Mirages
A house is not a terrapin
or a sailboat
or a maelstrom
The sunstorm that swindles
at midweek
sycamore green embossed on the heart
like sequins or worlds
No (New) Man’s Land
His is
a life in fluid drawn,
pushed through
scar tissue, muscle yielding.
Pull. Plunge.
Inject. Extract.
New man by
needle-born in flush
of mid-life puberty,
bending forty
years of life.
Burying facts that
fail to fit.
A Childless Father Speaks to Himself
“Let us make man in our own image…”
Continue reading “Two Poems by Andres Rojas”
shame
it’s dark inside
which suits me
it hides my imperfections
the guilt upon my skin
the dread in my eyes
as they size me up
Femme Maison
You enter her through a tall, narrow doorway. This is impossible without an invitation. A hallway decorated
with red wallpaper welcomes you. In darker red: stems, leaves, stamens, petals. Voluptuous, monstrous
roses. You can hear a soprano singing upstairs. Once inside, you are free to roam at will.
sudden the homecoming
coyotes have learned to build traps
made of endings from the center of the earth
dressed as wolves they give them
to their loves who live in houses
with pink curtains and weather
warped floorboards
dictionaries and streaming services
Trump Tweeting About the Rain on his Parade
That boring storm is a has-been, a Zero.
It didn’t even register on the Richter scale.
Total harassment, if you ask me.
When was the last time it rained
Like that in July? Fake news,
Fake media!! Totally fake!
Besides, it’s not even my type of storm.
The rain was set up by Crooked Hillary.
It must have dementia like Old Joe.
It’s one of the dumbest, most disloyal
Storms ever. Total Loser!
No Collusion!! Traitor!
Don’t Tell Me I’m Quiet
All the lost Februarys, chewing the sour.
I knew you would arrive at my door.
After your ghosting, I dreamt you light
a match by striking my head—
Its All Greek to me
For B. D. M.
“The embrace of men”
I say
and you pirouette
behind the cash register
a new found bond at work
secrets
an old woman’s face with a schoolgirl’s smile,
your words on the page
mean nothing;
Continue reading “Secrets – A Poem by Lisa Reily”
Elephant Slide in the Exclusion Zone
After David McMillan’s photograph, Pripyat, Ukraine, October 2002.
To forgive
can sometimes mean to think
of them as a child: a wisped head
turned in a wheaten basket. Soft fists.
A bumblebee in a foxglove flower.
The Poem, Afraid
Some dog’s ghost
glares from the
attic window.
I know the door
to a nuclear plant
with his teeth
captioned above it:
Some mammal was
here and such.
When our youngest
walked in on us
last night,
I was coming.
She was scared
because she heard
someone crying.
I kiss the bruise
a bad dream leaves
in her head
& keep an eye
on the lonely ghost.
1. Decode
Decode:
Men awe, at that heathen spindle,
to see any machine’s ode.
Cater, Enigma:
I generate codes,
inch —
many ease, to lend pins heat;
heat that we name, decode….
Contrapuntal: In Which We Swallow Insects While Contemplating Environmental Apocalypse
Continue reading “Two Poems by Beth Gordon”
Instructions for the PERFECT Lie
Continue reading “Two Sets of Instructions by Elancharan Gunasekaran”
Piranhas
He was one of those people
those who talk
purely because they can
they are everywhere
especially, but not exclusively
at petrol stations
grocery shops
banks and beaches
and school gates
they love school gates
The Taste of Rage
Laden with hungry fingers and a thirst
for Jim Beam, you skulk through
murky nightclubs looking for a dimly lit
blonde to awaken in the middle of the night.
You eat up the thrill of drunken sex and
fuck in hotel rooms paid for in cash,
twisting beneath sheets stained with indiscretion.
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 