My Blog Week: May 24 to May 30
All the Latest from Torsade!

Cartoon of the Week: It’s Staring You in the Face (for two more panels, see The Cartoon House)
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 a race riot, that I have taking place in 1901. I think my best, in treating this subject, is already there in what I’ve written. In twenty weeks or so, The Mirrors will have unfolded completely, and I hope my readers will take some uplift from its ultimate message. Meanwhile, today, a poem.
From Superstition the Pendulum
Your face carried home from the scene of horror
Let nature raise you a colossus that prows
Prows astraddle the edge of all landfalls
Clocks will crack and mirrors stop
Unluckiness the hostelman calls to roost
The iron ring for a knocker hangs
Sounds wood and metalcraft, chock and clang
And the hand that would be death’s
Lets the bob swing reversal at two and a half
Your eyes ring themselves in adamantine pursuit
And the hair-raising toom of your heel on stone
Cries time, time
Transgressors
With a cup of wine and a coat-collar buttoned
At their table, not turning, they are tripped inside
By a cat black-clothed with the spirits of her kind
While her eyes seem charmed and she weaves before them
Time, time
They will feel waters close
Time, time
Know the follower knows
Time
But unwind
Time
Open eye
Time
On Monday, a new Cartoon Stories, some animal-themed gags; on Tuesday, The Mirrors, the Dumain mystery coming up in conversation. Wednesday, a new Jumping Off poem, “Into Water”, a riff on drone games. Thursday, Frédéric Boutet’s “The Passenger”, features an ethical dilemma. Friday, the story of Agnes continues in the German Spy arc, “Men (first)”, her new life of interwar intrigue, and her arrest. Saturday, Eight, “Interrupting”, the first in a new group of eight, some tactics of propaganda.
Images on my posts often have a link to related information (click first image), sometimes serious, sometimes whimsical, sometimes in answer to a direct reference. Since people can be leery about links, I include them here: what they are, what sites they point to.
My Blog Week: May 24 to May 30
Cartoon Stories: Critters
May 25
The Mirrors (part two)
May 26
Into Water (poem)
May 27
Poetry Foundation: Gary Lemons, “Drone”
Frédéric Boutet: The Passenger (complete)
May 28
Men (first): Eighth German Spy
May 29
Eight: Interrupting (poetry series)
May 30