Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament of the Holy Bible

You hold in your hands ten years of my life.

Ten summers, ten autumns, ten winters, and ten springs.

My life runs in cycles, odd to be sure, but cycles none the less.

Some are daily. Tiny little spirals so tightly wound that they resemble a thread of time weaving the days together. I come alive in the twilight. Late night is spent in waking dreams and long conversations with myself. Morning hopefully finds me sleeping, but as often as not, I am doing my penance to my debtors or fretting over something or other. Afternoon is a time of long waits. I am always waiting away the afternoon, looking forward to twilight's return.

Some cycles are seasonal. Autumn has always been a time of rebirth for me. Winter a time of romance and dreams brought on by solitude.

My life seems to always come unwound in the spring and summer is spent whiling away the lazy days awaiting falls return.

Then there are the ten-year cycles. They are not so clearly defined. This book is a collection of poetry written during one of those ten-year cycles. It began in the Fall of 1988, with a knock at my door. It ended in the Spring of 1997, with the closing of another door.

As I look back from this vantage point at all of my impostures during that decade, I'll be damned if I know anyone of them any better than I know the ones parading forth as I write this. But then, this isn't a self-help book--it's a book of poetry. Should you recognize anyone inside these pages it is because we are all impostures, pretending to be who we really are.