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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Friday, February 25, 2022

There must be a verb

 

February 25, 1998  (I was 53)

 

There must be a verb

situated between escapade and escape,

something to allow getting away

with a bit more seriousness of purpose

than frivolous adventure,

some search for perspective

where withdrawal requires responsibility,

a returning with the change in hand,

not merely with a picaresque travelogue

nor even a set of tactics

for springing the locks and riding the rails

to hideouts of abundant seclusion;

but with the change in hand.

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