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!

Sunday, May 31, 2020

Change


May 31, 1975  (I was 30)

         Change
Blink eyes turn pages switch books
Go through doors fall down
manholes climb ladders
get on vehicles
spin dizzy
do drugs
lie in white beds wrestle
get your teeth fixed grow a
garden record your pulse stretch
thigh muscles with daily calisthenics
Dream of your hometown
its streets snowy springs
driving automobiles out of another winter
Correspond with strangers whose functional
letters never let you forget how
they came to be written
Go on vacation
at home don’t vote whisper
sit on your jury and hear your case
Greet expediency embrace ambiguity
order a single scoop of vanilla
say not guilty and use your napkin
Mourn the athlete who had
no time to wear honor out  Run
his track spikes daily over his grave
and over those old folks lying around it
Avoid bullets and strong tea
sodium bicarbonate is the practical antidote
and abstention is a better remedy

Saturday, May 30, 2020

Anniversary of My Father’s Death


from this week in May, 1967  (I was 22)

Anniversary of My Father’s Death

If after my dissolution
Another life shall be,
I must confront my father
To see what part of him is me.

We both were young for death
So now we would renew
With mellowed eyes the expired years
In a consummate review.

But if (and more likely so)
The grave grants no volition,
I’ll lie cold and stiff and still
And rot in ancestral tradition.

Friday, May 29, 2020

The United States is falling apart


from this week in May, 2009  (I was 64)

The United States is falling apart
because I am falling apart
and I don’t think I’m going to get much better
I think about but do not sustain an effort
to regain physical fitness
I look at books that propose to redirect us
I don’t believe the matter is in the reader’s hands
Relationships are cold chipped and cracked
held together by homeostasis and habit
Like my country I don’t do much good
without expectation of better in return
Like me the country doesn’t travel well
We take way too much of our stuff with us
whenever we go someplace else
No place much better off for my being there
I’m inept at home repair
Hire someone who needs a job
later someone who can actually do it
Spend way too much money on stuff
we promise we will never use
Keep it in deep basements across the country
that cost more to maintain
than all the homes in my hometown
Officially we call it homeland security
I call it fear  Bill collectors at the door

Thursday, May 28, 2020

Fatigue ought to be a reward


May 28, 1998  (I was 53)
 
Fatigue ought to be a reward, a gift
a welcoming offer of respite
when productive work is done.
It ought to be a surrender
soft as diminishing light
when the sun settles on the horizon,
acceptance of accomplishment
and promise of replenishment,
ache of muscles worked
toward more fine-tuned conditioning.
It ought to possess the mind
the way an artful poem settles
its sound and rhythm into wisdom.

It must then be a different weariness
I fight against to prolong the day,
unearned and unaccomplished
to feel so hollow and smell so dank;
my pores function differently.
I never felt this greasy
nor smelled so sulfurous.
If heaven is sought within
so must hell exude from same;
if I ask salvation
I ask in my own name.

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Practice writing exercise #4a.


from this week in May, 1985  (I was 40)

Practice writing exercise #4a. 30 min.
from John Gardner, The Art of Fiction
         Nine o’clock and not even the borrowed hour of
daylight saving time could hold the day.  These were
her own hands looking knobby on the back posts of the
oak rocker.  It swung easy now, it swung light.  Beyond
the chair and the porch the oaks reached one by one
across the field to the dry hills.  The peaks had obscured
the sun an hour ago. The shadows had taken all the
reflective colors.  The purple remains of leaves and
branches played as optical illusion with dark sky.
Branch became sky and sky became branch.   
         She broke the spell by shifting her head, and she
sat in the chair and rocked.  Beneath the roof line the
breeze brought the cool scents of the forest.  Old smells,
moss, rotting bark on enduring trunk.  She watched the
trees fade into hills already indistinguishable from sky.
She listened to the crickets and timed her slight rock in
tune.  The wooden arc on the wood floor chirping and
pleasing, not so heavy as to mar the grain. 

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Do you own an intellectual domain


from this week in May, 2013  (I was 68)

Do you own an intellectual domain
Actual real estate has become so expensive
Used to be foreigners were the only ones
who couldn’t afford to buy
Now they are the only ones who can
They bid over the asking and pay cash
We the country sell not only the land
we sell the faith in the dream we promised
our own children  We fight absurd wars
of big dog belligerence
then fear every bark and yap we hear
Nothing sets the teeth on edge like fear
Diplomacy takes so much time
We can bomb tomorrow
Actually both are daily behaviors decided upon
with the false reasoning of preconceived notions

Monday, May 25, 2020

Radio Free China


May 25, 1973  (I was 28)

         Radio Free China
The radio is on to a Chinese station
I am listening to cadences separated from sense
It would not be possible with most European languages
but I can’t even say hello in Chinese
The music sounds like a wall hanging
serene Asian women with sticks in their hair
Between the instruments an announcer sells me
something important something sincere something helpful
More music and a drama is introduced
then interrupted by Robert Goulet singing in Chinese
Finally the announcer is back
and so is that delicate music
and the importance of tea and contemplation
of an ignorance from twenty years of silence



Sunday, May 24, 2020

Underground Basketball


May 24, 1975  (I was 30)

         Underground Basketball
As the videotape of Abbie Hoffman’s putty nose
was readied at NET, the wild prairie fire
golden state warriors
taught new lessons in cadre effectiveness
in the nation’s capital.  Abbie would say they are
communists whether or not they admit it.
Violent revolution was probably necessary
(Washington’s bullets felled Celtic institutions)
but the warriors’ meditative defense left blank
stares in front of the humming tube;
Abbie dribbled off the courts without a shot.

Saturday, May 23, 2020

There it is Again


May 23, 1977  (I was 32)

         There it is Again
Parachutists think it as they step from the porch
Deep sea divers hear it crackling in their ears
Race drivers feel it run through the transmission
Dogs bark and cats walk circles around it

It is on you now and you are clearly not bewildered
An unembarrassed shiver and a smile of recognition
Suddenly quieter and more aware
I always watch whenever I can see it

How amusing always to realize there is nothing to do
But let it go release it or pass it on
Noticing my attention you turned to the west
and laid it upon the girl in the golden blouse

Friday, May 22, 2020

The tea bag squeezed


May 22, 2011  (I was 66)

The tea bag squeezed to keep it
from slopping in the saucer
bitters the taste of the brew
Instead throw the bag across the room
Better yet feed it to the stray dog
to teach the ill-mannered mutt
it is not invited to tea
Nor are others who own dogs
no matter where they’re kept at three

Thursday, May 21, 2020

I am not one to belong


from this week in May, 2012  (I was 67)

I am not one to belong to an organization
but I am not disorganized nor am I
anti-organization for the common good
commonly decided unionization
for instance to negotiate contracts
with financially advantaged
politically influential partisans
who call themselves management
without the mis- so often apparent

I want to flock with right wing pacifists
who know they can’t fly without a left wing
I play golf like a right-brain leftist
with a gang playing like left-brain rightists
and a guy named no-brain-Wayne
who hits the ball long and says fuck ‘em all
from well inside his flask by the fourth hole
And its okay by me nobody plays by the rules
I got my own game and guess they are the same

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

We are given to play with the light of day


May 20, 2019  (I was 74)

We are given to play with the light of day
given to fright at the dark of night
taken to mark the sound of the lark
bound by the pound of waves on rock
halted under the echoes from caves that talk
ponder what is meant in the lavender scent
chill in the taste of a scavenger for waste
We thrill at the touch of velvet on skin
Such is the sense of enchantment we’re in

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

I don’t tell stories well but would like to


from this week in May, 2007  (I was 62)

I don’t tell stories well but would like to
I either meander around the shrubbery
or blow the plot with immediate revelation
of anything relevant with nothing left to tell
I’m not keen enough observing details
of mechanical workings to teach the reader
the mechanism while showing how it works
Too impatient to know too eager to tell
And it takes me a long time to read
the life of another’s seamless fabrication
I inevitably ride some implication
right off the page in a reverie
that reveals the author’s genius
and forces me to pull the beast back on path

Monday, May 18, 2020

I’ve played in the realms of altered perceptions


From this week in May, 2017 (I was 72)

I’ve played in the realms of altered perceptions
most of the years of my life
crossing the seams of seems to escape
until I no longer need radical means
There are many internal avenues of departure
obvious and subtle and easily ignored
by our fascination with the exotic
when every room is a different library
and every scene a new environ to inhabit
In mechanical sense when the equipment differs
an altered product is produced
Minor movement changes point of view
Reaching an age where shadow monkeys shared
might raise suspicion of diminished capacities
rather than a vision of all that’s there

Sunday, May 17, 2020

I’m in the van in a thunderstorm


from this week in May, 2012  (I was 67)

I’m in the van in a thunderstorm
At Leopard’s Chase Golf Course
A woman in black spandex trimmed in red
walks toward the cart barn with a purpose
A young man in a red polo shirt meets her
She has a glove on her left hand
After an exchange of words and gestures
they get into a cart together and ride
back toward me on the cart path
I hear her say as they pass
“My whole life is in that cell phone.”
He says, “Here’s what we do when this happens,”
They splash up the cart path from green to tee
It reminds me of a time I never did find
the keys to the rental van
I was more frantic than she
even though my whole life was not involved
and the sky was not pitching rain

Saturday, May 16, 2020

The false pride of one who buys a house


from this week in May 2015 (I was 70)

The false pride of one who buys a house
after familial generations lived in huts
to live now among the estates others were born to
It is a failure to recognize the nature of humility and station
Wild plants grow only as tall as the windbreak
and as strong as the seed from which they sprout
Often the migrant in flight from one desperation
must learn to survive in another unaware
of new masters who never show themselves
behind the brand names they’ve invented
We are ever left appreciating pebbles among the gems
seeing through a magnifying glass while hearing
of the wonders found by those with telescopes
It’s the pretense of accomplishment by one
among those who own the accomplishments of many

Friday, May 15, 2020

Beginning the Overwhelming


 May 15, 2013  (I was 68)

   Beginning the Overwhelming
Some images are iconic
portrayed in literary and dramatic arts
jumping on a moving carousel
speeding at you and flying away
catching a moving train
leaping from a horse to a stagecoach
or onto its galloping team
stepping out the door in a driving storm
making the momentous phone call
the first step on the green mile
the setting of life against powerful oppression
The gut-wrenching undertaking
always hinges on catching the momentum
a confident turn and grab-jump
doing an Einstein relatively speaking
gaining a foothold on the thought system
and a stomach for the motion

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Emily said there interposed a fly


from this week in May, 1998  (I was 74)

Emily said there interposed a fly
between her and the light
at a most inappropriate but perfectly ironic time
as if to let anyone who noticed know
the inconsequential accompanies the substantial
and only perception regards a difference
The fly detained by the glassy pane
cares less for the light than the freedom of flight
in the world beyond the bright barrier
awaiting the slightest opening to slip through
as did she to record the passage
foretold before the occurrence

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Playing Guns ca. 1953


May 13, 1976  (I was 31)

   Playing Guns ca. 1953
Pretend this area is the swamp
you can’t go through here
or you’ll sink in quicksand and die
You hafta go around this part past those trees
or over those rocks the mountains over there
No using binoculars they are illegal weapons
When you shoot someone you gotta say their name
not just bam bam bam but bam bam bam and their name
otherwise they’re not dead
and you gotta shoot loud unless you say before
you got a silencer on your gun
And then you can only use it for close kills
and when you’re dead shut up
No telling where anyone is
or pointing at ‘em with your gun either
Taking prisoners is dumb
there’s never anything to do with them
So shoot to kill  Okay you guys hide first

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

I’m teaching again


from this week in May, 1998  (I was 53)

I’m teaching again
the little I know
about a few good poems
with enough disrespect
to get students to believe
they can do it themselves
and with enough love
to make them want to try

Monday, May 11, 2020

Nowadays I sit to write


May 11, 1998  (I was 53)

Nowadays I sit to write
with whatever purpose for initial motivation
knowing that it is only a game
to get me in proximity to paper
with a pen in hand
and that whatever will be written
has little to do with any thought
preceding the writing
It is a comfortable talent
something akin to navigation
by the seat of the pants
an aptly cynical metaphor
for an activity whose source
is conventionally considered to be
anchored in intellect