I don’t write in a journal everyday, but I have accumulated many entries over the past 50+ years beginning in 1966. Some items evolved into longer works. Among the leftovers little pieces survived. I thought a collection of these with a piece culled from the same date in a past year would make an interesting yearbook. The consistencies and inconsistencies of mind, skipping back and forth across time, provide varied perspectives. It is difficult to remember the context of the past we’ve lived; we also make suppositions about times that predate ourselves.

The few alterations from original drafts were to improve clarity. The worst of my work is not included. There remains enough mediocrity and immaturity to make me feel humble and you feel smart. There are also moments of accidental insight and incidental humor.

Author Stephen Crane referred to his little pieces as pills…apparently they were small and somewhat hard to swallow, but good for you.


Comments Welcome!

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Metaphorical Weapon


June 15, 2013 (I was 68)


           Metaphorical Weapon
My grey T-shirt pictures a stand-up Royal
typewriter with the inscription “Blunt Object”
It’s from the Newseum in Washington D.C.
On the paths of the sports park
I get blunt stares, eyes turning askance,
puzzling grimaces I guess of exasperation
Many at their phones miss it
Someone my age passes
eyes not good enough to read it
It would have been funny as hell in 1968
and if Nixon had seen it in ‘73
he would have said, “No shit.”

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