Copyrighted Grimoire in a Used Bookstore

[Erthona]

I generally enjoyed the story, though it at times became difficult to follow. I think some of your experiments in simile and metaphor paid off nicely, such as:

"like the-bit-too-neatly sewn eyes of a gorgon"

others not so much:

"like some pre-mad philosopher's abysmal monsters".

Some passages were just confusing, such as:

"It starts with how one day
the wrinkled skin at the joints of the fingers
came unsealed, and eyes opened.
Soon this was the only way to see,
since it appears his eyes and balls switched places,
leaving him eyes as balls and balls as eyes."

How did it get from fingers to balls?

There are certainly moments of clarity that rise above the muddle,

"and though writers today can write,
they rarely can sculpt concrete imagination
from this block of dead realities."

Were it that the entirety was composed of this type of writing, and less of the finger/ball type.

Overall, and despite many good uses of poetic device, this reads more as a short story, especially as I see no reason for this particular lineation. I think I would enjoy reading it more as such, but that is purely personal taste, and I have no hard facts to say it should be one way or the other, certainly I think it can work both ways.

Dale