WATERMARK

a poet’s notebook

Established 02004

death

August 2, 2026

Caturday, in memory of Sue Pinkerton

My cousin Sue died last month. We were children together, a shared becoming. Her death is a shock to me, even though we both approach the reasonable time. Continue reading

Aging, Cats, Caturday, Digital Collage, Family, Memory, Personal, Photograph

cat, death, loss
May 30, 2011

Calling the Ghost (an old poem)

How long must I sit on your grave to elicit a visitation? Must I fast? Must I meditate on the vastness of the universe of death? Must I count my own? Must I arrive at midnight to pull your ashes back to some semblance of you? If I wake, if I sleep, will you… Continue reading

Poems

death, ghost, grave, grief
January 25, 2006

Snapshot 25 January 02006

MP3 File When I went to New York, to bring my brother home, he was well into the wasting of the disease. He looked like an animated corpse. He asked me to hold him, to share his bed — it had been so long since he’d been touched, held, by anyone. And so I did;… Continue reading

Audio Post, Snapshot Poems 2006

death, grief, life, poem, poetry, Snapshot Poem
August 6, 2005

One Small Life

How is it, that on this day, I am saddened at the loss of one small life. Continue reading

Noticed, Photos 2005

death, mouse, photograph
July 12, 2005

Another

I woke this morning to a note from Erin, that her beloved sister Wendy died this weekend while vacationing in Mexico. Wendy was thirty years old. Erin has written about this here. Life is seeming particularly cruel these past weeks; my small garden is not large enough to contain it, and far too small to… Continue reading

Photos 2005, Poets

death, Erin Noteboom, Wendy Ewell

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.

death

Caturday, in memory of Sue Pinkerton

Calling the Ghost (an old poem)

Snapshot 25 January 02006

One Small Life

Another