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.


Comments Welcome!

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

I had an agnostic friend


April 26, 2008  (I was 63)

I had an agnostic friend
When we were together he spoke incessantly
It was as if it was all he knew what to do
We went on a long drive
He’d say Snow on the mountains
when anyone in the car could see the snow
Shredded tires all over the highway
Contrails crisscrossing the sky
must be Air Force maneuvers
Gas cheaper in Carolina than California
Third dead dog in the last ten miles
wonder if they got hit or just jumped out of trucks
Damn potholes are three feet across
whole infrastructure is going to hell
Saw this thing on PBS said within ten years
we’d be able to paint solar panels on almost anything
They’re putting silicon cells in the paint
and algae is gonna end up the best source for ethanol
because it reproduces so fast and can be harvested
from pond scum
I said why don’t you just be quiet  He looked at me and said 
And that won’t bother you the silence
No I said  Thank God he said
and he has never spoken to me again
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