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, September 27, 2021

late night in Long Beach

 

September 27, 2012  (I was 67)

 

late night in Long Beach

reading Shunryo Suzuki’s, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

 

The swinging door of the throat

the singularity of duality

To hear a dumpster diver in the alley

is to smell the dumpster into which I do not dive

To not read the book I read

the diver becomes one of my characters

working in my alley making noise

stirring up scents he does not smell

until he sees the reading light in my window

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