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, January 27, 2017

By now I have seen many


January27, 2013  (I was 68)

By now I have seen many
that wore their honors out
runners whom renown outran
They newspaper the past
of many an older man
When I first read of Houseman’s dead
I inscribed my volume in dedication
to the demise of that year’s youth
nodding my head to A.E.’s truth
After fifty years it seems not smart to slip away
much smarter not to play
Athletic scandal is a national pastime
Better it is to own the Grecian urn
depicting the laurels Ernie earned
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