them and to Greenwich and so to Deptford, where the two knights were come, and thence home by water, where I find my closet done at my office to my mind and work gone well on at home; and Ashwell gone abroad to her father, my wife having spoken plainly to her. After dinner to my office, getting my closet made clean and setting some papers in order, and so in the evening home and to bed.
This day Sir W. Batten tells me that Mr. Newburne (of whom the nick-word came up among us for “Arise Tom Newburne”) is dead of eating Cowcoumbers, of which the other day, I heard another, I think Sir Nich. Crisps son.

laying hen in the act
of pure hoping

to have something
common as hurt

a body in the closet
a new word for day

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 22 August 1663.

Approaching the Third Anniversary of Your Death

Dave Bonta — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 21:18:37 +0000

This time of year, monsoons and storms thicken
above the oceans on the mantle of El Niño.

They are more brutal now, both in the country
where I was born and where you died, as well

as here on the southeastern coast, where hard
rain rises quickly in minutes, drowning cars

in the underpass. After rain, heat and humidity
push up brown clumps of mushrooms

across the yard. Everything in the underworld
links hands—from one season to another, unwilling

to let go. In my kitchen I pick up a dragonfruit from a bowl,
the same kind you bought in the market and brought

to my hotel room years ago; you cut it open, insisting
I eat it, right away. I have tried my best to live: here,

far from the first world which held us inside a grove
of pine, inside the clearing you made for a garden

you’d dreamed of filling with roses and sweet flowering
vines. I promise that I am still trying to remember

everything. Sometimes, when I catch a glimpse
in window glass, you give your face back to me.

Heart Ghazal

Dave Bonta — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 00:31:26 +0000



The nurse adjusts the cuff and takes another reading.
The sounds blood makes, coming and going from the heart;

the ache and excess of its griefs, its hidden murmurs,
its blubs pressed against the soft corridors of the heart.

The body's such a flimsy envelope. Turning in bed, I hold my side
and feel the other organs tumble slightly around the heart.

Imagine fish in a bowl of strange dimensions, angling toward
an invisible skylight, ribbons of liquid encircling the heart.

On newborns' heads, the fontanel or soft spot—in quiet light,
sometimes you can see the holy pulsing there, from the heart.

Green sleeves

Dave Bonta — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 21:17:12 +0000

Up betimes and among my joyners, and to my office, where the joyners are also laying mouldings in the inside of my closet.
Then abroad and by water to White Hall, and there got Sir G. Carteret to sign me my last quarter’s bills for my wages, and meeting with Mr. Creed he told me how my Lord Teviott hath received another attaque from Guyland at Tangier with 10,000 men, and at last, as is said, is come, after a personal treaty with him, to a good understanding and peace with him.
Thence to my brother’s, and there told him how my girl has served us which he sent me, and directed him to get my clothes again, and get the girl whipped.
So to other places by the way about small businesses, and so home, and after looking over all my workmen, I went by water and land to Deptford, and there found by appointment Sir W. Batten, but he was got to Mr. Waith’s to dinner, where I dined with him, a good dinner and good discourse, and his wife, I believe, a good woman. We fell in discourse of Captain Cocke, and how his lady has lost all her fine linen almost, but besides that they say she gives out she had 3000l. worth of linen, which we all laugh at, and Sir W. Batten (who I perceive is not so fond of the Captain as he used to be, and less of her, from her slight receiving of him and his lady it seems once) told me how he should say that he see he must spend 700l. per ann. get it how he could, which was a high speech, and by all men’s discover, his estate not good enough to spend so much.
After dinner altered our design to go to Woolwich, and put it off to to-morrow morning, and so went all to Greenwich (Mrs. Waith excepted, who went thither, but not to the same house with us, but to her father’s, that lives there), to the musique-house, where we had paltry musique, till the master organist came, whom by discourse I afterwards knew, having employed him for my Lord Sandwich, to prick out something (his name Arundell), and he did give me a fine voluntary or two, and so home by water, and at home I find my girl that run away brought by a bedel of St. Bride’s Parish, and stripped her and sent her away, and a newe one come, of Griffin’s helping to, which I think will prove a pretty girl. Her name, Susan, and so to supper after having this evening paid Mr. Hunt 3l. for my viall (besides the carving which I paid this day 10s. for to the carver), and he tells me that I may, without flattery, say, I have as good a Theorbo viall and viallin as is in England. So to bed.

mold in my closet
and all my clothes lost

fine linen as green
as water in Paris

which I think will prove
pretty for my violin

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 21 August 1663.

Homebodies

Dave Bonta — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 11:34:31 +0000

Up betimes and to my office (having first been angry with my brother John, and in the heat of my sudden passion called him Asse and coxcomb, for which I am sorry, it being but for leaving the key of his chamber with a spring lock within side of his door), and there we sat all the morning, and at noon dined at home, and there found a little girl, which she told my wife her name was Jinny, by which name we shall call her. I think a good likely girl, and a parish child of St. Bride’s, of honest parentage, and recommended by the churchwarden.
After dinner among my joyners laying my floors, which please me well, and so to my office, and we sat this afternoon upon an extraordinary business of victualling.
In the evening came Commissioner Pett, who fell foule on mee for my carriage to him at Chatham, wherein, after protestation of my love and good meaning to him, he was quiet; but I doubt he will not be able to do the service there that any other man of his ability would.
Home in the evening my viall (and lute new strung being brought home too), and I would have paid Mr. Hunt for it, but he did not come along with it himself, which I expected and was angry for it, so much is it against my nature to owe anything to any body. This evening the girle that was brought to me to-day for so good a one, being cleansed of lice this day by my wife, and good, new clothes put on her back, she run away from Goody Taylour that was shewing her the way to the bakehouse, and we heard no more of her.
So to supper and to bed.

a sudden passion
in the key of spring

we go like joiners
laying floors

for a quiet home body
cleansed of clothes

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 20 August 1663.

Old Soul, New Life

Dave Bonta — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 19:13:37 +0000

~ after Kalehua Kim


you must have been born an old soul, they said

old soul, old woman wrapped in swaddling clothes?

i was old when i was born—born out of old quarrels

i didn't see— but i felt them, so i will say quarrels  

a quarrel's a trap from which you try to seek escape

you escaped to a new city, but your old soul followed

—perhaps there's no real escape, only cycles

you're part of the cycle, and so your daughters are, too

your daughters' souls, made of what's both old and new

take old and new, spin them like clay into each other on the wheel

old paths lead the old soul to thickets of inaction and despair

so dress the old soul in sparrows' wings, clear nights, new thoughts

get dressed, refuse the old garment that keeps taunting you

embrace again this new old life that isn't all tatters yet— hold

lightly what your old soul learned of this world—nakem, heart

Heat Haibun

Dave Bonta — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 01:09:10 +0000

Every weather map these days looks roughly colored in
with only red and orange crayons. In Korea, farmers dig 
up potatoes from a field and find them boiled to mush. 
Dogs pant, tongues raspy with thirst and sadness. Every 
mail box and railing is metallic with the smell of coins left 
too long in the sun. Clay pots and veranda tiles crack, 
asphalt softens into black puddles on the road. Cicadas 
crank up their desperate chorus in the trees, as though
their volume might ignite a breeze. They don't surrender,
though they shake off their jackets.

Is there a lesson?
Is it about lightness, or
what the heart can bear?

Disordered

Dave Bonta — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 19:16:23 +0000

Up betimes, and my wife up and about the house, Susan beginning to have her drunken tricks, and put us in mind of her old faults and folly and distractednesse, which we had forgot, so that I became mightily troubled with her. This morning came my joyners to new lay the floors, and begun with the dining room.
I out and see my viall again, and it is very well, and to Mr. Hollyard, and took some pills of him and a note under his hand to drink wine with my beere, without which I was obliged, by my private vowe, to drink none a good while, and have strictly observed it, and by my drinking of small beere and not eating, I am so mightily troubled with wind, that I know not what to do almost.
Thence to White Hall, and there met Mr. Moore, and fell a-talking about my Lord’s folly at Chelsey, and it was our discourse by water to London and to the great coffee house against the Exchange, where we sat a good while talking; and I find that my lord is wholly given up to this wench, who it seems has been reputed a common strumpett. I have little encouragement from Mr. Moore to meddle with it to tell my Lord, for fear it may do him no good, but me hurt.
Thence homewards, taking leave of him, and met Tom Marsh, my old acquaintance at Westminster, who talks mightily of the honour of his place, being Clerke Assistant to the Clerke of the House of Commons, and I take him to be a coxcombe, and so did give him half a pint of wine, but drink none myself, and so got shut of him. So home, and there found my wife almost mad with Susan’s tricks, so as she is forced to let her go and leave the house all in dirt and the clothes all wet, and gets Goody Taylour to do the business for her till another comes. Here came Will Howe, and he and I alone in my chamber talking of my Lord, who drives me out of love to my Lord to tell my Lord of the matter we discoursed of, which tend so much to the ruin of his state, and so I resolved to take a good heart and do whatever comes of it. He gone, we sat down and eat a bit of dinner fetched from the cooke’s, and so up again and to my joyners, who will make my floors very handsome. By and by comes in Pembleton, which begun to make me sweat, but I did give him so little countenance, and declared at one word against dancing any more, and bid him a short (God be with you) myself, and so he took as short a leave of my wife and so went away, and I think without any time of receiving any great satisfaction from my wife or invitation to come again.
To my office till it was dark doing business, and so home by candle light to make up my accounts for my Lord and Mr. Moore. By and by comes Mr. Moore to me, and staid a good while with me making up his accounts and mine, and we did not come to any end therein for want of his papers, and so put it off to another time.
He supped with me in all my dirt and disorder, and so went away and we to bed.
I discoursed with him a great while about my speaking to my Lord of his business, and I apprehend from him that it is likely to prove perhaps of bad effect to me and no good to him, and therefore I shall even let it alone and let God do his will, at least till my Lord is in the country, and then we shall see whether he resolves to come to Chelsey again or no, and so order the stopping of him therein if we can.

distractedness became
my new floor

I took pills
troubled as a trumpet

it hurt to give
myself to the dirt

alone in my love
of ruin

dancing away by candlelight
all my disorder

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 19 August 1663.