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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Friday, August 5, 2016

Halemaumau smokes blue sky


August 5, 2009  (I was 64)

Halemaumau smokes blue sky
Vog rides kamakane to Kona
Due to erupting renovations
the trail across the big crust is closed
so we trek the black skin of Kilauea Iki
which close up casts luminous hues
from dark crystal pores
We straddle fuming fissures of glass                 
walk on petrified bubbles within the cauldron
over explosive trapped gas we know could blow
us up five-hundred feet into the rain forest
from which we so scenically descended
Though this day Pele does not pummel us
she leaves a distinct impression
any day anywhere primal power
is just below a fragile surface
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