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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Friday, April 13, 2018

The mechanisms are intricate


April 13, 1973  (I was 28)

The mechanisms are intricate
The token rolls down the slot
trips a wire, lights
flash bells ring
counters whirs and reset 0000.
A dumbwaiter’s arm raises the tray;
the steel ball is delivered to the runway,
little planet orbited by cosmic plunger
then flung by apparatus into chance direction.
(These random rebounds are the amusement;
the fall is inevitable.)
Those beyond the glass have created a means
to fragment their control
as to play at regaining power.
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