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, December 20, 2016

Heroes write in second person


December 20, 2010  (I was 65)

Heroes write in second person
so you can imagine you are they
and they can imagine they are humble

It also allows a little fudge on the truth
If there’s a bit of hyperbole here
and some ameliorating there

it was you who thought it
and you going through this who did it
I wrote it exactly as you said

it’s up to you to decide
whether it’s undeclared biography
or personification of the fictive truth
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