Costumed In Resistance
How do you tell it is Halloween when
everyone wears a mask everyday,
would be kings orange aerosol sprays then
locks children in cages, parents sent away?
Continue reading “Womannotated – Vote, America”
October 17th
Keith Raniere and Allison Mack poetry by Kristin Garth and Marisa Silva Dunbar
Kult Ken
by Kristin Garth
divides women and the men, considers
mind control at ten when he learns listen
is not the same as care. Schoolgirl Skippers
are chatty, everywhere, dripping poison
from lonely little tongues. Learns to use it against
them young. Can do it with a dad bod, sweat-
band, night volleyball game with lessons condensed —
marketing, pain. Boss Barbie in hand,
he will walk home tonight. Tomorrow she will
ask him before she takes a bite, now hungry
only for what she deserves. Holes he fills
before the next underhand serve where she
waits on bleachers for it to happen again —
molded obedient female companion.
The Introduction: November 14, 2006
by Marisa Silva Dunbar
We are now witnesses to the origin
—here is where he ensnares you.
You are mesmerized—girlish—giggly,
and desperate for your worth to be seen
by this man in a sweatband and kneepads.
We know it’s just a seedy facade. Some
of us have at one point, wanted to be
loved by a mediocre man
October 10th, 2020
Little Witches
We will race, her sisters, there, past gargoyles
down a swiveled silver stair. One who rides
its rail, body of snake, chiseled coil
to marble tongue will take the lead then chide
the rest — a mob with matches in pockets
Continue reading “Womannotated – Little Witches”
Bower
I am the tree arched over your yard
abrading sky above the shards of what once
were contents of your Instagram life, guarded-
by-Doberman duplicitous wife, crunched
digital frames, board games amidst piled piss
yellow leaves. I have outlived any you grieve.
Continue reading “Womannotated – Bower”
Dead Sea
Saunter through snapdragons, the cobblestone path
inside his house, into a bath prepared
with Dead Sea salts by a sociopath—
Continue reading “Womannotated – Dead Sea”
September 19th, 2020:
Weeping Trees
Follow creek through the weeping trees until
it narrows and you cross with ease. Keep mum
along the rivulet cascading still
through thicket of thorns you will not succumb.
Continue reading “Womannotated – Weeping Trees”
August 29th, 2020
The Second Time
She offers flesh beneath aromatic trees
against dark gates without password, key, sign
her kind is welcome here — save kerosene
in lanterns near. Arms in grate, stretched supine,
between dove gray sky, columbines, beside
cobblestone of almond, slate. Closes eyes, Continue reading “Womannotated – The Second Time”
August 22nd, 2020
A Poet And Her Anxiety Walk Into The Woods
A poet and her anxiety walk
into the woods — the person, thing and place
misunderstood for none of them can talk
adequately to explain how retraced steps
in dirt unburden pain. Though two depart
just one returns. Emaciated pines Continue reading “Womannotated – A Poet And Her Anxiety Walk Into The Woods”
August 16th, 2020
(Content warning: horror, death, suicide, some discussion of Midsommar with what could be considered general, mild spoilers)
Death In The Air
A scent in twilight past breaths of the beast
who stalks the edges of forests on the
phalanges of feet, quickening heartbeats
of little lost girls, panting in pine trees
near the end of the world. Pale hirsute ear
you peer where the needles are bare. Eyes straight
ahead, mutter pieces of prayers. Fear
August 9th, 2020
Crow Castle
Each maiden slumbers in her childhood bed.
Crow collects a lock from each, twines a nest
with garden twigs, hair ribbons azure, red—
sufficient room for one without a guest. Continue reading “Womannotated – Crow Castle”
August 2nd, 2020
Delicate
Some porcelain is missing from my cheek,
a hole you study while you think I sleep.
In light of day it bothers you I’m weak.
In darkness you find penetrable deep.
Very soon, I will embrace my wife again as a farmer embraces the rainy season, or, like a groom embraces his new bride. I will be drenched in water. A sorrow–hidden moment it will be, just like January 1st, 2005. That was the last day I saw her heavy dimples and swollen abdomen.
Continue reading “Riverbed Reunion by Abiodun Usman”
- To say I love you is to say you have flooded
my knee with rain
: is to say the viscosity of my synovial fluid
has been adulterated & I have lost anchorage
Continue reading “Shore by Abdulbaseet Yusuff”
July 26th, 2020
Why Charlie Can’t Leave The Factory
After a reveal of cotton candy sheep being
shorn for confectionery purposes in the
Burton Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film:
Willy Wonka – “I’d rather not talk about this one.”
You peer a possible pasture in a
pink corridor. Perhaps peeking proves it?
Perchance a perpendicular door plays
with peripheral vision, pomegranate
sheep producing shorn candy floss piles pruned
to palatable heaps? Panicked to peep
Continue reading “Womannotated – Why Charlie Can’t Leave The Factory”
Ridges in my fingernails––
worrisome trenches, etchings that
presage diseases and loss, niches where
suspicion insinuates itself. Instead I summon:
ridges of my knuckles, thumb-tucked fists,
taut brown skin tallowed over the bone
as I brace to take on the icy lake,
to punch the water’s skin;
Continue reading “Summoning by Laurie Koensgen”
Son of my favorite aunt,
I greet you from above the waters;
Waving but not drowning.
Continue reading “‘Nceba, mzala’ by Perfect Hlongwane”
I lie on the bottom of the pool, my back resting lightly on the rough, cool marbelite; staring motionless up at the surface of the water. Four feet of water separates me from fresh, breathable air.
Continue reading “Fear Thyself by Stephen Embleton”
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 