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, January 17, 2022

When you’re young you enter dangerous deals

 

January 17, 2009  (I was 64)

 

When you’re young you enter dangerous deals

not knowing nor daring to know it

when the house of the dealer has guns upstairs

and drifting beings lost in the hall

and his patient wife with the bad back

has a legit excuse to take pills for the pain

and the guy with ten teeth is staying for dinner

 

When you’re young you don’t know how trouble feels

and when whatever you’re waiting for is late

but the money is paid so you wait and you wait

the dishes are in the sink his kids hidden away

and some other what-the-fucks show up

but no deal so you leave  Later you say  Tomorrow

you hear fuck-up got shot in the knee and the shit’s in

 

When you’re old it’s about friends in the business

a visit with handshakes and hugs

and how is the family a knowing concern

There’s a fire in the woodstove

abalone to be pounded breaded fried and eaten

a reunion of those at the summer vacation home

and everything packaged and on account

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