WATERMARK

a poet’s notebook

Established 02004

illness

November 22, 2007

Solitude, The Bad Smell, & Trying to Feel Thankful

Solitude, from the odd neighbor [click for larger image] It’s Thanksgiving. I’m alone. It would be a day like any other, except it’s this day; this day to celebrate attachments, family, friends, community. Any other day, I am grateful for solitude; this wide emptiness I need for writing. Not all writers need this; some seem… Continue reading

Personal

bad smell, gratitude, illness, illustration, olfactory hallucination, solitude, Thanksgiving, the odd neighbor
November 10, 2007

Memory, NaNoWriMo, Illness…

Abide has been linked to by the CFIDS Association of America, and I am getting lots of new visitors. I feel I should offer you something of substance, but since I am doing both NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and, at Watermark, NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) I haven’t much energy to prepare a new,… Continue reading

Personal

“chronic fatigue”, CFIDS, CFS, fibromyalgia, illness, memory, NaBloPoMo, NaNoWriMo
October 22, 2007

Invalid

@ Wiktionary: invalid [adjective] not valid; not true, correct, acceptable or appropriate invalid (plural invalids) [noun] One who is confined to home or bed due to illness, disability or injury Any person with disability, e.g. invalid carriage Usage notes The sense of a person confined to home or bed is considered politically incorrect by some.… Continue reading

Personal

CFIDS, CFS, disability, FMS, illness, M.E.
February 5, 2006

The Artist’s Way ~ Week 4: Recovering a Sense of Integrity

NO-READING week is over as of 10:00 pm tonight. And I will be glad to have it behind me. I learned that not-reading does not, for me, free up vast amounts of energy, though it does free up time — that commodity others covet, and of which I have plenty. I wrote a bit more.… Continue reading

The Artist’s Way

Art, disability, illness, shame, The Artist’s Way
July 25, 2004

To a Worried Friend

You say I am no longer myself. Who have I become? I stumble on fallen leaves. My soul follows yellow into autumn. Who is still here watching this quiet river? Continue reading

Poems

illness, poem, poetry

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.

illness

Solitude, The Bad Smell, & Trying to Feel Thankful

Memory, NaNoWriMo, Illness…

Invalid

The Artist’s Way ~ Week 4: Recovering a Sense of Integrity

To a Worried Friend