WATERMARK

a poet’s notebook

Established 02004

February 2004

February 16, 2004

Dreams

My brother is always dying. My mother walks with me through endless halls in enormous houses. My mouth is full of broken glass. Someone has killed the bird in the book. My teeth fall out in splinters, in shards. Feathers fly up from the page. My brother is still dying. My grand- mother’s house is… Continue reading

Poems

dream, poem, poetry
February 15, 2004

small poem

awakened by freight train whistle the full moon Continue reading

small poems

haiku, poem, poetry, small poems, train, watermark
February 15, 2004

Death Is Not A Lover

She is not full-bodied, soft- breasted, no, she is not for love. Death is not calling you. She looks away. You chase what does not belong to you. Her legs are closed. Death does not surrender. She will not embrace you. She will let you fall. Continue reading

Poems

death, poem, poetry
February 9, 2004

snow

the shadow of snow on snow Continue reading

small poems

haiku, poem, poetry, small poems, snow, watermark
February 4, 2004

Secrets – poem in revision

Secrets Listen. I will tell you everything. The weather is turning. Soon it will be time to unroll the Persian rugs and lay them on the polished floors. I will hold nothing back. I am brittle, like glass; like leaves of a tree too long without water; a cocoon, untenanted, exposed to the sun. This… Continue reading

Poems

poem, poetry, secrets, watermark

Ancestral (Artificial )Intelligence

I do not use AI to write. For me, writing is how I think, and I prefer to do it myself. If/when I post anything here that I suspect or know to be AI generated, I will tell you.

I have changed this from Artificial to Ancestral, after Abi Awomosu @ Substack. This medium was made with human history, human thought. All of it, bright and dark. It is ancestral.

Poems

Please do not assume that I am the speaker/ subject of my poems.

In these times of creative nonfiction and fictionalized memoirs, I think of the poem itself as true fiction: it is most likely not factual, but it must be true.

It is likely to be — it is best if it is — a truth I did not know before I wrote, and may not understand even then.

A poem is my way of discovering (dis-covering) what I feel; sometimes, what I think — but it is not necessarily biographical.

February 2004

Dreams

small poem

Death Is Not A Lover

snow

Secrets – poem in revision