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, August 17, 2018

Out of the house before anyone knew


August 17, 2015  (I was 70)

Out of the house before anyone knew
across the park behind the band shell
at the village hall library read a mag
around the school closed for summer
past the Catholic church under the water tower
Through a neighborhood where neither of us lived
I saw the ghost in the trestle underpass
looking for me as he waited there
to walk beside along the tracks
The few who knew him didn’t see me
The few I knew did not see him
We walked past twilight in solitary accord
eager and content in the presence of silence
shared a language of few words
and other sounds drowned in darkness
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