WATERMARK

a poet’s notebook

Established 02004

friendship

July 30, 2004

Friendship

Some of you will have noticed a lack of substantive content here for the last week or so. I’ve had company, and now must recover from the subsequent (unregretted) fatigue. This visitor is a friend "from before" — before I was ill, the "I used to . . . " times: I used to be… Continue reading

Personal, Soul Food

friend, friendship
April 18, 2004

The Ledge

We sat talking in a cafe in Juneau, Alaska. The windows were dark with rain, black sky in the middle of the afternoon. You told me a story: a woman stumbles and falls into an abyss. She hangs, desperately clinging to a tree rooted in the cliffside. God! she cries, Help me! I’ll help… Continue reading

Poems, sonnet

Alaska, friendship, god, poem, poetry, sonnet

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.

friendship

Friendship

The Ledge