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, January 16, 2022

How Gary Became a Bartender

 

January 16, 1975  (I was 30)

 

How Gary Became a Bartender

The door was kicked in

pointing guns stockings over faces

three of them all over the room

and gun at his head said

The money and the stash Now

I’ll blow your fucking brains out

Gary gave up the cash said Refrigerator

which held the hash

and was pistol smashed in the face

Look at the floor Big One said

musta weighed three hundred

Where’s the Coke

No coke said Gary looking at the floor

Don’t tell me that shit

grabbed Shelly by the hair

45 between the eyes said

Where The Fuck’s The Coke

no coke she said and Gary’s face

was pushed into the floor

Where are your Guns

Just one behind the door

I should stick it in your mouth

Take off your clothes

Get in the other room

Come out the door and you’re dead

lights went out

stood naked waiting

for silence

night blew into the house

they were gone

with the stash

and twenty-two hundred in cash

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