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, December 5, 2019

Don’t call me Ishmael


December 5, 2018  (I was 74)

Don’t call me Ishmael
I never wanted to be on a whaling ship
Imagine Ahab as jailer on a floating prison
Less perilous journeys in other stories
Ahab and Odysseus there’s a pair
used their crews as fuel
defying inscrutable laws of gods
looming on the horizon
threatening islands and leviathans
My wanderings are on particular paths
my diurnal roaming in familiar hills and forest 
Creatures I encounter keep a predatory distance
respecting the scent of territorial marking 
Call me Vagabond
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