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!

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Public storage units are everywhere

 

February 16, 2008  (I was 63)

 

Public storage units are everywhere

cars have been locked out of garages for decades

bins and boxes hold assorted parts of lives

The way too much we’ve had for years

we feel too guilty to simply discard

and pay instead to rent it space

dollars spent to keep the past alive

long after it has lost its productive use

Now a shell without substance or context

emitting acrid odors of dissolution

tightly packed next to one another

little mausoleums for the partly dead

likely to last beyond the memories of their owners

Left at last for strangers to sort through

hoping to find some artifact of value

without any knowledge of the curse upon it

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