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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Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Misunderstanding

July 22, 1971  (I was 26)

 

Misunderstanding your soft shape

under thin summer blanket stirring

and the delicate murmuring dream

into which I so easily slipped beside you,

my smoothest hand

drifted across the cover of your possible curves.

I believed the cooling lie

of my warmth against your thigh

and breathed your rhythms in colored currents

flowing from each sigh.

Then as the first bird called warning

into some distant morning,

you turned to deeper sleep

and I turned to philosophy,

hand stroking cheek unshaved this week.

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