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.


Comments Welcome!

Saturday, February 1, 2020

Rain Prayer


February 1, 1975  (I was 30)

Rain Prayer
The rain.
What will wash
away as I walk?
May it be
wind blown drapes
drafting the full room
in natural respiration.
Rain
batter my face
cleanse my vision
blur the daily illusions.
Rain strengthen
my cautious steps
on the running mud.
Put wisdom in my feet.
Rain be my wetskin
protection from the cold.
Be all the benevolent metaphors
attached to my sanity.
Rain
longer than ritual
beyond rebirth and baptism
yet short of retribution.
Let lightning be
fashioned upon my tongue.
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