Yoharie: What It Takes to Fly (part five)

Posted by ractrose on 29 Feb 2020 in Fiction, Novels

Yoharie What It Takes to Fly (part five)             Black letters: HIRING APPLY WITHIN. Well, why not, if fate beckoned? And somehow she wasn’t first in line. Jeff, offering a hand, had patted her arm instead, drawn her into his office, walked out again…speaking, so she had to tail him…before […]

The Totem-Maker: The Recalcitrant One (part five)

Posted by ractrose on 28 Feb 2020 in Fiction, Novels

The Totem-Maker Chapter Seven The Recalcitrant One (part five)           Bright sun through the shutters made obscure what might have terrified, the slow-blinking eyes, like those of a basking lizard. Moth took a stool in the corner and set his bag at his feet, still speechless. I had not myself studied […]

Frédéric Boutet: A Playboy’s Scandal (complete)

Frédéric Boutet A Few Blackmails A Playboy’s Scandal (complete)                   It was on a spring evening at a casino, in a spa of the Midi with thermal baths, very chic. In the shadows that favored the garden in winter, the Chevalier Hector Montelli leaned his black moustache […]

Benevolence (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 26 Feb 2020 in Art, Poems

      Benevolence   Off to beg off to ask a promise be remembered rifle charity clothes and find wearable estates of men and women, botheration… scoffing rid of Grandma’s stupid things (amounts to spending, not inheriting) senescent children shooting cheating sidelongs This or that “worth something” hmm? (ooh hoo) in vintage, maybe a […]

Overcast (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 25 Feb 2020 in Poems

      Overcast   Self-abnegation hunting insects All chemistry or all dispassion not dissected by ego and asked to answer The tailored monument to Jones or Brown or Miller We can’t feel surprised What, Mr. Jones, is atonement What, Ms. Brown, do you call repentance How, Miller, do you ask forgiveness You needed training…if […]

Cartoon Stories: Riffing

Posted by ractrose on 24 Feb 2020 in Art, Cartoons

Cartoon Stories Riffing       So, when you run out of early ideas (one of which I’ll introduce in next’s weeks Stories, mapping out the peripatetic plot of my first cartoon saga, The Dynamo Brothers), you start keeping funny thoughts jotted in a notebook, or planning to jot them and forgetting what they were. […]

My Blog Week: February 16 to February 22

Posted by ractrose on 23 Feb 2020 in The Latest

All the Latest from Torsade!                             A Word on the Week   Phobia           In times past, when the chief source of news in America was the three networks and PBS, I had a complaint. Say, for the sake […]

You Have an Enemy (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 22 Feb 2020 in Art, Poems

      You Have an Enemy   “Now, see,” the card you’ve drawn Is from a Royal house, yours on the right It faces left, its suit is red Portending a bleeding heart You have an enemy You, of necessity, reckon to the pole star And by day you see the sun chart Its […]

The Totem-Maker: The Recalcitrant One (part four)

Posted by ractrose on 21 Feb 2020 in Fiction, Novels

The Totem-Maker Chapter Seven The Recalcitrant One (part four)           He stood holding a Seed under the window’s light. Two hollows like eyes seemed to glint aware, each with its dot of white. The totem had woken in itself this visage, by charm or wickedness. “Tell me your story.” “They are […]

Wonderfully Made (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 19 Feb 2020 in Art, Poems

      Wonderfully Made   The psalmist makes good report of himself God sighs that the trick of vision could not be worked When the heavy-brained article came to move and apprehend He had hoped praise, in parlance, would mean humility But what do things mean? It has feet to carry it here and […]