"I used to say that my autobiography ought to consist of a series of short stories like those about Sherlock Holmes; only that his were astonishing examples of observation, and mine astonishing examples of lack of observation." --G K Chesterton


    "Ten Plague Masks"

rows of identical packages
gnosis on the silk road

sandstone out of slow silt
poembook
planned for amazon

where i returned to
one or two walls still stand
dust hurtling through

i believe
i could find old pages of mine
on the silk road


* * * *

you don't know your courage
till you watch harm approach

sliver of a new moon
in forty years everything

* * * *

dubitation billabong
Cairene inferno
walla walla nuffink!
troubled
jog and jolt
pagodas of insomnia
shrinking
and if shrinking
can be part of a veil

* * * *

Herrenvolk yMiJleHie
brought · down
tinny
culpable
arrears tontine

spybots
Planet Agamemnon
mildewed in the mist


    "After Ptolemy"

Mortal, i know only this fleeting day
in which to dwell, yet when i let my mind
roam among the pathways of the stars,

then i'm no longer bound by earth, but stand
alongside Zeus, and share the divine ambrosia.