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 26, 2020

lodger


February 26, 2006  (I was 61)

                  lodger
Resentment lives in the basement
sweats in his sleep next to the water heater
Along the angled shadow of wall and floor
he slinks like a rodent with a naked tail
sits under a dim bulb
His trailing vestige writhing in shadow
Any accomplishment by those he knows
is another by which he’ll never be known
His moustache twitches over smiling lips
baring little teeth clicking audibly
as if he were nibbling a morsel
he’ll never swallow

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