my god is
imperfect, a perfect image for me.
humbled by its mistakes.
my god is a mistake.
a wrong answer,
differently abled.
its winters often in spring.
its summers sometime in autumn. Continue reading “my god is – Paul Brookes”
One More Lamb
Needles are helpful
In identifying can#$@
As well evilicious
Thoughts I have
Like my husband
Doesn’t love me
He won’t have my baby
Like God is temporary
When I need him Continue reading “One More Lamb, No! This Is The Way It Starts, and Baptism Gone Awry – Elisabeth Horan”
The Baptism
Sister sings contrition, ripe to believe
in prophet palms, fey fingers. Submission
to a Patriarch plunge— yield and receive.
White out winter, naked lips and eyes. Leave
past sorrows traded for superstition.
Sister sings contrition, ripe to believe. Continue reading “The Baptism – Juliette van der Molen”
Purgatorio, East Peoria
Again, the man in the window
wakes from a dream of June bugs:
fragile with heat, they’d thrown
their bodies into trees and split
like skulls. The man said he was
hungry. The sisters still arrive
some evenings with their Bibles
and a roll of toilet paper. Continue reading “Purgatorio, East Peoria – Todd Smith”
Fearsong
If I try to sing from the silence thoughts of G-d come out sometimes
but I have never
worshipped and meant it.
Nobody has dared ask me to.
I’ve sung higher powers, let strangers
lick the metallic holy off the air around me,
it is sanctifying to make
a space for the devout to cry into,
but I have never
meant. Once down the pub Continue reading “Fearsong – Anna Kahn”
An Honourable Death
A woman out jogging in a park at dawn saw a smoke drift rising from a patch of blackened earth. Lying on the ground in the middle of it was what looked to be a mannequin with its legs half bent and arms raised in a peculiar, pugilistic pose.
There was a shopping trolley at the scene, adding another layer of curiosity to what must have seemed a strange tableau. The smell of fuel hung heavy in the air and, it being too early in the day for barbecues, the woman’s first thought was that somebody had been burning garbage. Continue reading “An Honourable Death – Victoria Briggs”
You Are The One God Forgot
God walks through us on lonely nights — Nome Patrick
before i name myself an island in bed,
far from shore, i carve my life inside a poem.
a letter in a bottle is how i commune with God,
walk him round the ruins of my heart,
have him wear this skin that has contained screams.
most times, i am a roadsign cars ignore, Continue reading ““You Are The One God Forgot” by Michael Akuchie, and “Of Perception” by Casimir Wojciech”
Wishing to Believe
In the shop of chimes and mysteries we chose the waving cat.
Maneki Neko—perfect, white plastic,
trimmed with gold and red, one paw raised to the sky.
On our kitchen windowsill, it sat—ushering
good luck in, bad luck out. So we believed.
It ticked like a clock as it waved, only,
it never made it right through a whole night—
slowing to a halt a few hours after sunset. Continue reading “Wishing to Believe by F. E. Clark”
IRAPADA
redemption
asake, pray for me.
i am your father’s grandfather,
you do not know me,
but you are the lines on my palms.
pray for me! pray for me!
those on earth pray for those in heaven
so those in heaven could set their passage.
pray for me, asake;
pray for my peace! Continue reading “Irapada(redemption) – Aremu Adams Adebisi”
Forever, the Little Girl
Vomiting in a cubicle space was definitely unpalatable and embarrassing. It was a repeated incident, despite the last projection occurring eight months ago. My boss remembered, so when I waddled up to her in my pencil skirt and tights, unaware that I would be moaning, convulsing, and caught under covers a week earlier than expected (and not on a fortunate weekend, mind you), she nodded for me to go, reminding me, “You’ve got sick leave.” Continue reading “Forever, The Little Girl – Kristine Brown”
The Ocean’s Only Word
During your Palm Springs summer,
your off-white apartment walls curved
around you like an elegant shell
pulled together tight by the bit of meat inside.
Eventually any distraction seemed a blessing.
Sometimes you appeared able to conjure
up some sound or other outside,
but never the one you wanted. Continue reading “The Ocean’s Only Word, Getting Light, and Near Disaster – Lee Potts”
Earth on the Ocean’s Back
Rain mists the poppy pins
of passersby outside. In a café,
standing couples rehash the cenotaph
service. Cognoscenti critique beans
and brewing machines while
espresso makers hiss. I remember
Mary Battle used to say dreams were false
from spring until saps fell, says an Irish voice
nearby. Continue reading “Earth On The Ocean’s Back, and Age Of Prophesy – Daniel Cowper”
2018 Guest Editors and Themes in order:
February 2018 – Languages/Letters/Lists – Florence Lenaers
March 2018 – Masks/Transformations/Cosmos/Personal Myth – Amee Nassrene Broumand
April 2018 – Place: Movement, Escape, Exploration, Architecture – C.C. O’Hanlon
May 2018 – Identity: Crisis, Creation, Multiplicity, Singularity – Karissa Lang
June 2018 – Liminal Spaces – James Pate
July 2018 – Bodies – Lara Alonso Corona
August 2018 – Non-NonFiction – John Trefry
September 2018 – Belonging/Returning/Retreating – Rachael De Moravia
October 2018 – Gender & Revolution – She Speaks UK
November 2018 – Facing Up To The Future – Paul Hawkins
December 2018 – Doors – Jaisha Jansena
* * * * * Continue reading “2018… That’s A Wrap! – BHP///A Year In Guest Editors”
Burning House Press are excited to welcome BOLA OPALEKE as our JANUARY 2019 guest editor! As of today Bola will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of January.
Submissions for Bola are open from today – 1st January and will remain open until 24th January. Continue reading “January 2019 Guest Editor Is BOLA OPALEKE!!! Theme/s: FAITH // FAITHLESSNESS // DIVINITY”
Cinderella upon Remembering Bruno
Her hands
down by her sides
Also her drink of choice
and how she speaks to
the bartender
Her subtle, slow
I’ve got all day
burn
Continue reading “Judith Taylor: Cinderella upon Remembering Bruno”
This is not a violin, it is a doorway. I know this, because I read a lot. My notes and references are usually very detailed breadcrumb paths. But, as Brion Gysin said, the mice can get into the larder of language (and I add to his point, memory). And, well… I have no control over legions of mice.
“This is is not a violin, it is a doorway.”
Continue reading “ReVerse Butcher: This is not a violin, it is a doorway”
Ash and Stardust was a monthly column by energy worker and artist/writer DHIYANAH HASSAN exploring the intersections of tarot with healing and creativity. You can read the full series here.
When I started this column in January 2018, I was still calling myself a tarot noob. I confess I didn’t thoroughly believed it but lacked the confidence to openly claim myself as a card reader without having gone through some kind of an initiation period.
Who I am now is so far traveled from the person I was at the beginning of 2018. This was my Saturn Return year and it was so full of magic – this was my first happy year, ever! Connecting to the healing tools that I accepted as available to me really went a long way in teaching me what my happiness could look like. And I took it, ran with it, and trusted in everything I am that is strong and soft and beautiful.
During the span of this year, I received confirmation after confirmation at each level of release and growth I experienced once I committed – not just mentally but also physically, emotionally, and spiritually – to my chosen intentions to heal, to love, to have fun. I know now that writing Ash and Stardust as a monthly column was a sort of initiation I designed for myself to activate within me what I thought I was running low on – the ability to trust myself.
I’m writing this now, already at home in my new wilderness, on the eve of the new year cycle. I’m writing this as the last post of Ash and Stardust on Burning House Press.
Over the Threshold
We laugh like newlyweds
as you carry me over the threshold
into a house rife with the spirits
of former tenants-
a lonely caretaker, a childless couple,
a single mother-
their DNA peeling off the walls
like chipped paint.
Tachypsychia. The word we use for defining the neurological condition which alters our perception of time. Time lengthening, time moving slower, time contracting. A blurred vision of time as response to a traumatic event. Time as a collection of unrelated passages. Time as red lines on the temptation to exist. Time as well-captured intentions, the same throughout all journeys. Every inked reflection, a paradise lost. Continue reading “Christina Tudor-Sideri: PASSING THROUGH THE HOME OF THE DYING”
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 