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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Monday, March 6, 2023

That classic sidestep by the matador

 

from this week in March, 1976  (I was 31)

 

That classic sidestep by the matador

that en passant of the bull ring

what’s that called?

It’s the basic deception

the stare over the cape

then the move upon the toes

looking right and going left

What is this, longing for Hemingway

or for  Death in the Afternoon?

No it’s for that clean break

befuddlement of the opposition

without a blinking compromise

The arrogant and the dumbfounded

together on the floor of the arena

 

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