Torsade Literary Space The Chapel by the Sea (poem)
The Chapel by the Sea Hands appear to dust themselves Before he goes, he shines his shoes for luck The engine catches Like the young auk that plunges from the cliff Wings with rigid traceries of struts Shed the hatchling’s rasping gracelessness And soar Find palpable contours in the invisible, climb […]
The Totem-Maker (part nineteen)
The Totem-Maker Chapter Two Jealousy (part nineteen) First came change. As to turn a tile, and find the sun’s promise shadowed, so slightly, by the cat—whose tail may flick one way or another. At Cime’s house we heard the clanging bell. Fire burned in one of […]
All Bedlam Courses Past (part eighty-five)
All Bedlam Courses Past Chapter Three An Object in Motion (part eighty-five) v. Given the nod Mother had never liked Uncle Henry. She had not liked leaving Indianapolis for Cookesville; she scorned the reverse. Of the hand that engineered these […]
My Blog Week: December 10 to December 24
All the Latest from Torsade! This period, poems from my earliest work, The Nutshell Hatches, a book I took out of print because I don’t like all its contents. But the ones I’ve selected work; they say what I […]
You Click (poem)
You Click You click, and the Creature of Perfection Tells you what is thought of you How the human form is picked and chosen Via superimposition of a hope You’ll buy and quiet down A dim coating of category: What Things Are Put on Things Billows in a breeze of ad-engines, […]
Accept the Change (poem)
Accept the Change Adjust your mind Accept the change Change rings you down the ladder Now get up And be propelled Through a wall of strangers Breaking up Catching hold Your fingers on an arm, a sleeve Your story, staggering in faces Seeking sympathy A weak attraction To a […]
Handle with Care (poem)
Handle With Care Handle with care, don’t fall You were meant to keep a grip Or pass the card Along to surer hands Or never pick it up at all Here is life The half-done project Like the others Well begun Or hoarded in the handbasket among Buttons, coins, […]
Thud and Rebound (poem)
Thud and Rebound You scaled to manageable size Viewed panoramically With bulging eyes Spurting to the wall and back, puzzled As you gulp air, thud and rebound You make your daily round A baited hook is hardly needed You will rise and gape To the hand that feeds you Finding yourselves […]
Newly Hatched (poem)
Newly Hatched You and I newly hatched In sun warmed shallows Floating as the current takes us A wave and then a thousand waves Thrown against us Our grain of sand is a shoot of sea grass Blue light breaks overhead Our eyes and ears assaulted A savage foot and a twin-cycle […]