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!

Monday, January 11, 2021

Keep Your Distance

 

from this week in January, 2020  (I was 75)

 

         Keep Your Distance

It is the distance that creates the reality

we are able to construct in memory

Distance conjures the details

we did not sense at the time

The soul paints what eyes had failed to see

and hears the song from the fear and anguish

Tastes of bitterness become tart then sweet

Once a cause to spit now to savor and swallow

The cold and heat of our nakedness

now insulated by distance  

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