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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Sunday, March 11, 2018

Because I know where the highway goes


March 11, 2012  (I was 67)

Because I know where the highway goes
   (You said it doesn’t go your way)
I take the off roads the side roads
   the backroads the inroads
   skirting private property
   along the stream through the canyon
   the way the Pony Express would gallop
   where silent films were made
   at the little church in the vale
   up into the woods of Kilkare
   gang of Robin Hood’s still there
   …He now owns a stable of thoroughbreds
      he races in a seasonal tournament…
But I digress
   (I said I know where the highway goes)
   from the route up the trail to the path
   and rocky outcrop from which the single sound
   may be heard or imagined
   like a country club with no members
   like understandings with no miss
   like a muse that has no meant
   Expressed from the expressway
   turned from the turnpike through with the throughway
   avoiding the avenue of whatever whichway
   unfashionable on the boulevard
   to meander among melancholy reflections
   somewhere just off where the highway ends
   must be somewhere near your way

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