Dead of Night Eyes
I pace inside the grip of the clock,
glide across darkening patches of linoleum,
hunting for murmurs of isolation
as disease sneaks around the edges of my sight.
I pierce the quiet, spear- like and devilish.
My pulse taps against the delicate canvass Continue reading “3 Poems by Susan Richardson”
They Caught Me Giving Them Food
they caught me giving them food so i had to stop doing it
some food which i knew they would find
otherwise it was the loudspeaker or something given me to read
they said we were the cause of war poverty hunger all their misfortunes Continue reading “2 Poems by Bobbi Lurie”
the names of swords
(something) has its own subtext
sleepingmind torturing wakingbody Continue reading “From ‘Notes on Not Sleeping’: Dream Catalogue III by Rachael de Moravia”
The First Talkie
Long hair was always the prettiest.
Select the star to supersede
what was your zodiac sign
select me to say I’m home now
home down in the woods in my pink and white dress
w/ the blue bear sewn on it. Continue reading “3 Poems by Jessie Janeshek”
[Ugly ground swell moss]
Ugly ground swell moss
finds you worth keeping
near Ugly ground swell moss knows
a face of you you cannot Ugly ground
swell moss wants you all to itself to cover
you until your surface area is its surface area Continue reading “2 Poems by Jacob Schepers”
black refraction beyond crucifix
will rail stretch surfaces’ sharp tensions?
grace-solid canal surfaces Continue reading “Stalker by Mark Goodwin”
[Attempt 1]
Climb through the window
so I can touch your hair.
We breathe into the space
between us so grass can spread
across it without alarming anyone. Continue reading “Tercets for Remembering a Dream by Jessica Beyer”
NoOne
So we [poet + reader] thought some badness was coming
to take away our dreams: leave us without light,
leave us with our darkness. We wanted to exhibit our
dreams even though dreams are archetypes + boring
and it is so invasive when we tell others they have made
cameo in our night-visions: this assures the other
we wish to possess them in a room their body cannot
enter. Continue reading “2 Poems by Candice Wuehle”
voices given to those undeserving I see needles in this tank of water and the reflection goes blind seeing me seeing me rather emptiness than a sign of disease
the world is the world is not what you see what we see comfort and defeat go together exploration is uncalled for experimentation is blasphemous dogmatic traps Continue reading “diagnosis by Darya Kulbashna”
Walking with the canal,
flurries of all who’ve been before,
my footsteps on theirs.
Going by.
Going on.
Two swans keep faith.
Mucky water clouds,
one inversion turns another, Continue reading “Going by by Kevin Jackson”
She fell in love with her specimen: took note of his
legs; one, a millimeter shorter than the other, lacked the
purity of hemispheric symmetry. His tiny simple eyes dilated
when the artificial light rays would refract off of the perfect Continue reading “Reintroduction to Anatomy by Elytron Frass”
HOW THE WIND HEELS YOU
Silence is the seed to grow my desire–silence and luck.
A large body of water shares clear clean glaze whispers
hydrogen bonding; its difficulty is holding stillness; that’s not
the fate God gave it. Lake Michigan’s azure nudity faces
forward, echoes difference and distances, says Eden. Continue reading “3 Poems by stephanie roberts”
Wetsuit
this wetsuit
is tight,
too tight
right up to
my neck
i am zipped up
His Body Retold
He abraded marble
Until he reached skin, inner than
Any thigh and equally muscular.
He plucked flowers off vines
And glued them with marrow
To stone slab as it becomes
Altar, ulterior
Motive for fiction and
Its facts: go in too Continue reading “2 Poems by Adam Strauss”
Basement Mother
You married such a sick woman
do you regret it now?
The way I’ve tortured us for years
the way I burned the house down – Continue reading “2 Poems by Elisabeth Horan”
Unless I identify myself, no one’s the wiser. I’m unclassified. What you see is all you never get , or less than you expect. Depending. Mutated, I am two countries with an unmediated border. Continue reading “Are We There Yet? by Joseph Schreiber”
(Photographs by Paul Cunningham)
THE WORD IS REFLECTED
there are many storefronts in this mall
and there are many reflections
there is drama there is something reflected
there are mirror columns in this mall
they are for the people they are for the looking
but there are no people in this mall
there is some drama in this mall
there are mirror columns in this mall
but there are no people in this mall
there is a proscenium stage in this mall
a former DEB retail chain store
there is a proscenium stage in this mall
a former DEB retail chain store
there is some drama in this mall
chains and masks and drama in this mall
there is drama there is something reflected
there is something reflected in this mall
but there are no people in this mall
there is something reflected in this mall
chains and masks and drama in this mall
but there are no people in this mall
WHO’S CHIRPING YER HAND?
(fashion reportage wallpaper theater)
Griselda
wants it
My mother always made her eyebrows on a Maybelline brow pencil
She rarely left the house without mascara Continue reading “Who’s Chirping Yer Hand? by Olivia Cronk”
FROM WHERE I FALL
bodies faxed into the earth
hold the ropes tied
to their empty bones. they pull the tails
of the constricted conscience
unwilling to rest with the new black worms.
imagine dry leaves rustling
violently in wet songs, they would
get blown here, not there, by the wounded wind. Continue reading “From Where I Fall by Bola Opaleke”
– What is the night?
– Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
I carry the knives
I’m twisted in white sheets
maggot woman
cocooned murder
your bad dreams conceived me
their sticky bodies
sliced the moon
cut her up
and my eyes ignited
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 