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, February 27, 2022

I ache to wake break bed to get up and go

 

February 27, 2012  (I was 67)

 

I ache to wake break bed to get up and go

through motions designed to shed recline

out of repose and into some clothes

and I do what I see to be done to do

 

Not to be wallowed in grief or swallowed

by the enormity of the construct perceived

I smoke a token of the talisman plant

to decide which ideas should be ideas in deed

 

Something must be physical and use real muscle

sweater the better the only skill the will

to breathe into mind oxygen sublime

breath breathed by so many breathers before

 

Creation creates its own pace and slow

is measured one measure at a time

and at a tempo that tempts one to dance

Earth and moon to and fro do-si-do

 

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