Justice Bramhall writes (in an opinion lodged as part of his "tributary 2004" brief):

"I also wonder about the surety artists have about their own work and what it is 'doing'. as if intent (even as far as one can know one's own intent) translated directly to practice. "

The wonder of it all is what grows unexpectedly out of certain ambitions, intentions (or stubborn allegiances, habits). So in my own explanatory-para-poetics anthill, the labyrinth of meaning is always seen in retrospect. I'm surprised by what coheres.

So if you, expert legal surveyor, go over here to Alephoebooks & re-read the two adjacent panels ("Midnight Knock" & the trip-to-London/sonnet fandango), I think you will agree with me that there is a kind of rhyme linking a manic "Shakespeare episode" in the mid-70s, a wayward rock n'roll adventure of the same period, and a NY-Schoolish/Berrymanish/Shakespearish sonnet-gumbo sequence written over 20 years later. In other words, the focus on Shakespeare doesn't go away, but it gets filtered through the lens of a much later time in life.

Did I plan this then, intentionally? No. Not guilty.