November 29th, 2020
The Dirty Truth About Butterflies
It’s easy for a religiously bred
(misled) girl to make an Eden of
a garden, angels of winged soon dead,
repopulating in three weeks. But love’s
amino acids butterflies won’t find
in agapanthus nectar, waterfalls —
Continue reading “Womannotated – The Dirty Truth About Butterflies”
stilted words
stillborn
slide out
from torn
slash flesh
blood red
lipstick mouth
spews out
bloodless ugly triplets
‘I / love / you’
I choose ‘I’
not love
not you
not seeing eye to eye
but
fighting tooth for tooth
forebears cry out
they see
everything
from top
of swaying
family tree
daant ke lie daant
don’t lie Continue reading “Hir Qing Sorrow by Iain Fraser”
The sweetest thing
Sweetest thing
that could happen
this day
a real reason to cry
Mirages
A house is not a terrapin
or a sailboat
or a maelstrom
The sunstorm that swindles
at midweek
sycamore green embossed on the heart
like sequins or worlds
No (New) Man’s Land
His is
a life in fluid drawn,
pushed through
scar tissue, muscle yielding.
Pull. Plunge.
Inject. Extract.
New man by
needle-born in flush
of mid-life puberty,
bending forty
years of life.
Burying facts that
fail to fit.
shame
it’s dark inside
which suits me
it hides my imperfections
the guilt upon my skin
the dread in my eyes
as they size me up
Its All Greek to me
For B. D. M.
“The embrace of men”
I say
and you pirouette
behind the cash register
a new found bond at work
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.
Denial in Cycles
girl born altered doomed a beast
the moon dies and
i’m not bleeding like i’m supposed to
Continue reading “Denial in Cycles by Mika Hrejsa”
I have ten minutes here,
Less than ten in this press of people, before I go through those gates
to tell you that, Berlin was beautiful, a free celebration of all love
The Self-Owners, The Island, The Girlfriend, The Schwanenberg.
Then under the strict shadow of a worded paragraph I am now a number
Scratched into my skin, my name pressed into records,
between pages and pages of names.
Before Berlin was lights and love and music, gay bars and open study
Here is mud obscuring my identity,
photographed from three angles,
in grim stripes and triangles
we become homogeneous herd, corralled into camps.
Our names: our school pegs, our register entries, an ID badge, a passport, a bank account, a driving licence, how we introduce ourselves. Of course, all of our names are given to us, some a gift, others a curse, some that don’t quite sit right with the face in front of us, or for the body that the person inhabits, but it’s something we all have. Continue reading “‘What’s My Name?’ – an essay exploring identity and adoption by Anneghem Wall”
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 
The Arsonist Magazine Editon 01 Now Available For Purchase!!!
The Arsonist Magazine Edition 01 – available to purchase here
Featuring the best poetry, flash fiction, photography, art, interviews and features from around the world, including the UK, Japan, Canada, USA, Malaysia, India, Philippines, Sweden:
stephanie roberts – Saquina Karla C. Guiam – Penny Goring – Adrianna Robertson – Anneghem Wall – Dawn Fredericks – badpoem – Dean Lilleyman – Antony Owen – Aina Izzah – Bruno Neiva – Paul Hawkins – Keith Ford – Joseph Ridgwell – Dhiyanah Hassan – C. R. Resetarits – Rob True – Sophie Pitchford – Jamie Thrasivoulou – Martin Appleby – Liz Zumin – Siddharth Dasgupta – Ben Williams – Caitlin Meredith – Adam Steiner – Jim Gibson – V.M. – Fredric Nord – Mark Goodwin – Hiromi Suzuki – Trevor Wright – Howie Good
The Arsonist Magazine Edition 01 is a 92 page full colour/b&w matt/gloss perfect-bound A5 magazine (this is a limited edition and, being the inaugural print publication from Burning House Press, is sure to be a collectible item)
The Arsonist Magazine Edition 01 – available to purchase here
Share this:
Like this: