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!

Monday, November 13, 2017

A Composite


November 13, 2011, 2012, 2013 combined  (I was 66, 67, 68)

My country has become black or white
or silver in a colorless choice of cars
But for point of view red or blue
We chose a hue instead of the stars

There is continual allowance for everyone’s illusions
with particular tolerance for family at hand
There is understated hypocrisy         
in the understood subject
in the second person of an imperative statement
Live!

Only the living can write or say
how heroic the dead were to die
and if you want to say they were heroes
so say I

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