WATERMARK

a poet’s notebook

Established 02004

grief

August 27, 2026

Keep Choosing

Three of my closest friends died in the past few years. My brother and my best friend years before. Others have been lost to other causes, some still mysterious. I knew this happens with age. I could say I expected it. But I didn’t. Continue reading

Aging, Digital Collage, Friends & Family, grief

aging, grief, loss

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.

grief

Keep Choosing