WATERMARK

a poet’s notebook

Established 02004

reality-based

October 26, 2004

A False Reality

A couple of weeks ago, I tried to imagine myself (unsuccessfully) into the mind of a Bush voter. I realize that someone who holds to the religious belief that abortion is murder is unlikely to vote for a pro-choice candidate. I also realize (though not without difficulty) that there is some evangelical portion of the… Continue reading

Current Affairs, Politics

Bush, Kerry, Politics, reality-based
October 16, 2004

Reason & Religion

A must-read article, via Echidne of the Snakes: Without a Doubt By Ron Suskind, in The New York Times. It’s long, it’s complex, it requires registration, it’s worth it. For me, this is the most frightening paragraph: The aide [an unnamed "senior adviser to Bush"] said that guys like me were ”in what we call… Continue reading

Current Affairs, Politics

reality-based

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.

reality-based

A False Reality

Reason & Religion