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, March 21, 2017

Good Friday Night


March 21, 2008  (I was 63)

         Good Friday Night
Late in the vigil the votive candles flicker
wicks float in liquid tallow
contained in cups of crimson glass
pulsing the sanguine light
like a hundred flaming sacred hearts
emanating at once the scent of the tomb
and the waxy cool of the white lily at sunrise
The empty tabernacle waits to consume
each dry wafer of flesh
offered by the absent congregation
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