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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Sunday, October 3, 2021

war god

 

October 3, 1971  (I was 26)

 

       war god

I was sitting on the hill

breathing my fill

and the kids in the canyon played war

They chose up their factions

and described war contraptions

from fragmentary shells to flame throwers

They gladly died un-terrified

resurrected bad and power mad

until with ironic thought I picked them off

from where I sat each one of them

laid to peace just like that

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