Torsade Literary Space 
Are You Haunted (part sixteen)
Are You Haunted (part sixteen) “And she told you she’d given my husband a few dollars, and the car to earn them with. What’s it got to do with me, if she’ll lend him a bit when he asks?” “Miss Gilshannon, I had a conversation with […]
Story: Be a Helper (part five)
Be A Helper (part five) You may know the adage, that a thing of nature has nature’s wisdom in it; a thing of man, man’s. (Jorinda would not allow it woman’s.) Bede kept a cow, and for the milk—if his neighbor’s bull came wandering—let her calve. When […]
Are You Haunted (part fifteen)
Are You Haunted (part fifteen) “It wasn’t Doyle alone who saw her. When they started doing the special work, Drybrook retired most of the old hands. Others they moved to New London, a different mill Drybrook owned where they waterproofed cloth for tents. But some of […]
For a Non-Emergency
For a Non-Emergency When we’ve settled in our rooms For a non-emergency The observation of the dumb under euthanasia He believes he can imprint a picture of this earth Oblivious to others he rehearsed Mechanical men have put his thoughts aside for fixing A distant monitor listens The pulse gives […]
Are You Haunted (part fourteen)
Are You Haunted (part fourteen) “You’ll figure local youngsters, playing pranks on the old watchman. I’ll tell you how Mr. Doyle described the ghost to me.” He stood like a preacher, his small flock with upturned faces waiting for him to speak. But Summers himself waited, […]
Abdication (poem)
Abdication Your eyes stung and crusted You lie unmoving A sibyl garnering predictions vaporing from sewer grates With her liberality of diction She baits you Bile of the nation Abdication Like a starfish ambulating Your stomach leaves the nest to feed A seesawing cindered feather floats Liver and spine-meat from […]
The Clue (poem)
The Clue They had traveled together a good distance His manner of expression gave her pause He doubted she would understand these words And every pleasantry he uttered “I hope you haven’t heard all this before” Was mortared in its place to stop a fault from growing He fluttered samples of […]
The Cause (poem)
The Cause You an islet, witness to an hour of rising You a fleer and a tunneler You at times overroofed by another’s Wasted heat Hate discovers you One of these will speak against you And the worst of these Enflamed the mind an empty fuel tank of fumes Swings a […]
Are You Haunted (part thirteen)
Are You Haunted (part thirteen) Rohdl handed his empty bottle to Isobel, and left them. Isobel tossed the bottle through the car’s open window. Powell said, “Mister… I guess I don’t know your name.” The stranger had got a long friendly ways into the conversation. “No, […]
Story: Sympathy for the Torturer (part two)
Sympathy for the Torturer (part two) Anton waited at the end of the table. Beans and brown bread today, applesauce, milk. Nothing limited. More of bread, more of milk or applesauce…if the woman would come over, and if he could stand to ask her. Nothing limited, nothing flavorful. The […]