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!

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Where Our Taxes Take Us


April 15, 2007  (I was 62)

      Where Our Taxes Take Us
Somewhere April is the bitch of months
new snow whines to ice underfoot
sloppy spring stays coyly undercover
I have lived there and chose to leave
Now tax day
the sidewalks of Pleasanton fill with flowers
lavender blown from fragrant trees
I am royalty strolling the royal path
in the vernal warmth of prosperity

In the green zone of Baghdad
a roadside bomb blossoms
calyx of concussive smoke
odor of purple flesh scattered
over the stones in deranged disorder
across a path none would choose to walk
where one could bless a land frozen pure
and never comprehend a path of petals
in a town where blossoms stain the gutters
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