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!

Sunday, July 4, 2021

When you see Art, thank it

 

July 4, 2013  (I was 68)

 

When you see Art, thank it

Never knew how independent I was

until I realized how detached I am

I’m not big on trying to entertain the unknown

I need reasons to meet the new

and I don’t know many good ones

Mr. Palomar has three perspectives

sensory description societal experience

and cosmic speculation I have only two

There is not much societal interaction

that I would not reduce to the lowest denominator

Most conversation could be trimmed by half

Half again if you eliminate the stories

everyone has already heard

If it were not for bullshit this would be

a very quiet country and that fits in

with the two perspectives Palomar and I share

I am familiar with practiced sensory inventory

and a sort of frantic meditative contemplation

of an existence beyond the stars

Within that elusive unity I am independent

and today is my day

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