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 14, 2017

More Postcards from Hell


from this week in March, 2014  (I was 69)

More Postcards from Hell
Of course there is respite
The deepest agony requires contrast

Up there you got pals
Down here you got mals

No flint no matches no butane lighters
no Irish sermons
Our brimstone is ever aflame

They like to say there is no hope here
but they cannot dispel the obvious
If there is a just god there is always hope

Graffitti tends to the positive
Message charred to a chimney:
There are no lackeys here

Up there seven deadly sins, here:
         sloth?  can’t be lazy with nothing to do
pride?  not even in jest
         lust?  needs a hunger
         anger?  requires someone to blame
         gluttony?  you can only eat so much shit
         covetousness?  if you want what I got take it
         envy?  and you can keep whatever you are

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