Torsade Literary Space 
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 […]
Are You Haunted (part twelve)
Are You Haunted (part twelve) “Think about it, Dennis,” he urged. “Guy has nothing to lose, does he? He’s the only one who knows what goes on out here. Suppose it’s storming, and he’d just as soon stay home? He gets paid anyway. He knows the […]
Story: Be a Helper (part four)
Be A Helper (part four) All these matters of a household, and the people in it, made difficulties for Bede. He had stuck to not having a servant, in the years following his mother’s death. It was his resolve that commanding a person stole one’s joy and […]
Are You Haunted (part eleven)
Are You Haunted (part eleven) He saw the tree he’d been watching for…the trunk looked dead, but a living branch clawed the sky, dripping pink flowers. Just here was the way up. He could see sunrays cut the missing mortar of the chimney bricks. “What are […]