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.


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Tuesday, June 21, 2016

What are these strange gifts


from this week in June, 1972 (I was 27)

What are these strange gifts
that man leaves behind
as conspicuous as silver bullets?
Most are tickets to a Magic Show
which does not exist except it seems
in the memories of those who have been there.
Other times he leaves poems
which read like invitations to a Magic Show.
He has always just ridden out of town.
But for these we’d never remember he’d been here.
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