September 12th, 2020
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”
ghost undead
i still ache for emptiness like i
would silence in a
sequence of
sighs.
Continue reading “this body sinks in a dead sea”
Burning House Press are excited to welcome MAPULE MOHULATSI as our JULY 2020 guest editor! As of today MAPULE 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.
MAPULE’S theme for the month is as follows
Continue reading “JULY 2020 Guest Editor Is MAPULE MOHULATSI!!! THEME: SINK”
Two Golden Tickets sonnets (my Charlie and The Chocolate Factory homage book of poems) from the Hot Chocolate section which involves chocolatier love triangles, femme fatale industrial spies, strip clubs and licorice .
Sugar Daddy’s
A strip club in which Arthur Slugworth, chocolatier competitor of Willy Wonka, meets the woman who will become his secretary and industrial spy and future lover of Willy Wonka.
American Candy Expo meets in
Chicago each year. Arthur Slugworth’s jet
consistently appears before show begins
day early to play. Bittersweet secrets
over his butterscotch schnapps confessed
to the ponytailed stripper; her peach ring
pop, bubblegum thong, sweet visage suggests
she is a shell you could tell anything Continue reading “Womannotated – Hot Chocolate!”
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