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!

Thursday, July 14, 2022

Tom Taken

 

July 14, 1971  (I was 26)

 

         Tom Taken

Cross-legged on the porch at dusk

surrounded by trees and even the sky is green

Just now got the point of a thick joint

A jay informs me and leaves

air so soft I don’t know whether it’s wind

or trailing breath of an extended limb

Mosquitoes shoot up on my arm and ankle

Randomly I kill them or let them bite and fly stoned

Kaleidoscope of leaves and vestigial branches

Calliope of dogs music and laughter in the canyon

Meditative melt from shadow play to star show

I’m perplexed and I just don’t know

how the rest of us just go on with the flow

after you’ve gone  And all of us still

taking you along

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