Red Pages

Another box of my old books arrived a few days ago, this one a very small box containing just a few of my Caitlin R. Kiernan, Poppy Z. Brite, and Neil Gaiman books as well as a book about Dahomey. There were also fragments of another box in the box as well as a stamp indicated the item had been received in a damaged state in Nevada. I suspect the original box somehow fell apart and my books were scattered. I also suspect some of my books were lost considering I received only about twenty pages of Caitlin's Low Red Moon. I remember that book fell apart while I was reading it but I'd had it carefully packed between a couple other books. Who knows when I'll ever know what books I lost? I kept no record of what books went in what box.

Anyway, speaking of Caitlin R. Kiernan, I read the new Sirenia Digest to-day, containing a portion of a novella she'd started a few years ago. It's about the world after a plague has devastated the planet, doing something sinister to human women that somehow prevents or distorts natural birth. It's an interesting story brought to life with Caitlin's colourful use a colloquial fantasy dialect. It begins with a bit of rumination on the Garden of Eden, the sort of thing I'm always bound to find interesting after years of studying Milton.

It's supposed to finally be a bit warmer here to-day in Kashihara, Japan, so I think I might go for a walk. Here's a little sign of spring I spotted a few days ago:

Twitter Sonnet #1526

As fish, we drank the water fast and full.
But now the desert sells a house for song.
So mix an apple, big and sauced and cool.
The core is short but who's-your-friends're long.
The swinging bat's a quiet switch to wind.
Before the shaking pitcher, mitts were cold.
The score to-day has edged around the bend.
Before the second inning, hope was old.
A certain time restricts the sacred wrist.
The arm's distraction fit the panty bill.
Explain to vapour all the air you missed.
We stuffed a day's supply beneath the gill.
The scattered pages rode Pacific winds.
Across the marsh, a sickly lantern wends.