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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Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Art’s Event in Shallow Water

 

October 12, 1971  (I was 26)

 

Art’s Event in Shallow Water

 

Arthur Octopus has got

all these tentacles which extend

out and over around and about;

      one carries burning torches

      one orders all it touches

      one flexes all it’s muscle

      one drifts on every current

      one probes to break the surface

      one buries the dead

      one counts the other seven

and one strokes his jellied head.

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