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, February 8, 2018

This is the Night


February 8, 1991  (I was 46)

            This is the Night
This is the night long into the drought winter
I knew would give truth to summer’s lie
Goodness continues in a life too possessed to love it
It is the goodness of an un-chosen regimen
the discipline we have sold for the use of others
(however noble that use may be)
This is the night of cold fog and no moon
a dark draining of the California earth
in another year the sky refused to give the blood back
in another war of screaming allegiance and holy alliance
This is the night without evocative fragrance in the air
nor peaceful surf breaking its long warm heartbeat
beneath our bed in the moonlight of a summer
made eternal because we knew it would end
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