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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Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Two Men


June 4,1974  (I was 29)

Two Men
cellmates, each accepted a bilateral orchid-
ectomy rather than life in prison together.
Both guilty of deflowering the young,
the judge accepted their own suggestion;
It’s this operation or the ultimate removal,
we’ll stick these oddballs in concrete sacs.
One prisoner did not speak, one spoke:
It’s like what they did in ancient times,
you know, if a man steals, you chop his hand off.
It’s just like that, he said.
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