"I don't know how to make poems.  I don't consider myself a poet and I don't particularly locate poetry in poems, nor am I the first to say it.  Poetry - as transport, invention or music - is always an imponderable that can be found in any genre, a sudden widening of the world... [It] is a gift of nature, a grace, not a piece of labor.  The very ambition to make a poem is enough to kill it. "   - Henri Michaux   
   

     These pages are a series of interconnected poems that I have written over the past four years, and they represent a journey.  

     I've never kept any kind of journal or diary.  There is no concrete record of the major events in my life.  Instead, I write poetry.  Some of these I like.  Others I don't.  They all reflect a period of time, or a major event, a person, a feeling, something that captured a moment for me.  Everything from the abstract to the bluntly direct.  A scrapbook of words...  

     Many of these are about my battle against clinical depression.  I am doing well right now, thank you for asking. <g>  Please don't send me the name of your psychiatrist. :)  

Disclaimers and various bits of influence -   

page 1 - the poem in the parenthesis (and into the hollow waves...) is from Marina Tsvetayeva's beautiful "Poem of the End"  
              - "china white" is a reference to a lyric from a Tori Amos song, and also a vague allusion to drug addiction.  

page 2 - "i can't go / you said so" is another Tori lyric (I *do* listen to more than just Tori, I promise)   
             - "it will end no other way" is a line from "Pushit" by Tool - a veritable lyric epic.  Anyone who knows the song will understand the reference to a damaging (and potentially fatal) relationship.  

page 3 - "Walk between dark and dark..." is a bit of poetry from Robert Graves.  I really like Robert Graves.   
             - "hyacinth quiet" is a phrase from the Georg Trakl poem "Revelation and Decline," which you can find copied on my verses page.  

page 4 - "and hour ago..." and "the strangeness of before and after" are both lines from AS Byatt's "Possession" (page 516, if anyone's really interested).  

page 5 - "I'll make weapons out of my imperfections" is a Tool quote out of the "Undertow" linear notes.  
             - "breathe keep breathing" is a Radiohead lyric from "Exit Music for a Film."  You'd have to listen to the song to understand how it's relevant.  (Or maybe it's only relevant in my mind?)  

page 6 - is "hidden" because of how ancient those poems seem.  They were written during the full bloom of my naiveté (AKA high school) and are included to illustrate evolution.  
             - "The Burned House" is stolen from Margaret Atwood's collection of poetry "Morning in the Burned House."  

...and everything else is mine <bg>  

oh, and poems with an * (if you didn't get this already) are personal favorites, for one reason or another, or - to be more specific - poems that I actually like.  I have a like/hate relationship with most of what I write.  

     please don't ask what compelled me to put this together.  I really don't know.  I like the internet as a medium because it enables the merging of poetry with a visual aspect in a unique way, creating a completely new kind of presentation.    

     I would be thrilled to answer any comments or questions you might have at - promise64@hotmail.com