The Decent Profession, second bit
It was damn hot in the cellar. The ceiling wasn’t low, but exposed pipes dripped condensation from the human mass crammed in below.
The Decent Profession, first bit
Sheffield was a city of blades. The knives and edges churned out of the manufactory guts and some went far. Crime lords in Singapore picked their fingernails with burnished Sheffield steel,
Untranslatables
It is one thing to read a foreign work
In a tongue foreign to its author
For in reading this one thing
One relies on the bother of another author
Who selects whether the original foreign author
Would rather have said ‘request’, ‘demand’, or ‘plead’
Should he have had English in his head.
It is another thing indeed
To need not this ill-fit “instead”
And hear the same rhythm and walk the same road
And breathe, and cadence-pause
In the same vein as it originally flowed.
Quiet.
There are days when you don’t feel like speaking
When the babble is deafening
And you refuse to add to the chatter
And your muteness stands out more
And people ask you what’s wrong
And the only thing that is
Is that you have to answer them.
Short fiction, poetry, and teasers of longer works.