WATERMARK

a poet’s notebook

Established 02004

illness

April 5, 2004

I Turn In This Season Toward Winter

Heavy as stone, I am falling. Illness rises around me, a cold, lethargic sea. I am sealed from autumn. All the warm colors slide past my faded skin. Geese follow the call of the sky, the lanterns of stars. Their own white bodies carry them home. Maples are clouded in halos of gold. They hold… Continue reading

Poems

autumn, illness, poem, poetry, winter
March 10, 2004

Fibromyalgia

I’ve become the princess I disdained as a child. I’ll prove my royal blood. Put twenty mattresses between me and that pea. My bones will feel its sharp, hard curve, here, at the small of my back. I am only sick, I am not dying, no faster than I was before. I want to stretch… Continue reading

Poems

fibromyalgia, illness, poem, poetry
February 26, 2004

Vertical

A large bird flies over the skylight. Friend Abigail sees a flash of light; I see the wings’ dark shadow. On reading my Solstice Letter, Abigail observes that most people live their (busy) lives "horizontally", along the surface; but I live "vertically"; that I have the time and space this requires. Time. Space. The gifts… Continue reading

Noticed

illness, meditation, reflection

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

I Turn In This Season Toward Winter

Fibromyalgia

Vertical