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!

Saturday, September 2, 2017

iron mind


September 2, 2006  (I was 61)

        iron mind
The empty cars come round the bend
The engine passed here long ago
and the train moves so slow
we convey raw ore as she goes
It pounds the metal and rocks the cradle
sends up a halo of bloody dust
Off it goes to where heaven knows
its tailwind blows our hair to rust
Iron from the ore is the final score
and the miner tallies next to zero
His kid keeps hid the jobs his daddy did
thinks his football coach is a hero
Miner to refiner and iron to steel
heat from the furnace a part of the deal
names are lost before the product is sold
Steel usage is cold  Don’t tell me
how or from whom it came to be
just give me its logical functionality
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