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 19, 2017

Thinking About Snow


September 19, 1974  (I was 29)

Thinking About Snow After Listening to
John Chancellor Talk About Drug Research

little flakes
damn dissolving crystals
millions becoming liquid
brain fuses melting with every breath
Blizzard Blizzard lost in the z’s
ozone snow twenty below
channel thirteen all day long
cloud breath
Jack London on snowshoes
Conrad Aiken blowing about the corners
frozen lungs
son of snow
patron saint of slippery streets
sleet’s elite one
profound drifts
alive in an igloo

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