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, September 5, 2017

Musical notations while changing stations


September 5, 2010  (I was 65)

Musical notations while changing stations

sidewalk stoop in the morning
the street belongs to the ambitious
and those who slept sober last night

George Benson’s guitar gives a speech
on the most noted notes among notables
he carries on upon this theme
in lengthy rhetorical soliloquy

bouncy rhythms of Cuba
too hot too steamy too peripheral
a heartbeat no more than elemental
salsa without rice does not nourish

drifters come out from under the boardwalk
wearing three part harmony and strings
down by the sea

oh come on a fantasy picnic
and I will pipe for you
a little woodsy Pan piece

music of the early 50’s swings
guys and gals of the WWII generation
were kids during the Great Depression
younger brothers and sisters rock
and kidnap their nieces and nephews

movie violins create versatile ambience
romantic intrigue and sinister lurkings
tense the nerves to twitch which way
the director intends to send the audience

just like he did last summer
Chubby twists inhibitions
out of every white kid on the floor

stop in the name of love
as if you’re at a stop light
cruising and wishing the tune would change

on this exasperating evening when
familial complications left us distraught
I’m afraid Schubert seems a bit full of platitude
  
symphonies are movies for the blind
so that they too can see
some of the shit we put up with
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