It would otherwise not have been the oaks
In their flat field of shadow
With neon stars between their arches
Blinking. Everyone was alive
Then, in their various guises, even as fewer
Of us feasted at the table, and the figures
Moving through burgundy rooms in
The film we remembered
Grew more gaunt and porous. Mostly
We dealt with languages Continue reading “Excavations #3 by James Pate”
1 —
Everything has a skin:
my parents’ sectional sofa had its plastic slipcover
that stuck to summer-thighs leaving deep, clammy crevasses
prunes that float to the top of the compote
boiled milk, roasted chicken
and what remained of me
________ pictorial, dégagé
________________________________accepting the flow
_________________________________________________________of
________________________________________________________________water on the wrist.
Dan. Danzel Washington. The Blue Danube. A dan of iniquity. The Great Fire of Londan. First dan black belt. Obi-Dan Kenobi. Javier Bardan. South Sudan. Dancing the dan-dan. Lapdan souchong. The bank of mum and dan. Muscle, bone and joint pain caused by mild dangue fever. Will.I.Dan. Danber Gascoigne. Underground, overground, wombling free, the Wombles of Wimbledan Common are we. Dan! Dan! Continue reading “Two poems by Aysar Ghassan”
Wash Up
Clean House
Sort life
Phone Dad
Smile for no reason
Run for no reason
Commit small act of treason
Question your beliefs
Believe your answers
Listen
Listen to your heart
Fall in love
Fall in the sea
Fall to your knees
Scream
Louder
Stop. Continue reading “List Poem: To Do by Hazel Warren”
Techno concertos
Hillbilly rave
Ardent pianism
Televisual monikers
We wait for no one
Red piano
White piano
Richter’s later years
Travelling Siberia
With Chopin etudes
With Prokofiev sonatas
John Cage, Nam June Paik
The Soho loft scene
Hip Hop on 2nd Street
ABCD Alphabet City
Rap jump blues Chattanooga
Choo-choo. Continue reading “With Nina Simone by Robert Frederic Kenter”
sallow and willow / apple trees / poplar / potato leaves / Duke of Argyll’s tea rose / honeysuckle, sweet tobacco plants and petunias / privet, lilac and ash / pine needles / bedstraw / grapevine, fuchsias, dock and antirrhinum / greater willow-herb or fireweed / flowers of bugle / flowers of valerian / birch and
alder / beech, oak and other trees Continue reading “Two poems by Anna Cathenka”
A Pre-Mature Excavation, 1994
Dirt and shovels. No. Bells. Who wants to know?
Dyke, They Called Her, 1995
Pale girl, shoulderbladed angel / angled wrong, hair shorn.
Me?, 2017
They call me Slick. Like the snick of a switchblade.
Choose Your Weapon, 2004
Knife. Or baseball bat.
Continue reading “Exhibition Labels from the Unreal Museum by Jessie Lynn McMains”
Speech always moves.
When a person speaks they drive lung fulls of air through disruptive muscles that vibrate the flowing air before it moves in an open space. Language on a page, however, is generally static.
Meaning, most people would have us read against the text rather than into it.
Because letters in English are only phonetic signifiers, which in no consistent way relate to their sounds, neither speech (an object in the all-being type of way) or the object to which they refer, written language actually doesn’t say a thing. Usually… Continue reading “Poetry Letters by Dan Dorman”
Girls names
Boys names
Girl-Boy names
Either names
Neither names
old
new names
names with themes.
Books/Film/Music
(Orlando/Carol/Franz)
References
Nouns
Colours
Trees
Seas
Cliffs
Woods
Birds:
Raoul
Raven
Rosamund
Lark. Continue reading “Dzieci Names (pron. jetski) by Emma Szh”
So I’m done.
With Racists,
Sexists,
Rapists,
Gorilla Killers,
Lion Hunters,
Meat Eaters,
Vegan Haters,
Hate in general,
Judgment of my love for meat,
Explaining why and what I eat,
With being fat,
Not being curvy enough,
Not being sexy enough, Continue reading “While You Were Away by Gathoni Mwaura”
Within James Knight’s cornucopia of texts, [Wonderland] road signs may come in handy—here we go:
Tear the pen,
to pen
this yet-seen draw
words cut across. Continue reading “The Dissection (aelindrome in ρ, the plastic number) by Anthony Etherin”
RUCKSACK
Continue reading “Before Faking Your Own Death… by Paul Case”
A list poem is a litany of lines
A list poem is the sum of all its starts
A list poem listens to itself
A list poem lines up in more than one line
A listing poem protects itself historically
A list poem is recursively defined
A list poem never forgets its shopping Continue reading “List Poem by Mike Ferguson”
First Miracle
A burning log fell through the air like a ship, a plank
fell onto a field of black and tinged it blue.
If the field is a meadow, count its little black hairs,
if the field is a flag, count its violent stars.
Renounce all forms of sex unless it’s with a landscape.
Second Miracle
A blue snow arrives in a meaningless landscape.
It isn’t snow, it is a cloud of letters. Bloodhounds
pursue the letters through the whitening fields.
To kill something, say its name. No new sentences,
a gunshot remarks from the edge of the forest.
Anna primal like ma, da, stretched & mirrored in a lake of unwise Homo sapiens
Beatrice in Italian, a tenderness, caressed
California long, narrow, the n a pass momentarily freezing paradise
Diego weight of lead, syllabic four-way stop, digging into earth, Ray Harryhausen tortoise
Ebenezer bless you
Francine 50s bouffant skirt, pink Aqua Net smile, a bitter grit
Giovanni vibrating toes Continue reading “Book of Names by J.A. Pak”
author’s description
“Je l’élève sur mes pensées,
Et je vois éclore au milieu
De la fuite du cristal bleu,
Les feuilles des douleurs passées.”
― Maurice Maeterlinck “Verre Ardent” from ‘Serres Chaudes’, 1889“I hold the glass to my thoughts
and see in that crystal labyrinth
the petals of old pain bloom
as if they were not things of the past…”
― Maurice Maeterlinck ‘Serres Chaudes’, 1889 / “Burning-Glass” from ‘Hothouses’ translated by Richard Howard
Continue reading “Serres Chaudes, a series of visual poetry by hiromi suzuki”
A world with no lists.
Nothing is catalogued or ranked.
One
Thing
Does
Not
Come
After.
Above,
Below
Another.
(The general public’s attitude to poetry is a bit like it is with taxes – they have a sense there is something good about it, yet they still try to avoid it)
Don’t get sent down. Don’t stand on picket lines.
Don’t listen to Beyoncé’s Lemonade.
Keep away from aftermaths. Don’t teach.
Don’t have children, don’t have children
that teach. Keep off that Internet. Don’t
watch regal celebrations, war centenaries,
or Presidential inaugurations. Good luck
with christenings, weddings & funerals.
Keep your head down on the underground,
doctor’s or hipster cafés. Avoid canal boats,
gardens, community centres & play areas
as well as newsagents’ notice boards.
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 