Doctrine (poem)

      Doctrine   They said there was a sage and revered man Who for his vows spoke never, but did chant The psalms, his mien aloft of earthly cares And soul among the blessed…this was known A bird of fields, he, counted it a break with God A deeper thing than ordinary sin […]

Who Owns This House (poem)

    Who Owns This House   This room, its walls are painted yellow They call it that, the Yellow Room The corner cabinet…no plane of it Quite fits, the hinges pull My dear, you smile, but I feel the cabinet matters And he will not have sold it It wishes to remain   Who […]

Yoharie (part seven)

Yoharie Valentine (part seven)               The manager’s name was Dawkins. They called him Donk, not clever, but somehow supernaturally right. Donk’s habit was to give Val the eye from hair to shoes… The rape-threatening eye. Val and Sasha liked using this term, laughing over it. Donk always said Valentine […]

The Totem-Maker (part eighteen)

The Totem-Maker Chapter Two Jealousy (part eighteen)                 We heard murmurs. Louder, from Nyma: “Everyone is wise in his own way, dear.” Someone else: “He will let his house to their cousins. Spare us if we don’t see hordes! Ah, Madla!” Lom and I looked at each other. […]

All Bedlam Courses Past (part eighty-four)

          All Bedlam Courses Past   Chapter Three An Object in Motion (part eighty-four)             It was at least an exercise to think of these things. From Mother’s perspective her panic must be a fit, a freak, it beggared reason. Élucide granted this, fair enough. A […]

My Blog Week: October 20 to November 5

All the Latest from Torsade!                                     Getting caught up! Here are two weeks’ worth of posts, plus two cartoons.            My Blog Week: October 20 to November 5     Wonderfully Made (poem) October […]

Switch (poem)

      Switch   your living was got by pleasing cats unthreading strings of thin cord and leather letting stains that mark deliberations dashed on places of established quality boundaries where the departed show no signs of rising, stains be left in service to an outreaching new dynamic where the human way, so faulty […]

nothing more (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 3 Nov 2023 in Art, Poems

      nothing more   the very recently departed has some status above corpse and lies untouched unparty to debate whether its last possessions be ruled loot or legacy whether it might be washed, then dressed then buried in situ, an oblong shallow mound under cypress branches in a field of asphodel   the […]

The Answer Is No Answer (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 2 Nov 2023 in Art, Poems

      The Answer is No Answer   9927 6996 3334 upstairs Milton the cold caller does better With notes in his own hand and a pin, a survivor’s pin To finger and his friend Chalmers Feels that he will never laugh Stop this silence, stop it now Animalist nations, their guns broken open […]

Catastrophe (part forty-nine)

Jean Hess La Catastrophe de la Martinique (part forty-nine)                               XXXII The Observations of the Pouyer-Quertier The exact unfolding of the phenomena     Now, the most precise observations, the best and clearest noted on the eruptions of Mount Pelée, and […]