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!

Thursday, November 30, 2017

induced sneeze


November 30, 2006  (I was 62)

         induced sneeze
When I have fallen flat at a wall
I was sure I could run through
in front of those who said Let’s see you try
I have retreated to a dim room
to taste alone the bitter humiliation
and savor it until it soured
Rolled it around my tongue until
acrid vapors mount nasal cavities
through eye sockets to cloud the brain
A few conscious breaths
and the hum of aum resonating
within Eustachian tubes and facial bones
triggers the sneeze reflex
to atomize every distasteful degradation
in that clarified instant
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