Contrapuntal: In Which We Swallow Insects While Contemplating Environmental Apocalypse
Continue reading “Two Poems by Beth Gordon”
Instructions for the PERFECT Lie
Continue reading “Two Sets of Instructions by Elancharan Gunasekaran”
Piranhas
He was one of those people
those who talk
purely because they can
they are everywhere
especially, but not exclusively
at petrol stations
grocery shops
banks and beaches
and school gates
they love school gates
The Taste of Rage
Laden with hungry fingers and a thirst
for Jim Beam, you skulk through
murky nightclubs looking for a dimly lit
blonde to awaken in the middle of the night.
You eat up the thrill of drunken sex and
fuck in hotel rooms paid for in cash,
twisting beneath sheets stained with indiscretion.
Their child is doing voices
‘All of us have a primitive prompter or commentator within, who from earliest years has been advising us, telling us what the real world is’ – Saul Bellow.
It is hot. Outside on the landing his parents
are in readiness, hushed for the show.
Hear him now, stirring.
The whiteness of his mind, at peace, a planet,
is studio enough
where, ice-still in echoes like a deepfreeze mariner,
he inhales to begin.
To preacher-perfect O’s mimicking the next doors.
And now the imperatives to weepy Olive Oyl,
hot talk, transmissions, dogfights and now,
waspish, with accent, lisping Daffy Duck,
scolding her charges in squeaky ’78.
Escapes
I remember
the rocks hot under
my skin, black sun-glistened
flecks in sugar-almond stone,
rush of foam-tinged
sparkling water, the pull back
of waves fizzing sand.
Traces
As slow as the breathing
of the ancient giant
long said to sleep beneath
our town’s tallest hill,
snow piled up that week
against the edge
of pine needled forest floor,
then fell back like a cold ocean tide.
The Questions
accumulated with missing relations
in photographs of his grandad’s family,
his Nana’s dropped dark hints.
Glorify
I learned to call on details that come unnoticed
brush strokes that hide in-between.
No Bed of Roses
To distract us from horrible numbers
I wear this hat. It’s wide as a plate, full of roses and birds,
a platter in red and white, and thin as a peel of sunburned skin.
You can see right through it. The birds fly around it
and nest and do all the bird things. You can watch
my hat instead of the news of the horrible numbers
who populate all of our nightmares
disturbing our rest, I say rest because who
still sleeps? after all that has happened.
The birds, though, they sleep. They sleep
among the roses encircling my large plate of a hat,
the hat thin as reason, thin as a thought of compromise,
and wide as all one person can do to avoid
knowing certain things. Wide as a sea of forgetting
the horrible numbers, wide as loss, as much loss
as one small person can carry upon a hat,
even a hat as wide as mine. Ah, the roses.
They have such a lovely scent, it keeps me
awake at night. Let them, I say. Let them.
1. Store
Attach your head to the box.
Do not shout or write, that’s not the problem.
Ghosts, breath, nose, brows, knee
big hands
your time has not yet come.
2. Coo
Light on your room over the ice.
Do not worry, the year after anguish.
Encouraged by the team, the mosquitoes, the controversies, the pilots involved
birdsong
but your sound did not arrive.
Burning House Press are excited to welcome ROBERT FREDE KENTER & ELISABETH HORAN as our JULY 2019 guest editors! As of today ROBERT & ELI (( ICE FLOE PRESS )) will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of JULY.
Submissions are open from today – 1st JULY and will remain open until 24TH JULY. Continue reading “JULY 2019 Guest Editor/s Are ROBERT FREDE KENTER & ELISABETH HORAN!!! Theme/s: SECRETS & LIES”
HEX EDITION JUNE 2019 GUEST EDITED/CURATED BY LAURA JOYCE & JODIE KIM
Continue reading “HEX EDITION JUNE 2019 GUEST EDITED/CURATED BY LAURA JOYCE & JODIE KIM”
Memories from the uncoiled exterior.
The ones with sharp familiar names
playing Gray Fern among
billowing tents and pool fires. Red wax
dripping
across upraised fingertips
in the mist season.
Don’t eat too much on a first date
and nothing messy – spaghetti’s definitely out.
(There’ll be time enough for mess later.)
Continue reading ““Instructions” a Poem by Sarah McPherson”
This is a poem dedicated to my witch girlfriend, who has been teaching me about witchcraft, history, and art ever since we met. It is a simplistic tale in commemoration of beautiful, cunning witches that disguise themselves as something–someone–more… and so these words can be imagined as the secret, invisible text across the gloss of a tarot card.
the lone raven in the warm forest turns into a bedside angel //with demon wings. & //this is nocturne academia //sheet music draped in dust & //little//lithe sparrow bones. someone hooks her wisteria-vine limbs //over my shoulders //whispers something about noxious selves & //falling stars. god, ye are terrible. //we //these veiled fawns so sweet & //cruel. fogged & misted //godly antlers sprouting from where we had bloodletted to coat pinky //fingers in post-sacrificial abel //we //the raw-mouthed cains //chests heaving & //tight white blouses //THIS is cruel//crude, abels melding with obsidian sadness //making promises with girls who speak //in ancient greek //EUASTEROS //sapphic blood pacts & //we try to bring sappho & aphrodite back to life to guide us //but we cannot.
Continue reading ““wisteria//wisp-eria” by Janice Kang”
Appreciate your marks of age
Light a candle for every new blemish mark or scar
Like a ring on a tree trunk it is a sign of defiance shown on your glorious trunk
Celebrate each mistake you make by wearing your favourite colour head to toe for the entire day
Know that you won’t do it again, or if you do you will be reassured that you won’t shatter next time you will still be you
Turn off the television, the computer, the phone
and anything else that might scream obscenities
at you as you take away their power.
Take the newspapers piled at your feet
and crumple them up.
The article about the little girl whose
body was found in a trash bag
on the side of the road,
the little girl who likes My Little Pony
and reminds you of your niece.
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