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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Sunday, August 2, 2020

Silent Partner

from this week in August, 2008  (I was 63)

 

         Silent Partner

His presence is his participation

his email address is anonymous

He knows his opinions

would elicit embarrassed silence

That man tries to think of what to say

then not say it

measures that a small victory

a privilege not doing       

Keeps his irons out of any fire

he did not start

Sitting among those conversing

he can contemplate a coffee cup

on a table across the room

His consciousness refers to him

in the third person and last night

he dreamed he was too slow

to outrun a steamroller

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