Torsade Literary Space Haunt of Thieves: War-Making (poem)
War-Making The blue soldier’s tunic Dangles a last brass button as though the gamble Of trade advances nothing where an unhoused man can look able to shift a pallet of brick, he commands the only currency And pallid sick, blue in the face with sunken chest Breeds invitation to a potshot […]
Francesca (poem)
Francesca he came, with tablet and stylus, sketching her he took a seat… too near, at the fountain’s base and said, “do you care?” she drew her memobook and started a romance “don’t bend,” he said “your hair is covering your face” She wrote, Francesca met him on a Thursday Her giant […]
Gravity Hold the Moon (poem)
Gravity Hold the Moon Gravity hold the moon Being that we haven’t drowned ourselves We haven’t known If the shift and sway of a fatter sea Would jolt the center Miscalculate our science And cast you free We fly away with our celestial tin cup To learn whether some other moon […]
The Bull’s-Eye (poem)
The Bull’s-Eye They want only the small farmers and the clock punchers The men who know good fit and sound advice And the price of the American suit They want a morning of mail exchange and an afternoon of lunches The organization man who aims to be a profit to his […]
Is the raven a raven
Is the raven a raven Ravense in banishment a portion decreed in traveling provender gold from an inheritance drawn for horses, wagons, hired arms and all supplicants to the shrine lepers under command of the charismatic Ravense spurned favorite of the chief cloraven Now scourge left answering to a wandering […]
Cenotaph (poem)
Cenotaph The undertone and halftone of every shadow lead the eye astray Your bread has taken on a grey hue Your milk and eggs Your shirt and shoes Like clouds against the greyer backdrop of the grey sky Offset softly not too harshly Whatever the ground contains lives here indifferent […]
Thank You Not (poem)
Thank You Not As many times as they came round with the syringe Offering again―the words they used―relief from pain He had refused “Pain I can bear,” he told them “But I will always be here.” Escorted to his granddaughter’s arm She, peeling free magenta roses and her handbag’s strap glued […]
Petal and Perfume (poem)
Petal and Perfume At their tables, they waited She had made them see, by knotted strings That flared white, and danced, and left their Interweavings on the eye’s lens Against the contrast of brown limbs A bower of surpassing craft Decked in petal and perfume All that was prelude The trespasser […]
A Chatterbug’s Memoires
A Chatterbug’s Memoires Before self-anointing try a means test Have conference with the ash tree’s railing leaves The dying fighter not yet wholly girdled A corpse of heartwood chip by chip stripped clean Bad tidings brought by an agent of the bourse Make every act of treason underpay Chapters of a […]
Lionera Skimgold (poem)
Lionera Skimgold Lionera Skimgold had been almost a cavalier She had ankle-wedged herself with camelotish Leanings on the leap from Maid of the Chambers With blunt scissors cut into Eleanor of Aquitaine’s court And then her pointless tendency to make herself cozy Tripped her down to a town council One might […]