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, June 3, 2020

That man invented the clever light


from this week in June, 1977  (I was 37)

That man invented the clever light
because he could not hear the wires sizzle
The lady danced because she liked
clothing trailing in the wind she made
Tough guy wrote books with and about 
shrapnel in his crotch
Paintings are painted of horses and violins
because they taste good to him
The caveman heaves a rock
Ponderous duck with broken foot
swims circles in the pond
The significant scare themselves out of it
That man will light it 
That lady danced it in a breeze
That pug put it in prose
That horse has splinters in his teeth
That primitive retreats hungry to the rocks
to learn a new technique
Within the dark crevice something crackles
Over his head the first bulb goes on
without a sound and weak as it was
anything not dark was bright

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