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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Monday, February 8, 2021

It is the imp in the bottle the embrace of leprosy

 

from this week in February 2013  (I was 68)

 

It is the imp in the bottle the embrace of leprosy

Empathy is to fade upon seeing the faded

an ability to hear the words of the dumb

It is to choke on the gasps of the dying

to smell the funeral in a bouquet of flowers

to taste the taint of mother’s milk gone sour

the regret in the burning of a flag

to disintegrate in the corruption of an idea

Obviously empathy goes a bit too far for me

 

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