In A Kidney Dish
Seventeen months and six days ago,
with practice that could only be attached
to a pair of nitrile gloves,
they pulled apart generations of stratified tissue,
classified the human from the mammal
and presented the results on a stainless steel tray.
On Blood
The blood I scrub from the inside of my underwear is not the same as the blood I wipe from my mouth, not the same blood my mother lost when laboring over my birth, not what spilled from my grandmother’s head when her stepfather split it open for scrubbing a floor wrong. Not the same, but close.
Continue reading “On Blood by Kaylie Padgett”
Burn the Bloodstream
How can an odorless, yellow pill bring harm?
Every time you say no to food, you say yes to thin.
One felt good so she took another,
Eat clean, look lean.
not knowing two were an overdose.
Greasy fries or skinny thighs?
Continue reading “Burn the Bloodstream by Emma Lee”
Watching the World Fly By
The clock chimed seven …ding…ding…ding… and so on, until it let out one final loud ding that woke Forbes with a start. He shuffled slightly and managed to stretch his front and back legs just enough to prevent the cramp from setting in. He meowed happily as he heard the familiar whirring sound. His morning feed came shooting through the food hatch and plopped into his dish in a brown lumpy mush.
Continue reading “Watching The World Fly By by Melanie Davies”
Blood Magic
It was her first period for three months. Sitting on the lav with her knickers around her ankles and her knees falling apart, Mihaela saw the new slimness in her bare legs and grimaced. She thought of all the meals she’d missed since the promotion—the rushed breakfasts, the uneaten sandwiches, the insubstantial dinners—and how quickly it had become a matter of finding not the time but the inclination. Now she ate as irregularly and as little as she slept. No wonder her periods had stopped.
Continue reading “Blood Magic by Natasha C. Calder”
Effusion
Vincent Castiglia paints with his own blood.
Before you decide this is revolting,
you might want to try it yourself.
Don’t go to the extreme though:
The Last Time It Bled
the last time I bled was when I stood on glass
the worst time I bled was when they put the scissors in my vagina
Continue reading “The Last Time It Bled by Emma SzH”
Reflections on Jacob’s Ladder (1957) – Helen Frankenthaler
Continue reading “Jacob’s Ladder by Katherine Beaman”
Burning House Press are excited to welcome EMMA SzH as our APRIL 2019 guest editor! As of today EMMA will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of APRIL.
Submissions for EMMA are open from today – 1st APRIL and will remain open until 23rd APRIL.
EMMA’S theme/s for the month are as follows
BLOOD
VIOLENCE, LINES, THE END TIMES
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” Leviticus 17:11
Art across all media is sought to build a mosaic of that most inner integument: bodily, socially, earthly; we strive to name our communal, personal element, the river that pegs us; the promise and the curse that binds us.
What was blood to you when you:
lived, died, returned, repaid, restored, hurt, lied, taxonimised, identified, glorified, fled
What does it mean when it comes every month? What does it mean when it doesn’t?
EMMA SzH lives in Cambridge and is working on her PhD ‘Selfies at Auschwitz’ at the Royal College of Art, London. She writes on various subjects, namely at the intersection of religion, gender and digital visual cultures, and has been published by Bloomsbury, the Paulist Press and the Catholic Tablet, among others.
* * *
For submissions, EMMA is looking for your poetry, short stories, flash fiction, prose poems, art, collage, painting, photography – as well as non-fiction submissions: essays, reviews, commentary, features, interviews – and all hybrids, fragments and cross-forms.
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: BLOOD/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.
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 from 1st till 23rd APRIL – and will reopen again on 1st MAY for our sixteenth guest editor.
BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing EMMA SzH – friends, arsonistas, send EMMA your magic!
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 