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, January 4, 2019

Both Sides Now


from this week of January, 2009  (I was 64)

            Both Sides Now
The tolerant temperature range is shrinking
within the cranial cavity
Left brain runs a little hot
would burn out the cells of the robot
Right brain operates blue and cool
would sit in one room and close the school
Once a symmetry kept a temperate balance
an idea would ride the wave
remain intact fore and aft
Now the decks are frozen
and the boiler is like to blow
The robot pushes levers and turns the screw
The guru dreams of tropical things to do
The circuit train is shortened
the animals have deserted
flaming dreams and frozen schemes
burning giraffe with sizzling tears
lone penguin sad as Peter Lorre on an ice floe
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