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, July 26, 2020

Do first time smokers still laugh

from this week in July, 2017 (I was 72)

                                

Do first time smokers still laugh

uncontrollably at the absurdity

the shock of recognizing

preposterous perceptions commonly held

in every philosophical aspect of life

the hypocrisies ethical lapses

need for absolutes and absolution

so suddenly revealed in shameless nakedness 

Back in the day that initial burst of laughter

was first the relief of wondering

am I about to do something stupid

replaced by its opposite and wonderment

that you waited this long to try it 

The laughter of creative possibilities

billowing before us in aspects of artistry

insistent upon our attention

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