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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Monday, March 6, 2017

That classic sidestep by the matador


from this week in March, 1976  (I was 31)

That classic sidestep by the matador
that en passant of the bull ring
what’s that called?
It’s the basic deception
the stare over the cape
then the move upon the toes
looking right and going left
What is this, longing for Hemingway
or for  Death in the Afternoon?
No it’s for that clean break
befuddlement of the opposition
without a blinking compromise
The arrogant and the dumbfounded
together on the floor of the arena

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