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, January 11, 2019

I almost never talk calmly


from this week in January, 2011  (I was 66)

I almost never talk calmly
as I do in writing
The momentary manifestation
where anything done
may be the last time
with that set of variables present
to be acted upon or interacted with
in verbal intensity is one tact
of particular effectiveness
in limited situations
Unfortunately sparingly
is not often the way it is applied
Still the opportunity
for brilliant spontaneity
words and rhetorical constructions
flowing from the necessity
to fill the momentary attentiveness
with a logical progression of thought
is irresistible

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