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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Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Addressing Abe Lincoln in 1975


February 12, 1975  (I was 30)

Addressing Abe Lincoln in 1975
Abe Lincoln
tall father in the stone chair
America’s comforting conscience
these hundred years
nothing left of you is merely real
We have come to understand your solitude
we have grieved
we have become war weary
we have lost faith
the captain a lost shadow in the man
We sit before the new world stage
with vague memories of other theaters
other characters other meanings
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