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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Thursday, August 2, 2018

Silent Partner


from this week in August, 2008  (I was 63)

            Silent Partner
His presence is his participation
his email address is anonymous
He knows his opinions
would elicit embarrassed silence
That man tries to think of what to say
then not say it
measures that a small victory
a privilege not doing       
Keeps his irons out of any fire
he did not start
Sitting among those conversing
he can contemplate a coffee cup
on a table across the room
His consciousness refers to him
in the third person and last night
he dreamed he was too slow
to outrun a steamroller
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