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, April 28, 2020

In an evolutionary manner


April 28, 2010  (I was 65)

In an evolutionary manner
something misplaced becomes lost

like a favorite bowl for cereal
   or a pocket magnifying glass
      a sweater worn every winter
         an important poem friend
the perfect size and curved to serve the spoon
   precision crafted life enlarger
      warm wrap of retention
         layered revelations a shared complexity

What at first is simply not at hand

a disengagement from routine encounters
   adjusted agenda, procedural shift
      a temporary displacement
         officially missing as soon as questions are asked

Inquiry into the habitual haunts
turns up nothing

      empty washers and crowded cabinets
   whatever it is shrunk out of sight
powdered to ceramic dust
     frayed to wind-born lint
         forgotten words of forgotten promises     
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