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!

Friday, May 25, 2018

Radio Free China


May 25, 1973  (I was 28)

            Radio Free China
The radio is on to a Chinese station
I am listening to cadences separated from sense
It would not be possible with most European languages
but I can’t even say hello in Chinese
The music sounds like a wall hanging
serene Asian women with sticks in their hair
Between the instruments an announcer sells me
something important something sincere something helpful
More music and a drama is introduced
then interrupted by Robert Goulet singing in Chinese
Finally the announcer is back
and so is that delicate music
and the importance of tea and contemplation
of an ignorance from twenty years of silence

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