Torsade Literary Space Arthur: Calmacott’s Brother (part five)
The Folly Calmacott’s Brother Arthur They do not often wish to hear, the ordinary man’s Tale, though I suffer Though I share…Henry Calmacott, is it? Sir, with one or two well-padded aldermen The company of the heathen damned Came to that harsh resolve much sooner than I’d guessed […]
Her Stay: Haunt of Thieves
Haunt of Thieves Her Stay Water weighs the yoked woman Stooped among refugees crowded here Not threatened by grenades hurled from the sentry box They let this trafficker within the gates pass She may return Water she bears reached by a path of heel marks Baked in the mud and useless […]
The Farmer’s Wife (part two)
The Folly Calmacott’s Brother The Farmer’s Wife (part two) While I bent and cried, right hand Rising to the hammering of my heart Glass out of frames and littering the gravelled floor I cared more for Arthur’s blaming me Says the music makes me deaf His cuttings in their boxes […]
The Farmer’s Wife (part one)
The Folly Calmacott’s Brother The Farmer’s Wife (part one) Mathilda Arthur, you have fallen far behind Chair pulled near the gramophone, needles busy Nellie Melba singing God save the king Seems busy, knitting…quiets the mind But that’s not doing your chores, girl Get out. Get out now. His […]
La Catastrophe de la Martinique: twenty-seven
Jean Hess La Catastrophe de la Martinique (twenty-seven) Two Legends The miraculous prisoner and the two gunners Here is an extraordinary story, that of the prisoner, Auguste Sybaris. But, I do not suppose that M. Clerc believed it true, for M. Clerc […]
Calmacott’s Brother (part two)
Author’s note: This gentleman turned up in the background of my first illustration for Calmacott’s Brother, so I’m letting him have his moment. The Folly Calmacott’s Brother Calmacott’s Brother (two) It was […]
The Bride: Haunt of Thieves
Haunt of Thieves The Bride All that promised love The slaughtering of her house perfection Of its kind His knowing her this way, exclusion, even language Only famine, or delirium…newly colored Then promise was this sheer ravine That forbade crossing But by inches It must be Toe by toe One […]
Calmacott’s Brother (part one)
The Folly Calmacott’s Brother Calmacott’s Brother (part one) Maybe we were not fit Not fit to live nor fit to die A sower’s superfluity made as the parable’s seed An abortion or a sturdy weed…howsoever Heaven wills it Struck wherever we might fall So the waters close To […]
La Catastrophe de la Martinique: twenty-six
Jean Hess La Catastrophe de la Martinique (twenty-six) M. Clerc before the eruption and in the ruins We return to the volcano. Here is how M. Clerc described to me the eruption of the 8th, to which he was witness from […]
The Folly (poem-story)
The Folly I appreciate I’ve been not working hard I’ve been accused of haunting without spirit Always a proper subject at a dinner Always a diner eager to try himself Sorrowing eyes that by mid-course will make themselves Felt in the bones, couched in marbles in stucco ‘Ugly as sin,’ […]