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!

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

from this week in August, 2016 (I was 71)

 

August 25

from this week in August, 2016  (I was 71)

 

The Shadow Puppet Theatre   (a work in progress)

 

The shadow puppet theatre

cast upon the walks and lawns

presents a new production daily

directed by the wind moving leaves

 

Negatives of movement projected below

To see it as representational

may miss the point

Anything interpretive is an imposition

 

Eyes are unreliable receptors

Seeing should not be believing

The mind seeks shape

patterns seen against closed eyelids

 

Once recognized form persists

just as sub-atomic particulars

called into being when sought

Items in the bay we didn’t know we bought

 

Just the other day

I watched the shadow puppet monkeys play

before behind and in between

the foreground and background screen

 

Movements defined by their shapes

animate the little apes

They bend bound stretch and descend

Three sit together on haunches

 

pausing together on lower branches

Darkened eyes do not see

Covered ears do not hear

their unuttered sound most profound

 

Having discovered the play of the monkeys

many look for nothing else

Imposing interpretations obscure

the other actualities blown in

 

In the shadow puppet theater

sets change with the season

The best productions

appear without reason.

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