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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Wednesday, August 9, 2017

I inch along at a pace I understand


August 9, 1970  (I was 25)

I inch along at a pace I understand
when a spring snaps and I land
somewhere I had not planned
And the sand slips beneath my feet
before I can greet the new air
or meet the inhabitants there
It’s hard to focus and I become afraid
when I can’t determine the locus
of my points  Still I would not yet trade
with he who has stiffened his joints
and become crass in his insistence
holding numb resistance to whacks on his ass

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