Memories from the uncoiled exterior.
The ones with sharp familiar names
playing Gray Fern among
billowing tents and pool fires. Red wax
dripping
across upraised fingertips
in the mist season.
Don’t eat too much on a first date
and nothing messy – spaghetti’s definitely out.
(There’ll be time enough for mess later.)
Continue reading ““Instructions” a Poem by Sarah McPherson”
This is a poem dedicated to my witch girlfriend, who has been teaching me about witchcraft, history, and art ever since we met. It is a simplistic tale in commemoration of beautiful, cunning witches that disguise themselves as something–someone–more… and so these words can be imagined as the secret, invisible text across the gloss of a tarot card.
the lone raven in the warm forest turns into a bedside angel //with demon wings. & //this is nocturne academia //sheet music draped in dust & //little//lithe sparrow bones. someone hooks her wisteria-vine limbs //over my shoulders //whispers something about noxious selves & //falling stars. god, ye are terrible. //we //these veiled fawns so sweet & //cruel. fogged & misted //godly antlers sprouting from where we had bloodletted to coat pinky //fingers in post-sacrificial abel //we //the raw-mouthed cains //chests heaving & //tight white blouses //THIS is cruel//crude, abels melding with obsidian sadness //making promises with girls who speak //in ancient greek //EUASTEROS //sapphic blood pacts & //we try to bring sappho & aphrodite back to life to guide us //but we cannot.
Continue reading ““wisteria//wisp-eria” by Janice Kang”
Appreciate your marks of age
Light a candle for every new blemish mark or scar
Like a ring on a tree trunk it is a sign of defiance shown on your glorious trunk
Celebrate each mistake you make by wearing your favourite colour head to toe for the entire day
Know that you won’t do it again, or if you do you will be reassured that you won’t shatter next time you will still be you
Turn off the television, the computer, the phone
and anything else that might scream obscenities
at you as you take away their power.
Take the newspapers piled at your feet
and crumple them up.
The article about the little girl whose
body was found in a trash bag
on the side of the road,
the little girl who likes My Little Pony
and reminds you of your niece.
animal sacrifice food spells
they’d rather see you dead so die to them
pervasive undefinable dream
i too was fooled by the packaging
though aligned with ancient ways
animal sacrifice food spells
always the threat of him
dimmed my light
addiction like a cloud from above
such wretched things signified as love
Continue reading “Three Poems by Bobbi Lurie”
a bit of thread, black
tied tight around this
Hathorne1poppet who cares
not enough to know my
name, but removes me
from the world, all the same.
Continue reading ““A Hex On All Your Houses” A Poem by Juliette van der Molen”
Perestroika
you sing like him,
notes glittery, dragged,
made-up, maquillaged
– perfect face – like his,
fey gestures arching the air,
curving neck of the snow-falling
frozen air – twice kissed –
The the Crossroads go,
Eat apples and honey under swollen moon.
Listen to the drums,
Fumble in confused sexual liaison,
With your heart beat.
Stand. Ever so still, so all that moves you,
Are the Earth’s vibrations.
Continue reading ““To The Crossroads, Go” A Poem by HM Barrett”
Spider Magic
I have woven a web
around you, as if of gossamer
or blown bubble gum,
If anyone should force
their will upon you
it shall be strong
as steel though invisible
and fine to the touch.
Continue reading “Two Poems by Lucy Whitehead”
incantation no. 1 (banishing)
tangled up in the jewelry
dressed up in fabrics not worn
in years
all bought on credit &
paid off
in memory
(look at the curve of time –
the kitchen of the ship now spotless)
Continue reading ““emdemdaa (a hex in three parts)” and two hex images by Theodoros Chiotis”
A descent
in the price of dishwashers
A rise
in the striations
in the teeth
of child-skeletons
in a pit
beside the workhouse
There is so much we can learn
by how obediently a child
takes up this work
how its small jaw will unhinge
as it eats its way
out of the grave
Continue reading ““Leading Indicators” a poem by Joyelle McSweeney”
Venus:
You are well aware of how to procure an accurate prophecy. You’ve been doing it for years and this year is no different.
You cycle into outer space. It is a warm June night in England and a cold, unnamed never-time everywhere else in the universe. When you find the prophecy, it has been circling a distant sun for a millennia. It looks like gold and feels warm, the temperature of skin. You tuck it under your tongue and it tastes like raw egg yolk.
Continue reading ““Seven Women: Details of a Generational Curse” Fiction by M. R. Massey”
recipe for banishing
for J.M.
if you sense pernicious stirrings in your midst walk backwards until you arrive at a precipice overhanging the ocean jump up three times turning one hundred eighty degrees in the air so your left foot lands in your right foots print and vice versa vice versa vice versa then whisper your name thrice backwards while inhaling
Continue reading “Two Hybrid Poems for Breaking Spells by Rae Diamond”
When the wind blows fiercely, I crouch down low. The single cow in a field is a bad omen for everyone. A red-beaked bird is called a chough. Red-beaked birds are called oystercatchers. The toadstool has no name and is in the wrong season. There are seals on the beach and in the water.
You must walk where the earth is worn away. The blossom is pink and is in the wrong season. White birds with black-tipped wings are called gannets. He walks at the edge and you beg him. White birds with black-tipped wings never touch the earth. Some people don’t care what they are called. When a new calf watches you, your heart beats faster. When the wind blows hard you lie on the ground. When he walks at the edge you scream into the wind. A voice sounds like nobody’s voice. The telephone call is nobody you know.
Continue reading ““Magical Thinking” a Prose Poem by Camilla Bostock”“There are Some Things Only The Moon has Seen” is a hex to reverse the moon landing, which celebrates it’s 50th anniversary next month in July. In a realty where so much of the world’s resources have been wasted on a futile, militarized, and detestable race to colonize outer space, we believe those resources should have been used to further things like human rights causes and focusing on averting the climate disaster that our planet is heading into.
Continue reading ““There are Some Things Only The Moon has Seen” Video Poem by HyperVerses”
Sometimes you remove all those sheets,
rescue me- all wet, requiring
an emergency mouth to mouth.
Those are the days I give you all my pears,
all those things bothering me
and turning shiny with my blood.
Continue reading ““Hex” by Kushal Poddar”
Ask your mother to tell you a memory of her mother
Paint the scene of your mother’s memory
Take the painting of your mother’s memory and place it in an art gallery of your home town
Ask your father to tell you a memory of his mother
Paint the scene of your father’s memory
Burn the painting of your father’s memory
Image: jodielaurahex
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 