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!
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.
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
Please click pdf below to view
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)
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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
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.
Dig Yr Own Hole
Tomorrow’s False Memories
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
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.
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
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 