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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Saturday, June 26, 2021

If I were editor

 

June 26, 1974  (I was 29)

 

If I were editor

I would have no friends

I’d stick ms’s together with gum

and send them home to papa

My rejection notice would say

Fuck You

-don’t waste our time

 

If I were editor I would have no friends

I’d read with teeth

clenched and pores open

Then when something blew my jaws

I’d know and I’d lay the thing out in Braille

and touch it completely   

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