Bad Counsel (part two)

Short Stories Bad Counsel (two)                   Andrée begins to see. Andrée already, to her mother’s chagrin, lives rent free. But she gets it, how Sam might need six months or a year, maybe more, to build his house. Leo has talked to her about inspectors. You do […]

My Blog Week: May 23 to May 29

Posted by ractrose on 30 May 2021 in The Latest

All the Latest from Torsade!                             A Word on the Week   America’s Problem             If the title of this piece makes you think of events like this week’s in San Jose, exactly so. After the Colorado […]

A Torsade Digital Gallery (two)

Posted by ractrose on 29 May 2021 in Art, Poems

Another collection of art for Torsade that doesn’t exist on paper. Except for the cover art for Are You Haunted, which has a print version on every copy.             This is from a painting in progress, where I liked this phase of it, and wanted to preserve what would cease […]

From Rattus: Giddy (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 28 May 2021 in Art, Poems

      Giddy   Come on, come on you blanched and legless hellbender Tucking the lettuce edging of your gills About your trembling shoulders like a shawl You blanched and legless hellbender Smitten by the torchlight Bronzing the sound-proof undulations Of your pit under rock under ooze Your all in all because you feel […]

A Torsade Digital Gallery

Posted by ractrose on 27 May 2021 in Art

Since digital art has been in the news, and so far as anyone understands the phenomenon may be the future of art collecting; and since I had a day of nonwriting work that kept me from preparing a more content-heavy post, I thought I’d share with my readers some of the images I’ve created for […]

Bad Counsel (part one)

Short Stories Bad Counsel (part one)                   This is one of the bigger things, this teaching of lessons. We descend a hill, soon to stand among the cattails at the lip of the frog pond, with Andrée and Sam Magruder, a man who may be her father. […]

Hammersmith: Backborough Lane (chapter sixteen)

Posted by ractrose on 25 May 2021 in Fiction, Novels

Hammersmith Chapter Sixteen Backborough Lane           Backborough Lane began with an infirmary, a blood-brick house with a high flight of steps and barred lower windows. These looked a handy vehicle for youngsters to clamber up and peer inside the treatment rooms. The angle of the house crowded the mouth of the […]

Be a Helper (conclusion)

      Be a Helper (part three)     He calmed himself over ginger cake. There was Mrs. Langham to consider, whose husband thought her not worth bringing along, nor asking what she thought herself about the woolens. And if the sprites wreaked havoc with the crops… You couldn’t call it sense, punishing someone […]

My Blog Week: May 16 to May 22

Posted by ractrose on 24 May 2021 in The Latest

All the Latest from Torsade!                             A Word on the Week   It Never Hurts to Ask           And the party that found the wherewithal to stage the Maricopa County audit in Arizona is unwilling to support the […]

Dust (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 22 May 2021 in Art, Poems

      Dust   Dust clots on table ends A hiving manufactory within Colluding by concealment Iota by micrometer rebukes The rag itself devolves to lint A cry in code descends in sweat and skin And bakes a cake in corners left unclean Its cumbrance plods uncounted Yet to be sure Fatigued and overladen […]