Paul McCormick

TWELVE HOUSES OF THE OSTEOMANCER

What larceny?

What moon?

And how long will it take to swim?

I found this strand of your hair...

End to end.

The way Matterhorn and Eihorn were separated at birth.

Derives from sad.

A Complete History Of The Erased Word.

I’m placing frog here, for fulcrum.

Celexa for the __________'s.

& yes.

Fuselage rolls like ocean.

____

"Ancient rituals brought with them a complicated 'science' for using parts of a sacrificed animal to foretell the future of the person who offered the sacrifice. Osteomancy, for example, prophesied by examining a bone of the sacrificed animal. In the mid-nineteenth century, Sir Richard Burton reported from Sindh, in the valley of Indus, the elaborate technique still widely used for divining from the shoulder blade of a sacrificed sheep. The osteomancers divide the bone into twelve areas, or 'houses,' each answering a different question about the future. If in the first 'house' the bone was clear and smooth, the omen was propitious and the consultor would prove to be a good man. If, in the second 'house,' which pertained to the herds, the bone was clear and clean, the herds would thrive, but if there were layers of red and white streaks, robbers must be expected."

from The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin

Disappointed upon finding out that my HMO doesn't cover osteomancy, as well as having a bit more compassion than Burton for the occasional stray llama bedding down in my suburban backyard, I set about devising a system of removing my own bones, in-house, for a quick read. After a few false starts, I am now proud to announce that the essential bones can be removed, gauged, and reinserted while maintaining a constant blood pressure, pulse and full lung capacity. I have had to purchase numerous locks for the doors however. The poem "Twelve Houses of the Osteomancer" is the median read and thus one I take to be most accurate.