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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Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Rome and Florence


January 31, 1999  (I was 54)

Rome and Florence
tourist stuffed and lined with street vendors
seem to be stifled by their own antiquity
Past greatness is their main business
There is a pervasive awareness
the cities will never be great
as they once were
Ancient glory is the stock in trade
And the exchange for the daily hard sell
earns dollars, yen, francs, marks and pounds
The art and architecture are rented to foreigners
The demand is great
Much modern time is spent for minute moments
in remnant ruins preserved in snapshots
mounted in personal albums
and stored on shelves in homes around the world
Traditional homage and tribute paid and recorded
testimonials of pilgrimage purchased
reproductions of relics
both pagan and Christian
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