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a slow week: almost finished an opening series of verses regarding loss—the shock of loss—of change. Of course, my lines do not mention either element, the phrases isolate a dream-event from last November or December. The date is not relevant. With closure of part one, then the mind shifts over to part two: it is out of focus still. Even now, at this moment of typing. A blur on the horizon. While reading four poems by Sophie Cabot Black in the recent American Poetry Review I feel a commonality, a match burning—but the cat entered the room and distracted me, and the line skipped away, the thread between my self and the past was cut again—
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and then later: Unavoidable, an idea formed while driving on the highway after work—and then disappeared in the middle of a resulting traffic jam before I could commit it to memory. The more I try to reconstruct the formula of words the less phrases cohere. Patches remain. Unstitched fabrics.

On exits. The other leaving on a final exit. Ha left the building. But the runs into cliché, expectations, and pop-cultural references. Maybe twist the actuality into the verse? State the obvious.
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a strange sense of depression: It lowers over me recently. I keep examining the sensation wanting to shrug it off, but the emotion persists. Ironically, what is certain, I know it does not center around a recent rejection letter. The magazine’s note actually made my hour brighter, included an encouragement to submit more material and spoke about the time spent discussing the possibilities for publication. Notes like this confirm one’s struggle, offer a sense of recognition. So much more so than the standard formula-template-carbon copied letter too many journals use these days. But I ramble. Depression was the topic at hand and I do not know its source—as if I am wandering in a thick brown river in a leaky boat. Without apparent reason.