Via Negativa

Toll

Dave Bonta — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 00:08:45 +0000

Up, being well pleased with my new lodging and the convenience of having our mayds and none else about us, Will lying below. So to the office, and there we sat full of business all the morning. At noon I home to dinner, and then abroad to buy a bell to hang by our chamber door to call the mayds. Then to the office, and met Mr. Blackburne, who came to know the reason of his kinsman (my Will) his being observed by his friends of late to droop much. I told him my great displeasure against him and the reasons of it, to his great trouble yet satisfaction, for my care over him, and how every thing I said was for the good of the fellow, and he will take time to examine the fellow about all, and to desire my pleasure concerning him, which I told him was either that he should become a better servant or that we would not have him under my roof to be a trouble. He tells me in a few days he will come to me again and we shall agree what to do therein. I home and told my wife all, and am troubled to see that my servants and others should be the greatest trouble I have in the world, more than for myself. We then to set up our bell with a smith very well, and then I late at the office. So home to supper and to bed.

so full of business
the bell by our door

and who am I to droop
or care if another

should trouble the world
more than me

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 3 October 1663.

Multi

Dave Bonta — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 14:22:33 +0000

When did you become the one who rose early 
and went to bed late, the one who made the meals 
and negotiated other openings in the day so sheets 
could be changed and clean laundry folded? You 
went from one thing to the other while answering 
and composing email, scheduling conferences, 
marking papers, writing reviews, helping a child out 
of yet another predicament. And still the days never 
run out of tasks, never seem to stop asking for you 
to give: time, money, effort, sleep, though none 
of these things you do is original or heroic—only 
necessary.  You make a list on the side while out 
to dinner with a friend,  and she says I am not 
criticizing you. You do what you have to do.

Bellicose

Dave Bonta — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 12:36:01 +0000

Up betimes and by water to St. James’s, and there visited Mr. Coventry as a compliment after his new coming to town, but had no great talk with him, he being full of business. So back by foot through London, doing several errands, and at the ‘Change met with Mr. Cutler, and he and I to a coffee-house, and there discoursed, and he do assure me that there is great likelyhood of a war with Holland, but I hope we shall be in good condition before it comes to break out. I like his company, and will make much of his acquaintance.
So home to dinner with my wife, who is over head and eares in getting her house up, and so to the office, and with Mr. Lewes, late, upon some of the old victuallers’ accounts, and so home to supper and to bed, up to our red chamber, where we purpose always to lie. This day I received a letter from Mr. Barlow, with a Terella, which I had hoped he had sent me, but to my trouble I find it is to present from him to my Lord Sandwich, but I will make a little use of it first, and then give it him.

I try to talk with a rough
cut of the discourse

sure that there is war
before it comes

to break the old ways
to lie low

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 2 October 1663.

Stay

Dave Bonta — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 19:27:57 +0000

Early October:
they go behind the curtain
to administer death.
The universe has other plans.
Death returns the prisoner twice.

Bells split the evening,
and a sentence is split, too.
Who wants to come back
an unintended postscript,
a stone rolled back into place?

Vacation

Dave Bonta — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 13:10:48 +0000

Up and betimes to my office, and then to sit, where Sir G. Carteret, Sir W. Batten, Sir W. Pen, Sir J. Minnes, Mr. Coventry and myself, a fuller board than by the King’s progresse and the late pays and my absence has been a great while.
Sat late, and then home to dinner. After dinner I by water to Deptford about a little business, and so back again, buying a couple of good eeles by the way, and after writing by the post, home to see the painter at work, late, in my wife’s closet, and so to supper and to bed, having been very merry with the painter, late, while he was doing his work.
This day the King and Court returned from their progress.

time to sit myself
in the sand

my absence has been
great water for a little eel

my wife having
been very merry

while I work
in an urn

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 1 October 1663.

Unfeeling

Dave Bonta — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 22:30:15 +0000

Would you say animals
are lonely, or that a cloud
yearns for what it doesn't
understand?

Even a puddle left over
from last night's rain, drying
in the sun, holds what it can
of the sky.

Debtor

Dave Bonta — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 12:59:40 +0000

Rose very well, and my hearing pretty well again, and so to my office, by and by Mr. Holliard come, and at my house he searched my ear, and I hope all will be well, though I do not yet hear so well as I used to do with my right ear.
So to my office till noon, and then home to dinner, and in the afternoon by water to White Hall, to the Tangier Committee; where my Lord Tiviott about his accounts; which grieves me to see that his accounts being to be examined by us, there are none of the great men at the Board that in compliment will except against any thing in his accounts, and so none of the little persons dare do it: so the King is abused.
Thence home again by water with Sir W. Rider, and so to my office, and there I sat late making up my month’s accounts, and, blessed be God, do find myself 760l. creditor, notwithstanding that for clothes for myself and wife, and layings out on her closett, I have spent this month 47l.. So home, where I found our new cooke-mayde Elizabeth, whom my wife never saw at all, nor I but once at a distance before, but recommended well by Mr. Creed, and I hope will prove well. So to supper, prayers, and bed.
This evening Mr. Coventry is come to St. James’s, but I did not go see him, and tomorrow the King, Queen, Duke and his Lady, and the whole Court comes to towne from their progresse. Myself and family well, only my father sicke in the country.
All the common talke for newes is the Turke’s advance in Hungary, &c.

I hope I do not yet owe
my right ear

of no account
I am one little person

abused by a creditor
I never saw

at a distance prayers
become the only country

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday30 September 1663.

Old soldier

Dave Bonta — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 14:41:47 +0000

Took two pills more in the morning and they worked all day, and I kept the house. About noon dined, and then to carry several heavy things with my wife up and down stairs, in order to our going to lie above, and Will to come down to the Wardrobe, and that put me into a violent sweat, so I had a fire made, and then, being dry again, she and I to put up some paper pictures in the red chamber, where we go to lie very pretty, and the map of Paris. Then in the evening, towards night, it fell to thunder, lighten, and rain so violently that my house was all afloat, and I in all the rain up to the gutters, and there dabbled in the rain and wet half an hour, enough to have killed a man. That done downstairs to dry myself again, and by and by come Mr. Sympson to set up my wife’s chimney-piece in her closett, which pleases me, and so that being done, I to supper and to bed, shifting myself from top to toe, and doubtful of my doing myself hurt.

I work to carry several
heavy things
a lie the war

that fire-red
map in my gut
enough to have killed me

my wife in bed
shifting
doubtful

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 29 September 1663.

Not Just Suffering

Dave Bonta — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

It was a time whose fine details are blurred,
like landscape through a window streaked
with rain. The city I grew up in, mirage 

of lights and midnight arrivals, departures.
Who said to me once, You write so well
about suffering? That gave me

pause. And another time, I am so glad
I don't have to think of things like that. 
Trees bent by the long monsoon, 

unceasing eddies in the lake; mildew
collecting intentions on the bathroom
walls— Do these, too, speak of suffering? 

One afternoon we listened to music
composed on the spot, pulled as if silk
out of the air by numinous beings.

Years of training and practice
behind the sureness of the first key
touched, and then the next. Perhaps

this is how the agonies of choice 
and doubt can be haltered. There 
they are, where you've led and left

them in the meadow, quiet now
in the clover. They nuzzle the grass, 
the soil, each other. When you call 

to them, they come. It doesn't
matter if one limps, or if they've 
seen better days.

Prayer Against Approaching Zero

Dave Bonta — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

May the falling needle stop short of disaster, and the reaping 
just short of grim. May the curtains open again to let us know 
there is an encore or an interim. 

May the miracle of your blueprint system create a new 
defense against attacking cells, and the lesions on
your back transfigure into a blindingly empty field.

May the atoms of a pure and orderly crystal 
attempt (in theory) to reach precisely zero, but
may this state remain impossible to achieve.

May the many sums subtracted from my life-
time (work, years, tears, failure) build back
an edifice impossible to subdue.