Torsade Literary Space TV Culture: Mr. Prosecutor (poem)
Mr. Prosecutor The witness/killer weeps He is surprised…bushwhacked by a tactic “Mother doesn’t care.” Mother, he tells the doctor, is just outside in her rose garden Often since Papa died I find her staring at the fountain He calls to her from the patio, apologizes, she has gone upstairs “She’s having […]
Keep his distance (poem)
Keep his distance He is much closer now to his condemners Manners, if good social manners would stop the driver of a van He will sit, monitor this scene through a dirty screen A wireless device at rest near his resting hand Hand that touches no lover’s knee She in the seat […]
Witness (poem)
Witness “You don’t like me. I want you to like me.” Was that charming? Half an answer came And it was, “No, I don’t think…” Then, “about you at all” had to become “I really know you.” And so another guest, who seemed to be her husband, said “And when you […]
From Rattus: Investigation (poem)
Investigation Think of a reasonable start Think of property Attribute Value or character Kernel, bare-bones truth Pith, intrinsic worth, the molten core The heart of gold, the nut Diamond in the rough The call, the mission, cause Awakening The deaf, the empty vessel, cabbage head The beckoning dead, the comfortably seated […]
Eight: final resolution (poem)
final resolution what is the divine to lift you above the shits of the world Who sits aloft, alone what is It to love with evenhandedness and no one, no one released from that embrace no matter what they’ve done then, what is the divine so large a thing […]
Caught Alone (poem)
Caught Alone Loved one, they gather on the stairs The passageway is closed The door will jar against a darting shape Unnoticed, their kind, snuffed in the daily cataclysm One will tear the fabric Go She is standing in the kitchen of her mother’s house Caught alone Under the pop-eyed […]
Eight: suggested proof (poem)
suggested proof if they were friends, and independent, their odds were not bad if their status had been desperately unequal, and dependence soon afterwards began… millstones, albatrosses, balls-and-chains five o’clocks in bars and hopes of new friends but time is the enemy of stable things a nature that finds contentment wants […]
Mettle (poem)
Mettle “U,” she said. The captain watched. Her complexion had grown icy blue, a certain vibrancy of disintegration marred his perception that she lived. She might have activated her Afterglow, this conversation might be the final testimony, brief window of immortality, as technology afforded “U,” she said. “What, Riva,” he asked […]
From Rattus: Bears the Punishment (poem)
Bears the Punishment I am proof of God’s existence Proof, to assemble it, I construct in opposition I make the non of a thing its being I am the eye of the storm Meaning seeks me I am taught by taped confessions Flakes of soul reduplicated Defenestrated stiffs of history Waters […]