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The Buried Museums by Jeff Young

The Buried Museums

Holy Grail, hollowed bone, half buried in the dirt. Above the 
Brow God is moving his furniture, wardrobes of thunderclouds,
heavy     driving migraines into your skull

Within these hills there are buried museums. Gleaners,
looters, archaeologists scrape the dust, sift for clues. When
the rain comes flashfloods will turn this dirt to mud,
exposing doll’s prams, tin bathtubs, a mangled accordion wheezing

Boy on a stolen moped dragging it uphill towards the church   
cowboy swagger

I sit by the shrine of plastic flowers rolling a joint with
shaking fingers. A cracked Now That’s What I Call Music CD
hangs from a tree, a fetish token for the homeless woman
winter-death, grief-moon

Dig into the dirt with the heel of my boot remembering the Dog
King. Somewhere down there in an old tin can are his tethering
ropes, latch keys, can-opener, flick knife     cassettes of mad
muttering, dog-howl

In buried museums beneath these hills, your memories, earth-
weighted mad saint’s bone relics, nightmare archive.

Jeff Young is a Liverpool based writer for radio, theatre
& screen. His memoir ‘Ghost Town’ was shortlisted for the Costa
Prize and his second memoir, ‘Wild Twin’, tells of his years
hitching around Europe & living in Amsterdam squats.
Poet, performer, visual artist & broadcaster, collaborator
with artists & musicians, he is currently writing ‘Lucid Dreamer’,
an alternative history of Liverpool counterculture.
Bluesky http://@wildtwin.bsky.social

Foils by Daisy Lyle

I

Millet’s spring mind soared red and skittish as an over-angled kite; in summer it entered the usual back-stall, and by August it had dived low enough for him to have another go at his wrists. This year he made an especial hash of it; fumbling with the false-economy razorblades until he ended up cutting his palms as much as anything else.

Afterwards the ambulance dumped him in the aisle of the A&E, where he lay on the hindmost of a metal spine of gurneys down the building’s centreline. Up on the ceiling, a loose panel exposed a pecking wedge of darkness. He turned on his side; the wall’s blank surface, gouged and spilling brown and fibrous shreds, was in worse nick than his skin.

After the stitching they left him in a side room, alone but for the slurping, whistling breaths of someone on the other side of a curtain. Wires snaked around its pleats to a bleeping machine in his own half of the room. His eyes tracked the glowing plots on the monitor; six months after his firing from Aventrix he still couldn’t stop himself subjecting the signals to confused analysis: window functions, discrete transforms, then breakdown into smaller sub-transforms. Radix two, four, sixteen … When the dragonfly lights on the screen began to sting his eyes he gave up his calculations and pulled the bedsheet over his head. Seeking distraction from the thin fabric’s vinegar-and-dead-skin scent, he tried to think its crumpled underside into the hills and valleys of that Stevenson poem. The Pleasant Land of CounterCounter

“… pain?”

The syllable repeated, a chain of islands in a sea of blurred speech, and he realized the nurse had arrived, with a prompt to rate his suffering out of ten. He thought the gurney was creaking, some part of the rails extending on either side of him.

“N over two,” he mumbled, and it seemed to do.

II

In the morning they had him shower the intact parts of his body. Two quivering shoots of something like watercress poked from the cubicle drain. He hoped they were real; he couldn’t bear the idea of hallucinating such lumpen symbolism. Then he was ferried to a psychiatric hospital on the county border, where his mind banked gently into the institutional mist. He spent much of the next few days contemplating more bedlinen, the troughs and peaks of mountain ranges hugged in soft shadow relief.

He wasn’t so keen on the topography of his outspread hands. In recent months they’d thinned out, the newly slackened skin across their backs trumpeting the onset of real ageing. When he turned them over, the mess of his healing palms troubled him. The scabs didn’t quite match the cuts he remembered making, though his memory was a joke. They kept him well-drugged. Quetiapine, lorazepam. Sometimes in the depths of the night a sister came to shine the round white beam of a pen torch on his eyelids. If they fluttered open, hands offered a pellet of zopiclone, the shadows of uniformed arms beating slowly on the walls. Sometimes, as sleep took hold, his throat felt like there was much more than one pill in it, a smooth, hard, comforting clutch.

III

They began to let him out. First just the grounds, the café and shop, in low outbuildings that reminded him of the old airfield Portakabins. He sat nursing weak coffee, watching the wings of the main building extend into milky light, until one day he and some others were put on a minibus and taken to the nearby riverside park.

On the drive one of their escorts enthused about the new fitness parcours along the banks, with special bodybuilding rigs, Ninja wheels, a machine for chest presses.

“Most of that junk’s already out of order,” his roommate Whitlock confided as they got off the bus. “The screws fail, and they’re a special kind. The council can’t be bothered to replace them.”

They quickly passed the old visitor centre, a silent cube of glass covered in crude paintings of leaf and feather that couldn’t hide the underlying curls of dustsheet. The trail head was marked by a pocked information sign. Lodged in one of its bulges, between a badly-drawn muskrat and a peeling heron, was a cluster of tiny pale green balls.

“They’ve got the map here,” said Whitlock.

“I can see that.”

“No, I mean the map butterfly. Araschnia levana, or prorsa, depending on the season. Invasive species, but I’d still like to spot the bleeder. Never set eyes on the black summer form.”

Millet murmured a vague answer to stem the flood of nature facts. The scabs on his palms were itching like hell, much worse than the ones on his arms.

IV

They walked on. After a while he ceased to notice the rise and fall of human voices. To his left was a dazzle of light on winding reed-lined water; foliage encroached on his right. Alder and beech, bramble hordes and white bells of bindweed, parted only by the green metal curves of the fitnessmachines. On each of their instruction diagrams, the silhouette figure looked less like a person.

Finally the path made a swan-neck double bend, and he found himself in front of the most preposterous contraption yet. The paint on this one had almost entirely flaked off, exposing a tall structure of rust-brown metal crisscrossed with streaks of faded cream. It was studded with appendages, and a maze of gears, flanges and blades, culminating in something like a giant upturned wishbone. The sight of the two symmetrical handles fanning out on either side of a discoid seat prompted a distant memory of gym adverts, and then he saw the instruction diagram, with its caption:

BUTTERFLY MACHINE

At the sight of the wonky grid pattern running across the underside of the depicted creature’s wings, the scabs on his palms raged until something in him hatched. When he sat down and grabbed the handles above his head, he felt the fire in his hands drain out into the cold metal. Warming it. Informing it. Loading the chart of his scars into its central navigation system. The antennae slewed and thrummed; great metal wings unfolded with a shivering clang and began to beat, then it bore him into the air.

V

Sounds rose up from the riverbank, individual screams convolved into a single wavering keen, but he couldn’t have looked down if he’d wanted to. When the machine broke through the clouds, it dropped its payload of eggs. As they whistled towards the earth he let go of the handles and the craft itself fell away from him. He hung for a second in the air, hands whipped aloft, before each palm burst apart, discretizing again and again into clouds of tiny flitting things; after a moment his mind followed suit, merry black thoughts whirling up to the sun.

Daisy Lyle is an engineering translator & dark fantasy writer based in Normandie, France. Bluesky http://@novembergrau.bsky.social

SEPTEMBER 2025 Guest Editor Is Alexander Booth!!! THEME/S: LANDSCAPE // LABYRINTH

Burning House Press are excited to welcome Alexander Booth as the fourth BHP guest editor of our return series of special editions! As of today Alexander will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the month of September.

Submissions are open from today 1st September – and will remain open until 25TH SEPTEMBER.

Alexander’s theme/s for the month are as follows

—LANDSCAPE

LABYRINTH—

Black Square and Red Square by Kazmir Malevich

_____

LANDSCAPE // LABYRINTH

*

When the painter’s friends, however, looked around for the painter, they saw that he was gone—that he was in the picture. There, he followed the little path that led to the door, paused before it quite still, turned, smiled, and disappeared through the narrow opening. 

–        Walter Benjamin, Berlin Childhood around 1900 (trans. Howard Eiland)

*

Each one of us, then, should speak of his roads, his crossroads, his roadside benches; each one of us should make a surveyor’s map of his lost fields and meadows. 

           Gaston Bachelard (trans. Maria Jolas)

*

“Though Minos blocks escape by land or water,”

Daedalus said, “surely the sky is open,

And that’s the way we’ll go. Minos’ dominion

Does not include the air.”

–        Ovid, Metamorphosis (trans. Rolfe Humphries)

_____

Alexander Booth is a poet, translator, collage artist and printmaker who lives in Berlin. Recent translations include books by Friederike Mayröcker, Alexander Kluge, Gerhard Rühm, and a new translation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. His collection of poems Triptych was published in 2021 and Kantor in 2023.

__________

Submission Guidelines

All submissions should be sent as attachments to guesteditorbhp@gmail.com

Please state the theme and form of your submission in the subject of the email. For example: LANDSCAPE/POETRY Or LABYRINTH/FICTION

Poetry and Fiction

For poetry submissions, submit no more than three of your best poems. Short stories should be limited to 1,500 words or (preferably) less. We encourage flash fiction submissions, no more than three at a time. Send these in as a .doc or .docx file, along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.

Art
Submit hi-res images of your works (drawings, paintings, illustrations, collages, photography, etc) with descriptions of the work (Title, Year, Medium, etc) in the body of the email. Files should be in .JPEG unless they are GIFs or videos, and should not exceed 2MB in size for each work. File names should correspond with the work titles. Video submissions can be uploaded onto Youtube or Vimeo for feature on our website. Send these submissions along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.

Virtual Reality/ 3D Artworks

For VR Submissions, please submit no more than three (3) individual artworks. For Tilt Brush works, please upload your artwork to Google Poly (https://poly.google.com/), and mark it as ‘public’ (‘remixable’ is at your own preference). A VR/3D artwork can also be submitted as a video export navigating through the artwork. If you prefer this method, please upload your finished video file to YouTube or Vimeo and provide a URL. With either format, please provide a 150 word artist’s statement.

Non-fiction
Non-fiction submissions (essays, reviews, commentary, interviews, etc) should be no more than 1, 500 words and sent as a .doc or .docx file along with your third-person bio/and optional photograph.

Submissions are open until 25th SEPTEMBER – and will reopen again on 1st OCTOBER 2025/for new theme/new editor/s.

BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing Alexander Booth – friends, arsonistas, send our SEPTEMBER 2025 guest editor your magic!

“geese overhead cheering you on” by Line Ford

Continue reading ““geese overhead cheering you on” by Line Ford”

AUGUST 2025 Guest Editor Is stephanie roberts!!! THEME: Better Than It Looks

Burning House Press are excited to welcome stephanie roberts as the third BHP guest editor of our return series of special editions! As of today stephanie will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the month of AUGUST.

Submissions are open from today 1st August – and will remain open until 25TH AUGUST.

stephanie’s theme for the month is as follows

—BETTER THAN IT LOOKS—

________

stephanie roberts is the prize-winning, Canadian author of the poetry collection UNMET (Biblioasis Books, April 2025). The poet Lisa Russ Spaar, writing for the Adroit Review, said, “One emerges from the agile linguistic theatrics of this book [UNMET] feeling requited, met, seen, and inspired—a sensation that moves from writer to reader. From daring to darling.” Her debut collection rushes from the river disappointment (McGill-Queen’s University Press, May 2020) was an A.M. Klein Poetry Prize finalist. Widely featured in periodicals and anthologies in the U.S., Canada, and Europe such as Poetry Magazine, Atlanta Review, Event Magazine, New York Quarterly Books, Verse Daily, Crannóg (Ireland), and The Stockholm Review of Literature, she is the winner of The Sixty-Four: Best Poets of 2018 (Black Mountain Press). www.oceansandfire.com

stephanie roberts lives in Beauharnois Québec. The author of UNMET (Biblioasis Books, April 2025) and rushes from the river disappointment (MQUP, 2020) an A.M. Klein Poetry Prize finalist, she is a 2025 Canada Council for the Arts grant recipient and the winner of The Sixty-Four: Best Poets of 2018 (Black Mountain Press). www.oceansandfire.com

stephanie

linktr.ee/ringtales

__________

Submission Guidelines

All submissions should be sent as attachments to guesteditorbhp@gmail.com

Please state the theme and form of your submission in the subject of the email. For example: BETTER THAN IT LOOKS/POETRY

Poetry and Fiction

For poetry submissions, submit no more than three of your best poems. Short stories should be limited to 1,500 words or (preferably) less. We encourage flash fiction submissions, no more than three at a time. Send these in as a .doc or .docx file, along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.

Art
Submit hi-res images of your works (drawings, paintings, illustrations, collages, photography, etc) with descriptions of the work (Title, Year, Medium, etc) in the body of the email. Files should be in .JPEG unless they are GIFs or videos, and should not exceed 2MB in size for each work. File names should correspond with the work titles. Video submissions can be uploaded onto Youtube or Vimeo for feature on our website. Send these submissions along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.

Virtual Reality/ 3D Artworks

For VR Submissions, please submit no more than three (3) individual artworks. For Tilt Brush works, please upload your artwork to Google Poly (https://poly.google.com/), and mark it as ‘public’ (‘remixable’ is at your own preference). A VR/3D artwork can also be submitted as a video export navigating through the artwork. If you prefer this method, please upload your finished video file to YouTube or Vimeo and provide a URL. With either format, please provide a 150 word artist’s statement.

Non-fiction
Non-fiction submissions (essays, reviews, commentary, interviews, etc) should be no more than 1, 500 words and sent as a .doc or .docx file along with your third-person bio/and optional photograph.

Submissions are open until 25th AUGUST – and will reopen again on 1st SEPTEMBER 2025/for new theme/new editor/s.

BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing stephanie roberts– friends, arsonistas, send our AUGUST 2025 guest editor your magic!

JULY 2025 Guest Editor Is M. Forajter!!! THEME: ART & ANNIHILATION: contemporary gothic writing in the Anthropocene

Burning House Press are excited to welcome M. FORAJTER as the second BHP guest editor of our return series of special editions! As of today M. will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the month of JULY.

Submissions are open from today – and will remain open until 25TH JULY.

M.’s theme for the month is as follows

—ART & ANNIHILATION: contemporary gothic writing in the Anthropocene—

ART & ANNIHILATION: contemporary gothic writing in the Anthropocene

“The energy of the poem penetrates and re-penetrates the rotting native land with ghosts, junk, corpses, skin, denigrating terms, and denigrated materials in order to engender a counternativity, an occult rebirth as ghostly reanimation. In this way the poet incestually forces his own rebirth, not as a liberated man but as a kind of infernal, spectral double, a production of the text: “And behold here I am!” -Joyelle McSweeney, The Necropastoral: Poetry, Media, Occults

BRAND NEW CHERRY FLAVOR! + microplastics + dandelion +  flawed pearl + fruit punch + The Relic + baroque + “when does a meadow stop being a meadow” + jackalope + bowl of teeth + i am sad, so sad + a ceaseless keening + still skeptical + lilac + Lizzie Borden took an axe + Joan of Arc : : Gilles De Rais + “search at the dump concluded today with” + tiger pelts + je me lance + the biologist + dense + decadent + nonpotable + “ob-scene[…] their filthy beauty” + disposable + “the pastoral, like the occult, has always been a fraud” + heavy water + contamination readouts + bonsai tree + shotgun +  “no conclusive evidence of substantial impact on wildlife” +  wild boar + many wolves + pine + “life finds a way!” + slight asymmetric measurements + “don’t drink milk or eat tomatoes” + MELODY,   GLOUCESTER + sunflower  remediation +  fortitude + end of the world + gross body + ecological anxiety +  HUMANS,         HUMANS,         HUMANS.

Contemporary ecological concerns are often countered with talk about environmental justice.  What does justice mean to a corpse? I’ve read too many books where hapless environmentalist do-gooders try to sell me the silver lining in mass extinction and planetary collapse. Some people are very excited about the possibilities in fungus. Some people are vegetarians. Some people make art. Autoerotic asphyxiation takes many forms.

Send me decadent poetry peddling vegetal, venial filth; fiction that is more sensation than sense; writing with mutated romantic hearts; visual art both florid and tortured. Send me your most purple perfume reviews & pimple pops, your psycho killer love letters, your apocalypse day planner. Tell me what credit cards you ate for lunch yesterday; your most recent sperm count. I want a lush gothic novel written by a half-imploded billionaire at the bottom of the sea; I want Melancholia & Flannery O’Connor & Lara Glenum & Only Lovers Left Alive.

Good luck.

____________

M. Forajter is the author of Interrogating the Eye (Schism Neurotics, 2022), a poetry-essay on the poetics of looking/the gaze and the ecstasy of art making. Her work focuses on experimental poetics, the gothic, and the effects of the Anthropocene on non-human ecology. She really likes Nirvana, werewolves, and medieval art.

__________

Submission Guidelines

All submissions should be sent as attachments to guesteditorbhp@gmail.com

Please state the theme and form of your submission in the subject of the email. For example: ART & ANNIHILATION/POETRY

Poetry and Fiction

For poetry submissions, submit no more than three of your best poems. Short stories should be limited to 1,500 words or (preferably) less. We encourage flash fiction submissions, no more than three at a time. Send these in as a .doc or .docx file, along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.

Art
Submit hi-res images of your works (drawings, paintings, illustrations, collages, photography, etc) with descriptions of the work (Title, Year, Medium, etc) in the body of the email. Files should be in .JPEG unless they are GIFs or videos, and should not exceed 2MB in size for each work. File names should correspond with the work titles. Video submissions can be uploaded onto Youtube or Vimeo for feature on our website. Send these submissions along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.

Virtual Reality/ 3D Artworks

For VR Submissions, please submit no more than three (3) individual artworks. For Tilt Brush works, please upload your artwork to Google Poly (https://poly.google.com/), and mark it as ‘public’ (‘remixable’ is at your own preference). A VR/3D artwork can also be submitted as a video export navigating through the artwork. If you prefer this method, please upload your finished video file to YouTube or Vimeo and provide a URL. With either format, please provide a 150 word artist’s statement.

Non-fiction
Non-fiction submissions (essays, reviews, commentary, interviews, etc) should be no more than 1, 500 words and sent as a .doc or .docx file along with your third-person bio/and optional photograph.

Submissions are open until 25th JULY – and will reopen again on 1st AUGUST 2025/for new theme/new editor/s.

BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing M. FORAJTER– friends, arsonistas, send our JULY 2025 guest editor your magic!

EXPULSION by David C. Porter

He had taken the food and he had eaten it and the food had come into him and he had
eaten it and it had been in him and it was in him and he was eating it and the food was in
him and he was eating it and the food was eaten and it was in him and he was eating it
and the food was inside him and it was entering him and it churned and it was inside him
and he could not expel it and he was eating the food and the food was churning and it was
inside him and was churning and was inside him and he had eaten it and he was eating it
and it was inside him and it had come inside him was coming into him and was churning
it was turning over and it was inside him and he was nauseous and he was eating the food
and he had eaten the food and the food was inside him and it was turning over and he was
nauseous and he could not vomit and it was inside him turning the food was churning and
it was inside him he could not vomit and he was nauseous he was eating he had eaten it
was turning over and he had eaten the food it was inside him it churned it was churning
and he could not vomit he could not expel it the food was inside him he was eating the
food he could not expel it he was nauseous and he could not expel it and it was churning
the food was inside him and it had come inside him and it was turning he could not vomit
he could not expel it was inside him and he could not vomit the food was turning he was
eating the food it was churning it was turning over inside him he could not expel it he
was being changed it was inside him it was changing him he could not vomit he was
being changed he could not expel the change the vomit the food he was eating was inside
him it was becoming inside him and it was entering him and it was changing he was
being changed the food was inside him churning and he was eating the food and the food
was inside him and he could not expel it he was eating the food and could not vomit he
was nauseous and was eating the food and the food was inside him and it was nauseous
the food was turning over and he was changing he was nauseous he could not expel it he
could not vomit he was changing the food was entering him he was nauseous he saw at
the edge of his vision he was eating the food and the food was inside him it was turning
and he was nauseous he saw at the edge of his vision he could not expel it he had eaten it
he was nauseous he could not vomit he was eating the food and the food was inside him
at the edge of his vision he was nauseous he was changing and at the edge of his vision
he saw and he was eating he had eaten the food was coming into him inside him it was
turning it was changing him the food he had taken he saw at the edge of his vision a frail
horse standing with its hooves sinking into the dirt and its ribs standing through its flank
and symbols carved into them he was eating he had eaten could not vomit he was
nauseous he could not vomit he had taken the food he had eaten and he was eating it he
could not expel it it would not come up out of him the horse looked at him and he could
not look away he was changing he could not vomit he was eating the food he had eaten
the food the food was inside him and was turning he could not look away he was
changing he was nauseous he could not expel it he was changed.

3 POEMS by Sean G. Meggeson

junk  x (i)

pistol weep   mask sky   pond trap
humble circle x   pinstripe rage laugh height
prophet po et c   tea leaves   v j t
teen Gram sci scram rhino   r t spec
cram bet  brew knock push
drum gin tin-tin junk   hybrid rank
shift    zip bull   t s c un
bucket queen   Wm. leg broke   hole up
William v. bloke   scrub face   bleat pad
empty of   bruise to   collide thru depend with
contract against misuse   urine crop   abjection
villa top hat   plate criminal nuke   m p b n p d  j code
ointment c a   rain turf   ember flag   Eton & Scrib
sub silent taste   small part   baby sun   sub edge tack
vase post L orca   multi ash   H art ash
add little little   v t j j j   v t x   88 j
meal rests   wall wakes   trail   cat foam
lead term ology   kip descent   com   partment rabbit
restriction   dummy round   peanut stuck

junk x   river (ii)

Penn Station gin bath k id
spirit world drive thru
Taito toleration J ack Žiž ick
eye-contact gin attaché
lap dog pro ject
sick pup back
black and white French
lost laugh
cavity tent   d r d wad
attachment vege table popper
memoir grain wrestler
failed ski toss scape
injury lone   flame night

junk x   88 (iii)

wye thinks middle main   face gin washes ouster   summer commits 88/89
bliss ginny stink   pain act account  island hug hidden  pot cactus atrophy
dilute network   trojan tick 88 casement
char unto Stein Steiner   stainless balcony wave
Mastroianni   Nico letters   Nebraska flood prophecy 1888
utopian frogger   Olivetti Linea 98   Garrard turntable penetrate
expletive adumbrates tweed alien nomenclature   Adriano
Florida sand hot belly   pelican feeds boxers front tight
guava juice Pausanias   condo kid (k)hit gold
cash god sleeps court sneakers   new hour crack questions bent
enamel nails diploma masks   seriatim maple   1928 causeway 8
head to hand crème de la crème   shard throated crust commodity
ping pong Dunlop   Perry men   adult cold
Fußballplatz purity tree bark   right phase zeal pays 8 dough port
Finnish gin quiescence presentation plate   TV 1974/78/88 sub
summer mech little little gin bottle   new intro derma
kite paper ketch sun note   holds homo nucleus peck
dog jacket walk 8   truck pocket 8   tablet 8 extra function
coop sign vitamin Paso Doble   patch 225 mg   Du Fu lake fleck
gin rock meditation manoeuvre   Berlin drifter nose never better
love luck lint roller finger volt   croissant house offers 88 hour
B&L&L ack object unto object   copy 8 hope hum

TRUTH (IN A BUS STOP) by Mark Bolsover

Please click pdf below to view

BHP READING SERIES VOL:1 THE INANIMISM EDITION

Join us for the first in our series of readings – each session will be aligned with each new guest edited edition and theme.

Saturday 28th June

5pm – 6.30pm BST UK TIME

via zoom (details below)

______

Housekeeping:

The BHP readings series is open to the many unforeseen possibilities arising from the convening of individuals in an online space – but we also have some stated intentions for the reading series:

The readings are an opportunity for those in attendance to engage with the guest-editor’s chosen monthly theme, and the work generated for the month’s edition.

It is an opportunity not only to hear the work read live – but also to engage with the pieces through conversation and communication.

The readings are open to all.

The readings are free to attend.

The group and hosts will manage the time on the day of each reading (90mins).

The readings are an opportunity to gather in an environment where listener is of equal weight to speaker (one sound ear is worth a million egotist readers).

We do not believe in the binary of ‘performer’ and ‘audience’ more in the belief in all in attendance as being in communication and conversation (and all as conduits of the word – poetry.)

Mutual respect for one another and the purpose of the gathering or we will have to say goodbye 👋 

____

Meeting/Zoom details:

Miggy BHP is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Saturday 28th June

5pm – 6.30pm BST UK TIME

Topic: BHP READING SERIES INANIMISM EDITION

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/2531522925?pwd=27SN5o80k48TmKNmkqlkV8il8WKuGX.1

Meeting ID: 253 152 2925

Passcode: Fmi8Dw

FLEMMENUP by Mike Kleine

Please click pdf below to view!

3 WORKS by P.D. Edgar

CLICK BELOW FOR ACCESS TO VISUAL WORKS IN PDF FORMAT

JUUL PODS/FURRIES by Judson Hamilton

1.

Embrace this microlife of yours. Winter has finally lifted its embargo on verve and fun.
And the sun has freed us from our death circuits. Snapped like a motherboard over a
skinny knee. We’re out of our domiciled existence and mingling again. And what we
thought was just a phantom pregnancy has turned out to be all too real. Fragrances
long forgotten will burn the nostrils. A Jugendstil frau. A Jugendstil frau waves. A
Jugendstil frau waves her soft wand over this scene, and we are suddenly awash in
fragrance. “Historic rates of vaping” they are calling it, and it is just the first fiscal
quarter! “There is much to be learned from this data set. There is much to be gleaned
here.” One thing is for sure – domesticity is on the chopping block. Digital platforms
replete with echoes. A play performed to an empty house. Every step in the fade is
beautiful. The user testing is in. The personas taped to the wall flutter in the breeze.
Scores of misogynists are lined up beneath the cherry trees for the culling. All boner
pills & bone broth are priced to move. Finely calibrated machines have marked you as a
power user. JUUL pods litter the streets at dusk. Streaming is dreaming. We’ve finally
found our groove and the elation is real. Sundowning as a guiding framework. Bulbous
faces swim up from the gloom animated and spooked. Familiarity is a breeding tactic.
Suddenly we are awash in fragrance, and it all starts coming back to us. The open pit is
steaming with body heat. We lay phablets with the browser history of loved ones along
the rim. GhostBots™ haunt this place. Adjudicate yourself. You gotta love this microlife
of yours. Every step in the fade is beautiful.

2.

Let’s gush positive for a change. Take charge of this charm offensive and start glad-
handing with the best of them. The ballroom is filled with ballooning egos and sharp
teeth. From the window a line is forming beneath the fuchsia of the cherry trees.
Fragrances long forgotten will burn the nostrils. Petabytes of grief. The personas flutter
in the breeze. Several elderly statesmen in attendance. Blood boys in tow. IV-leashed.
They make the rounds. They get around. Glad-handing with the best of them. “Your
extrajudicial extradition has been expediated.” Dark patterns are forming against your
will. Your luck ambassador waves gleefully from across the room. He’s here to soften
your mind. A state of continuous productivity is desirable. “What an extraordinary
rendition,” they marvel. Champagne towers golden. “You might like to know that you’re
exempt from your extrajudicial extradition.” “Pardon, me?!” Champagne towers golden.
watermelon vape clouds Hors d’oeuvres make the rounds. Canapés. From the open
windows instructive bull-horning can be heard. Starlings screech at sundown. The
culling begins and the fragrance burns the nostrils. “Gotta come up with a suitable
ingestion framework.”

3.

The furries are streaking again. The blvds are choked with dander. This is the choicest
of choice architecture. Mood disorders pegged to a wildly fluctuating index. They say,
honor killings are back on the menu – whether we like it or not. It pangs my pericardium
to hear this. The personas taped to the wall flutter in the breeze. The hard-pressed need
a win. Valid crash-outs will now be enshrined in the law. Glazin’ this soiree like a boss.
The air is agitated with influencers and bad actors. People slicking their hair back
looking to make a name for themselves. The air is cloudy, milky-white with lassitude
.Epic amounts of screen time. Streaming is dreaming. “Get your fursonas here! Fur-so-
NAs! Fur-so-NAs here!” Out here? Late at night? Exhausted citizens line up. Over by
the old castle wall. They take turns running, throwing themselves against the electric
fence. They do it over and over and over. in a circle now, clapping, chanting “Pop &
Lock! Pop & Lock!” Faces smashed up against the fence. Seared hexagons. My face is
falling. My face has fallen – I can’t get up. My face has fallen – I can’t look up.

2 POEMS by Kenneth M Cale

Dig Yr Own Hole

Tomorrow’s False Memories

3 POEMS by Simon Ravenscroft

Dry Chaconne

the air was parched                the earth in drought                   when you left me
thinking of Lorca                the desire of the rain            remembrance
of the earth          the smooth earth when it rains               has a scent
as you did           when you came to me                     in splinters
a weight of longing          a turning wheel                straining the fibres
of your countenance             blurred visions              flecks of silvering light
the smallest gestures of your eyes         arabesque, interlacing
rhythmic in the shimmering air            shivers of electric blue
a tapestry of shadow              layers of ice melting
the rain falling            the desire of the rain               a memory
of the earth              in Lorca shards falling
splinters of rain               the dry earth around me
our ritual gestures                  fragility of longing                       the suffering
of the rain                    in the chasms of your eyes                    an infinite waiting
for the simplest things                  infinite light                       infinite heat
a daze of deep yellow                     layers of ice melting
a tapestry of shadow                            the unsparing earth
the rain in Lorca                    the fibres of your eyes
all the fevers of the seas

as you wish

line bright with horizon
golden residues of day


α        hours of the dwindling warmth
β          warmth of the dwindling hours
γ         dwindling warmth of the hours


dwindling sadness of the river
shoreline bright with stone
glistening time under starry moonlight
now quiet, all is becoming

Delta Oscillations

iterate

calm stream of aporetic present
oblivion of sleep
dreams grow more lively after dawn
close your peepers

reiterate

brief moments of gloss contentment
needs of obsidian
sleep will wash you with slow waves
night will keep us

INTERLUDE by Max Restaino

The roadside is lined with old dead men, dessicated limbs splayed to the sky
and soil past their noses. Black clouds split open and spray themselves at the
world. Clots of bioluminescent gore bounce off the frozen mud.

These walls and windows come
and go, drifting out of sight
between long blinks. There are
morning where my ceiling is the
sky, singing with wind and the
ghost of an old train whistle,
desolate moan stretched along

Stains hiding in the fold where heaven is supposed to be.

The white dome bubbling off the bottom-front of my face like a blister ready to
puke itself into the open air. Bile that rolls across the ceiling and drips

off the
top of the doorjamb. Sick light swims through the glisten.

The waves lapping the shore erode the world, ocean spilling over the stems rooting
this place to the dirt.

Throbbing gray whole, wet and concave, lip bejeweled in a half-crescent of calcific
protrusions. A well of nothing, parturient with a small pink lump, goosefleshed
sinuous oyster. A tale distilled to its base, retching that whispers a cold window down
the empty hallway.

I fall, blind, uncapped, spilling over the walls, absorbed into the porous
labyrinth of hallways and boxes; a brick tower blooming upside down—a
stalactite on the sky—waves of grey reflected on the bottom of clouds—slow
red lightning that cracks the surface of the ocean like shattering glass.

Overhead is the choppy surface of the sea. The remnants of shipwrecks and
oil rigs paint the horizon like a hanged city skyline. Below, roiling grey clouds
and long rolls of thunder. Shadows that could be the backs of ancient

leviathan that carved that great valley in the world and in time.

The moment loops in the porous mortar disintegrating between the bricks—boxes of different lives glued together—a scream upon deaf ears—radios playing in empty rooms—whispering a breeze of static electricity down the hallway.

The gun is in the drawer of my desk. The bubble of infection in the earth splits and wafts a blizzard of
sporous disease into the campsite. Noxious fumes stir the fire into a frenzy that scorches the detritus on
the ground. Bodies thrown together as the ground tilts—flesh melding on contact—a pile of thrashing
limbs and gnashing maws and rolling eyes—dissociated personalities—memories smashed to a
paste—mixed together—smeared across the underside of the forest canopy—catching
evaporation—raining grey mildew onto the red brick ruins.

*

The film grain captured in the still image wraps around me like a mesh of static electricity—picked apart by nervous nails snapping at my skin like pins and needles—blood flowing home, passing heat to their tunnels—exploding from the iron ring at the end of the barrel—pale mollusks that splatter underfoot.

The forest will be shorn away. Nowhere left to hide but under the soil. Trees sent
down river, blanched like the heaped corpses of death camp victims—algae flowing
along the rivers surface, shredded by currents—foaming white rapids—on the living
room floor vomiting—collecting bricks from the ruined building—slashing my wrists
in a bathtub—swallowing a fistful of Xanax.

We exist in footsteps. Shadows rippling like water. Colorless light caught in your
eyes. A storm brewing between stones. Hunting whispers in the mortar. Wet red
dripping from the fingers on your cross-brace.

Flakes of memory drift past the backs of my eyes. The world is born in pale gray light. Shadows bloom from the horizon. Candlelight quivering against the darkness like oil in water.

Your skin doesn’t fit right and there are too many teeth in your mouth.

Moving white specks like storm-blown snow swirl in the air over his head. He doesn’t
look up from the page that is filling with ink. Black lines bleed as they cross and wave
and fall over the paper. Flakes getting caught in his gore matted hair.

I’m still breathing in the spaces you can’t see.

excerpt from STREAMBED by Marty Cain

the privatized body’s softest eye

scavenged, sparrow dangled by

the nerve, the chick’s maws open mewling

for new food, solar filter, through

the wing, the algae blooms from the eye

in the body’s center, that is the eye

the beak open, a skinless grape drains

white juice, garments luxuriate by

the water, the denim stained with black fluid

crusted, rivets rusting, the Space Jam t-shirt

growing moss & a weed protrudes thru the martian’s eye

the churning stream, the pinholes of light shot

from the belt buckle, run on, broken-in

leather, the trees surrounding the streambed

drained of sap, money, husk & beak-

shaped holes, wet bark plugged with semen

leaking semen, onto the nest, full of semen, tapped

for syrup over a fire, beyond the driveway’s meadow

flames dance around human bodies

in May, the native plywood bearing pagan text

layers that splinter, the body’s chest made

a goblet, made bread by a razorback, who split it open, having fallen in

/              /              /              /              /             

& digested it, the body

fertilizes poems, foments clouds shaped

like headless birds, teeth, baby hairs atop the feet

singed, when leaping fire, the stream-

bed where the body rotted, made into

earthly vein, fleshy vehicle of white

fish & spider eggs, water glowing from

runoff, like earth’s violin, from the riesling farm

the server hold, the stonewort absorbs minerals

& lawn clippings & regenerates as a carpet

in the burning body’s dugout skull

from the crystal socket, to the stream, from

the socket, to the stream, from

the space between nothing &

the pornographic cable splitting

history into scavenged wire, the VHS brain

inside the drone viewing a home video

of golden straw, little league, newborn

baby crying suckling a finger

the gleam of latex & disinfectant

in the hospital, hallway serotonin

consciousness emanating beneath

the door, of the birthing scene

the screaming partner drinking blue

Powerade eating Goldish or wallpaper

separating the bodies giving

birth, and paying money, and giving

birth, and paying money, and giving now the drone zeroes in

/              /              /              /              /              /

on the body splayed

w/ eggsac protruding, the gown bloomed

& flowered open into unidentifiable metal

implement entering flesh, to dig a strand

a pulsating rice-sized worm on a platter

the body mined, is a tungsten plug, is not

mine, is a made place of conflict

minerals evacuated of discernible

meaning, the drone monetizes the garden’s

medical history & treasured tomatoes

& ribbons of light when you’re

five years old & the stream of summer

goes on & on, forever, the frogs of pleasure

forever the blackberries, the Lego worm

the bonfire spitting out evening bled

from mechanized walls

from the drone’s motor, the drone skitters

the arboreal gap, the T-shaped

body, the drone whispers code

made by machines made from faraway

human words

/              /              /              /              /              /              /

the drone motors, sees

absorbs flensing silhouettes, magic seeds

for pollen in pollen, for pollen

print heat, print cross-section of body

shocked into present language that

obeys, planetary circle, the body emitting

gas visible in thermal vision, to the drone

which records eye color & space between

eyelashes & the length of the gash from the collar-

bone to the ribs, morphs phenomena into images

into numerical data, into algorithms that deter-

mine probability of full eventual decomposition

to model a viable claim, per the subscription

plan, the bank, the speculative purchase

of ghost kitchen real estate with specters

leaking from windows

/              /              /              /              /              /              /              /

and as the body’s

exterior is absorbed its cosmic fluids

stew & release smells that translate

into musty sound, the body dreams of eating

an ice cream bar in a field in the sun

by the gas station, by the interstate

with spiritual sewage humming

& grass turns forest, reality molds

to spectral scale of moving time

the Rolling Rock bottle half-buried

in dirt, calcifying into sand

or loam, for slag of heaven or crystal heap

the circle dead, but still comes up

as clover, buttercup leaves, reflects

the body, is eaten, by skimmers

on the water, which keeps churning

having by accident, fallen in

HOUSE SHOW ON GREENMOUNT PERMUTATED BY GROUPS OF 4 AND 5 LETTERS ALTERNATING, AND THEN 5 AND 6, AND THEN 6 AND 7, AND SO ON by John Crawford

yhet ferew hrwo stita torw atoth alyl ndcon iitd snleo blys noker opfu ilowl hgtn nthie twig rtheh ocoa tandn ymmo lgirs erif tdbun yhet decid odfr toldr smei takes tgeo nerah apld arity agrs iuatd anpo ttyar mlis cplas opre bonob ucae oenos nean rwhey shae mneya yneo

this suckf tasl dtans rngo oenme cntu nmeso otto glono efta uther rfon tunat tbue ufcoo iser tevin ebla iassp fgon iigtb oejm rnbah hhwt eseto rpem tmena ofni kwort osmi ndoin rpis ntioa etho cinol rtpu nntoi tusb srbue sert dassb fumr smoua iyml tquos hste ehome nowt reroh tace oonti atha tysen offo smlar tans tinsl ttui ronpi steo tsatt neuh sveri otyi fbuff aloa sdeln ewhe eethr tacf thatt iesh iuatt lnbo iwsso edoc antms teik rntei iste ng

ibvo yuslo rvee ybody esfi gline ptya aofwe oaby atthu lsot edilo bitt wknoe athn sthit ievr wwere uosh luals epry ntyot oopt gthef amea afars ishs kfuct lolf gwino soeg basaw etbi tindh aebh tlnol lorf fckoa iigv eancl tbus aorlf fkoc cntia tpai ion

eythb emita nteyo hgtou ltoet suroyl ylurt hesei ligeem darypn hstao drcero tufio twset wasla edaytr heequ rartes enodn dheta hramc iytcri rlucat kaskw nutup ltimro gningb yteht emilei geditg silmo tosstf htepr aoygrs hdaer dclaee dnadt hests eetruj nkiesh evabea nllowa fnisin ftoffi helats fthek scnane

dihab neeler dgetae othat yofan nortuf lhemil nscest ehereb ythet eimif duntou twasiw rtooaf atel

tofno ckarlf rytinf saweag cproah ehtehn fotdhi sconse veadwl fbaltim oerpst dharoc reiicn dnettn ymotry otbest rconsr ctuwhh hatcou vldhau tenebe htlase ltotat rinter tcseco natlot yllain tsiret ltotat ylint xtreet lfunau oction fanoat equity tyegbo esnenc

ihenw eaginm blimss tnesma ngreeo tmounm iimag eleywn hagswo aperct dnawo dpanel dlawel snadf lrousec bcentu blight dnatw weloub dailcp ucheso dnadbl elaipe dvselo dnataa eoffec etable dresse dagain ttehsw alleco nirevd amapron enizag nasds gometi gbnyho elleuq dcqanp apingp abgnot edellc nimagi knsass dndri andsn ffsutt dndtea evisoin nmuteo runreng hteig sfilex semane diners eectyi ohtshf ehtabe sement epstws hereri gsitab othebr ybigra ndytas dncsat hctiwc pliboa drawth honott ingont tbecau enluss cyoua nlteat ginrba ywhatd egred juitar stcros estags ithwat iytcoc ellege oucany tsubaj ftugou yoursf lnaodg efort btuota gnicom otwond eesehr ndsilm dnabo yusivlo hysift uckwh osmelt gnibran rvesoni hteonp doywolp eatgsb heytol tseaov

duoyal ohaves oimagn eguyin racanh cjattar othekw ebegins hconvae twnith edhiscd laimee thathi sjacke silroni allycd detache dndwho ospidra ylappr ghoacni hhirtyt ndhasa tustje lrolled cnicole egefotr hesecon difton thirdd emeaft hretcu inothct ddidng koutwor fobvroi sousrea ndsswho sglrugt ngoutig hemors sparsee ection nofthe yartps htrongt findto epulsh kofctus mwhchi astemah fabout nelbioi seatbpe eminut seshee ytlerce nconvic sthisd atheknd lllast spagis orleuot iteodrg rforhi dmanis nuwill iotgace cepfot tresham snrofic timgho aimcli ronicd hteacme tfromh isjack etthas kcifhuts uearly isjust dyousl dnbadl ghoust llideep ytrans sgresis edanth eterofe ignifs canatit nowods sthejs tgnandis rtheneg isiontv dotfros gnicnad gnitive yelvdis sonanti inkidrg reebgn fuotoas ucolos dibinad gnytirt omette eeytho thecom ytinumm ealthh rkoeon heotho edrsie fphetar ytwhoj snetute edholrd dnghans htiwsome oenhos yvoribuo usljus yjunkta rmofth tsereet edfhec orrect srawnas obigrt yandqs ustione tnasrln satioit suidets

gittins etweenb ouplec uckingf acedna oejackt alcummi psonater silayd gwenwhs htinges topprem uchjuy ststia ndwatch tdhatsi ndwhok nsowevr enoyedn whosnse everyt hgnibutn everacs nonayth ngbecas eswhybo tlerand loooohw atchtih ndwhomi gthbehe enolyoe niattend ncetono toecitn mmyseyt itchwhe njohnny irowont tethimpl ydbeasa rhwichu ndernro mlacircu stances swoulde dninabr thatoir lsparty otwarda particl alandht nallato ecnconu slionbu twihcrs sultsto ightnina alfhass coverfo aloureed oongsur eallymu stimagni edaygwn nshoswat hctgint hatnotos siletne xchange ndthink gnibautw hatcouh ldevbeen hnensli mddleswa upcompl ytelegon outofhs simdnan dscrean igthewr nglyric stohallo eenparw deandmi sinterp getinex xactlyw hatladg wendosh ereorat anyplace wheneha skshertj ustwatc kidths whosecl yrvoeho eishdean intdhed inkgrin departmt ntandwh sbtoeenl dtositi nowthde eonthhec couchnds tayther rfochrsi tssakea ndwhowi lltryot dmrinkm orenihe tminutse ndwhow livomit naiboru entiminu sumidne ybdagwen whodtsne impedeb bcausea gatinha slikehe wohletn hign

neveomr elifilrp maginci gyields ccenes egendlel nardkra znpicar equejuns yxetrako rdinari ewhossjt timpedh iswayni ottepar tyswhosc crating roundaw tihjack ehcomumr ityheal htwroker resenpt doallst frodnesl ikosemt thingfor howandt ellrdon inginur nonmonos syllabe abouths sbenzed rinefue edpersn nllysubu versivo ntheruo hpyilosw ywhcihe veryone eunderst snadsae eingearn tinarea yllpasso ewayor elsejuts asironc callydet chedast ehcarht rttjack tyguswhs stitllg eeringo emewher proabyl. Jackie, all night, will tell anyone who listens that to her it’s unclear where the farce stops and the metaphor begins.

nndtothea oarlefte ithatbusf aessiscn ktainsucp wrpunche nosgotcoh tactswit ithejunkh uhordeoe ssidewhot ningeril rsomewheg enearthe oelevisit twhosgon thesespat rallyuni palistice uanstorl dhbigrans iandlety lthepeopn esotospe skandwhoa faitingw hrsometoo asappeni tdforshin eucktorf allysnapa gdstartn wingatito tatwithh defeudanh gllthoua risunawah ethatthe desnobigr iamacomr ogtherewn mtbeanyn irphosclo maxresem nlingthib htogiveg pmtheproi ueandyrr ehingmoms stbecaun eforoncee seryonev notallyit sothemut tcatleasi tsintoia bsyoucana econside oingnoner nthemcaf nlayhelip rerstheg awaitinge adhesonn oapidalcr eolfuelh bdeclined ecauseye oanothert meofhisn pwsignedc oofessir lalwrestn drfriene risdeadfs tmdrugso tisishowh leyusuah oygl

andamonga rlofityoul otrulywhs fillfloatw oomheretr mheremandt jngleandi ttinhisnoo wbookande eowillmorh yhanlikelt seeallthes gpeopleae ninandagaia vhoughnet tragainone cesametih oetatanyhk etofhouss rhowsorbas uhowsorcls hshowsintb atpartofa hypartoftn tcityorae ieastisntl oprettytt ohinkst

ofcourseo vceirecein bdtheyoue ottergetde lnherecaw afrommoeil ereadyknl amygooseww ncookedas lwhatiread eysawwerl rancingstd setlighte homewhatss rrtofafoo dmentionee aetaphorm edsomeposn isittingr rthecurbcn uingbecay tehesreads tecollech wdworksofe jlterbena eminandeva nthatwasn ggoodenout ohesaidfh sthemtojur nlethimit korwhatlif ufivemine iesiaskedt etheywerf dtillinans oesaidwhh hndisaidsa dtfuckani eesaidnonh ddtoberue tisaidwhae ereyoueva tdoingoutn eereandhh aaidjustws lttoteln hitaimissr er

AMERICAN METER COMPANY by Caroline McManus

THE RELIQUARY TRANSLATIONS (55-58)THE BRAZEN LIVER OF PIACENZA,THE NAME OF THE GOD OF THE WELL by James Rodker

fingers in your hair like harp strings
Star Anise          and acne 
wishbone split clean     and perfect
tzompantli               (skull rack)
The Anatomy      of the Horse
The boatbuilders,          starting to sing
to each other,     like spinning     sticky     rain
digital     relief     models     of the river valley
and the storm     from the plane 
A long life     held only in place     by brief pauses.
oracle bone script,     island     of white
blossom     and herons,     shifting     grey
silver     white     gold     pink,     knuckles    
blushing,     silver     birch
A life,     in leather jackets,     posing     at Herculaneum

I have seen pine trees,     loved them     & their properties     & their God
since I was a child.

At the Temple     de la Sybille,     in full sun
blood     and Vichy Catalan.
the glass bottom boat, the skylight, and the
sycamore                    (simulated     waves)
The Solar Barge     of Sesostris (1985-1988)
(father     of the blind king     Pheron)
Winter’s     Passage     from the Winter
Palace     in Luxor,          gleaming     in green
patina,    and in white     trembling   columns

on the Pont des Suicidés.
mosaics     of hanging     pig     carcasses
octopus,     tobacco,     and mackerel 
the Jardim     do Príncipe     Real
paused     at the moment     of fragment 
when the sky     would become     the canal

the pink     gridded     mantra page,     pinned 
to the plastered wall

a galaxy     of choreography     on the Bowery,
in Dim Sum Palace,     and the blizzard     outside,
in your bright     blue     mohair     jumper 
showed me     The Ascent     of the Blessed

(from the Visions     of the Hereafter)          A City
Lament     (in the collapsing     present)     of a city
after     Paris
(all cities     are laments     after Paris)
almost touching     embroidered     on black velvet
A Voyage     on the North Sea          (from 1973
-74)                         hearing     distant    rumours
of a war               in the Peloponnese 
marking off     the days     with blades     of grass
(McCarren Park)          or with skeins     of snow
years ago          today               listening     to
Music     from Saharan     WhatsApp
I never thought          you’d be          everything
the shape          of the smoke          in the room 
W 15 th St.          in the dusks     of an argument
intermittently     gasping     for air

The caprification     of fig trees
on the Turkish     Aegean 
(A Thousand Strings)

after the excavation     of thousands     of terracotta vessels
gridded the site     and left     under floodlights 
dappled    under    tamarind     trees

the lip of the bowl     (after Shōji Hamada)
sketched     on graph paper

and the chandelier     swung

the Berenike Buddha, lowered
into folds     of raw linen

October,     cross legged     on the bed     peeling blood oranges
simmering     coconut milk     and curry leaves      
sweet,     in the next room’s     tinsel

the white     Cycladic     marble     birds,     infinite
smoking     honey     for your throat     and warm
Lucozade,     hours     outside     of history

every car alarm     for a square mile,     at least 
every     gold and silver     dolphin.

Go,               and bury          slaughtered          oxen,
bees will spring     from the rotted corpse     of them,
and wasps          from the body          of the horse

and on the banks of the Nile     the ox would be buried upright,
so that the horns     would protrude     from the mud
and sometime after,     when the horns     would be severed
would find hordes     and clustered     swarms of them

the hives          anointed               with nard          and myrrh
or with thyme               or with white          poplar

and the horns,     and the bones,     and the hair,
and nothing else left

when the fleet,     casting anchor     at Rhodes,
threw earthenware pots     in the sea,
and as time     went on,          and mud     formed     around them,
and eleven days after          were hoisted 
and were found     encrusted     with oysters

Others,          having dried fenugreek     in the sun,          lay it in vessels:
(eight ounces     of well-ground     fenugreek)
and they pitch their casks with it,          for must     and for black vinegar,
and they pitch          the seams          of their ships               before leaving 
from Chios,               from Pyrrha     in Lesbos,               from Crete
and from ruin,          and shading their wares from the heat

and would spread          their ideas              like mould
between     creases

 

 

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