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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Tuesday, December 8, 2020

That man talking over his shoulder

 

from this week of December, 1979  (I was 35)

 

     That man talking over his shoulder

Do you feel the edge of the world?

Ever feel like you’ve crawled to the brink

fingers acute on the precipice

like you didn’t really choose to be there

moved along by the whack on your ass

the big broom and the sweep of time?

 

There you were crawling across the floor

moving from one bit of this to another

when you and the neighborhood

together were swept to the edge

Somewhere inside them

everybody knew about the big broom

 

Even your muscles knew

knew sooner or later hoping later

Then you were there

not expecting so many friends with you

and others calling back from over the edge

and you now with this new moment

 

Gonna let the next one catch you in the ass?

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