WATERMARK

a poet’s notebook

Established 02004

July 19, 2026

Snapshot Poem 19 July 02026

pale page w/images of The Cowardly Lion, a butterfly, and a drawing of an elderly woman. Text says "Old age ain't no place for sissie." Bette Davis — **COURAGE** | digital collage by sb. See flickr for complete credits.

     
     we grow old
     we shrink 
     we diminish 

     we roll up 
     the cuffs 
     of our pants 

     the stairs 
     dare us 

     we know what’s 
     behind that ridge 
     we know what’s 
     around that corner 

     we sit down 
     to tie up 
     our shoe laces 

     & still 
     & still 

     desire

Aging, Poems, Snapshot Poem

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.

Snapshot Poem 19 July 02026

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