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inelegant illness afflicts him

who bumps about corridors

rattling locks

with the bones in his tail

stalking for deer

with a rosin-swept bow

in the malformed aesthetics

of calabash pipe-smoke

tainted with henbane

that curls around houndstooth

staining the Inverness cape

knowing bliss has no keys

he kicks open doors

of two-cornered rooms

no doctor would bless

finding stairs Piranesi

could have designed

their paths up or down

all land the same place

where a grandfather clock

ticks the tempo of fear

and brocade paranoia

drapes barrister boxes

of leather-bound brains

and mementoes of sins

hiding fine-pestled clues

behind acid-etched glass

in plain sight

yet unseen

in differently hued

hallucinogens

that powder

alchemical bellies

of porcelain mortars

where hundreds of

gripping good crimes

would be solved

(originally posted March 2013)