The Mason

In a single sinister voice
they sent a silent slave
to seek him
in his solitude.

Startled, he surfaced
in their muddled mist.
Confused by their voices,
he followed them
to their throne room.
He wore a cotton singlet
and a black leather apron.
In his bare arms
he carried
a steel square,
a bronze trowel,
and a ball of cotton string.

They cheered his mathematics,
then led him through narrow streets
to a secluded clearing,
where, using a marble slab,
he drew a diagram
on rice papyrus
with a goose quill
and octopus ink.

Finished,
he drove silver stakes
into red clay
with an iron hammer.

He stretched string
stuttering a sibilant sound.

They heard a command
for water, manure, clay and straw.
They set the slaves to stamping;
they fired ceramic kilns,
while he dreamed
the dimensions
of the dome.

"Cave Gossip" accepted by Permafrost

I wish to thank Brian Keenan and the other editors at Permafrost, the University of Alaska's literary magazine, for accepting "Cave Gossip" for a May/June publication. "Cave Gossip" is one of the longer poems in Petroglyphs.

Yet Another from Khaos' Magic

Fauna

Her bright brogue
warned me
to stay
upon the clay.
But wolfbane,
yellow green,
lured me
off the way.
I wandered
until snow fell
in frail flakes
and frigid ferns
snapped.
Time blanketed
sleeping bears.

One more from Khaos' Magic

Busker

He sings
the cosmic egg
on the tube’s platform;
his lyre case open
on greasy cement.

He composes lyrics
about fourfold
worlds, while others
drop crumpled bills
upon green felt.

His vision becomes words;
his words become worlds.
They ebb and flow
between the void
and Thoth’s light.

Zipporah shucks clams
with her flint knife.
Her son’s blood
mediates chaos
and appeases the groom.

Another from Khaos' Magic

The Staff’s Snake

With a single sinister stroke
his staff’s snake staggers
law’s stern progress.
Its blunt blow
breaks a clay pot
thrown by red hands
bronze-aged by an orange sun.
He stammers a sibilant message:
Khaos’ flood drowns
Babel’s language.
He awaits the primordial word
to slip past paralyzed lips.