My Blog Week: May 24 to May 30

Posted by ractrose on 31 May 2020 in The Latest

All the Latest from Torsade!                             A Word on the Week   This week has been tough, and…as things have fallen out…the serial novel I started writing in 2018 has two plot undercurrents: the Spanish flu pandemic, that began in 1918, and […]

Eight: Interrupting (poetry series)

Posted by ractrose on 30 May 2020 in Art, Poems

      Interrupting   Bright comes the sun o’er prospects verdant Bright comes the upglow of new-booted screen Bright the blue ink on fresh-peeled Post-it Bright the gay tinkle of first text received   Here is a pincer move to keep the target tautened The dandiest thing in banquet platters, name-tagged, yours Heaped with […]

Men (first): Eighth German Spy

Posted by ractrose on 29 May 2020 in Art, Poems

      The Folly The German Spy         Men (first)   He said, ‘Smile, Agnes. Always smile.’ Serna the milliner dispassionately surgical Limning his foundling’s looks She’d felt safe, so ill-prepared in going out Wounded and angry and oddly at home In Marseille he was mother to her, telling her ‘Your […]

Frédéric Boutet: The Passenger (complete)

Frédéric Boutet Tales The Passenger (complete)                     This story is long past…it took place nearly forty years ago. We were told it by one Captain Marius Cazavan, retired, of Marseille. “But I recall everything as though it were yesterday. I sailed for a firm out of […]

Into Water (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 27 May 2020 in Art, Poems

      Into Water   Which would be the more vulnerable if it were only a game Or should the haptics of drone dragoons invest the operator with a true-to-life experience The prey, she going flat in the underbrush, with a weapon of her own We’ll say a bolas, charged in a backpack and […]

Cartoon Stories: Critters

Posted by ractrose on 25 May 2020 in Cartoons

Cartoon Stories Critters         A few sentient beings from a older-person’s storybook world.         Vermiculture. No lightweight larva of literary lore.        A Matter of Policy. Rabbits will freeze in place when a hawk circles…       A Place for Everyone. Peaceful coexistence, while meditating on […]

My Blog Week: May 17 to May 23

Posted by ractrose on 24 May 2020 in The Latest

All the Latest from Torsade!                             A Word on the Week   Avoirdupois         I personally have fat cred. I was heavy enough in the 90s that I made jeans from overalls, cutting the bib off, and using the […]

The Blurbs (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 23 May 2020 in Art, Poems

      The Blurbs   A flight from personal tragedy brings Trey Michaelson to Wetheringdale Farm, with its eccentric collection of healers and seekers. Here she meets journalist Royce Beardsley, a Wethering descendent, who keeps a two-hundred-year-old secret. An afternoon on the bridle path leads to a sealed well-head, and a grim discovery.   […]

Eight: The Dispensing (poetry series)

Posted by ractrose on 22 May 2020 in Art, Poems

      The Dispensing     Is the person, as such, pleasing   In ways, does the person please, and in ways offend If the good were scissored free from, we will say, four inferior samplings Sleeve, bodice, skirt, stitched, with a neat, tooth-to-tooth intermeshing Of their pinked edging We should be left to […]

Frédéric Boutet: The Faker (complete)

Frédéric Boutet Tales The Faker (complete)                       The man stood haggard, still gripping the knife. He was in a sordid hotel room, the dead girl stretched at his feet, a dark pool oozing from her open throat. He had found her working the boulevard Sébastopol. […]