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, April 11, 2022

There is enough pain

 

April 11, 1970  (I was 25)

 

There is enough pain

Not many will question that

Pains strong as blights

They’ve become immune to pesticides

taken refuge in the dark furrows of the brain

They gather in flourishing numbers

I have nourished them with the guilt of a creator

How many pain seeds have I planted today

I farm your mind as you farm mine

with good intentions for a profitable harvest

Then we desert at the first sign of disease

blaming the tenant

hating the seedy wind

I need migrant workers

who have long accepted such things

thoughts with a respect for locusts

black handed surgeons who understand

medicine and agriculture demand more than mechanics

Ideas who know the weeds of others

lie dormant in themselves

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