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Letter 49 by Robert Farrell

Of course it’s possible to fall in love in thirty seconds. It happens

every time I pass through the 81st St. station on the express and see 

through the window a trapeze artist or ballet dancer on the platform 

across the tracks. I get it, I do. But when it happens every thirty seconds 

I have to wonder whether you understand that quantity is not quality. 

Will it be ever thus? It’s well for the traveler to wander that he may cleave 

again to the path. And I’m your path, Thaliarchus. There is no question. 

You’ve walked all over me. Every time you’ve had your head turned, I 

remind myself I married a music man. But when you took your hall pass 

and left the classroom, I also went into circulation. My checkout card 

has more stamps on it than I care to admit, but no one kept me past 

my due date. Our suitcases are always packed and our harmonicas 

live in our pockets. Our hats have an aversion to dust and train whistles 

make us restless. We’ve left and returned and left again. But always 

to return. Eventually you have to pick a side, though, and we usually 

chose each other’s. These dalliances, what are they? Heartfawn, there’s 

a German word for what happens to your body when it starts to conform

to its work. Think of the carpenter’s hunch or the wrestler’s ears. Soon 

a man is suited for little else than the thing he’s done for ages. You’ll 

probably recall it before I do, but in any case, that’s what happened 

to my heart. So when you say you love me but aren’t ‘in love’ 

with me, I get confused. For if love is an art what you’re saying 

makes no sense. It’s what we do that matters and the sounds 

coming out of our mouth are only noises. Most songs you listen to 

come to an end, but the ones we sing ourselves don’t have to. 

Either use your words or else stop thinking. Tell me about your day 

and ask me about mine. Perhaps then you’ll see what we’re about. 

I will fight to win the sparrowhawk. The third term is us.

Robert Farrell lives and works as a librarian and philosophy instructor in the Bronx, New York. His poems have appeared in Magma, Posit, Narrative, The Brooklyn Review, Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies and elsewhere. His chapbooks, Meditations on the Body (2017) and Some Birds for Robert Rauschenberg (2025) are published by Ghostbird Press.

You will not swing in the dark by Katharine Luzzatto

There is one perfect age; 

where you climb onto the swing by yourself and 

your body is not too wide. 

You can smoke a cigarette and

drown the butt because you’re afraid of forest fires you 

drown yourself in Family Dollar body mist so 

your parents can’t smell the menthol sludge you didn’t inhale. 

The bottle in your backpack clinks against nothing as you pick it up

You want to get home before dark because

You’re afraid of your neighbor cop arresting you for 

swinging on a swingset and 

not smoking a cigarette. 

You need to get home because

You don’t know the people that come to this park after dark because they’re grown and besides

It’s closed after dusk.

You get home and 

the front door sticks and shines in damp, moggy air, 

you pull it closed and 

you reek of coconut and nicotine and outside but your mother doesn’t mind and 

welcomes you back to the house you tried to swing away from. 

You say nothing but “I love you” and 

She hands you a leash

You click it closed around a soft and scuzzy neck and

walk back from whence you came.

You are pulled past the park, and 

there are people, and 

they are smoking and

They are inhaling,

but 

They are not swinging.

One day soon 

you will be them. 

I promise

You will realize that this age was a flickering instant.

And you will not swing in the dark. 

Katharine Luzzatto is a writer and student from Suffolk, Virginia. Her work has previously appeared in Crow & Cross Keys and The College of William and Mary’s The Flat Hat. You can find her on Instagram @katharine.luzzatto, and on Substack @katharineluzzatto. 




Poems by Henry Luzzatto

Rubberneckin’

I passed by a church basement

full of old people dancing

cheek to cheek to rnb

on Valentine’s Day 

And all the young white single 

people in the city stopped

and said can you believe it?

Can you believe it?

And how could we? Believe that 

quietly each and every 

one all wanted that for us

We’d do anything 

for that to be us 

We’d give money, sex

trade our age for theirs 

to hold each other close in the basement 

and misremember youth we gave up for now

Clone Wars

How many guys with

stupid brown fiddly haircuts

do there need to be

before someone does something drastic?

I know I have a soul

a big blue mile-thick soul but

I don’t know about them

their teeth and black jeans and pus

truth is

I hate them

them I hate

the way an ape bares its teeth at the mirror 

Felix and Regula

Got too high and started imagining the kids I’m gonna have

I don’t usually think about the future of people that aren’t me

But I could see them

They weren’t much, just little scenes

unwashed kid hair and sticky breath

and myself, old, rounder

For my daughter 

who had a stupid name her mom picked out 

like Evangeline 

I dreamed about saying I wouldn’t just love her but 

would always give her the benefit of the doubt

the way boys don’t do with their women

And for my son

who was perfect

and named something big and sweet and dumb

that I got to choose

I just thought about all the baseball players

I want him to know were great 

Henry Luzzatto is a Brooklyn-based writer and musician. Originally from a swamp in Virginia, his work is featured in The Baffler, body fluids, ExPat Press, and more. 

THE ONLY WAY TO DRIVE THROUGH WYOMING IS WITH NO PANTS by Mike Barlow

There was that initial phase, that preliminary round of small talk.

The prelude to the fuck. That dreaded roundabout carousel of emotional attachment.
A one sided palaver at a fishing hole, she had a voice that could shatter a crystal meth pipe.
I smoked with her in my ears.
She talked herself into hysteria. Her true blonde blue eyes made clear water for an old man who
rode a Harley into a tree. I held her, cried some too, & even kissed a scar on her eyebrow.
I didn’t tell her I don’t know how to fish.
Only, no sex.
Yet, next time we met, we came fast.
Then slower. And slower. Until we vanished.
But fate brought us back.
If ever there was a sure sign, this was it: when your El Camino quits the road, and you’re
stranded, and she happens along in her 3 speed 2 tone junkyard wrecker, in plain english, this is
god saying, “This ain’t the time to make love, this the time to fuck!”
In her shrill heartland hillbilly twang that could circumcise a double dicked billy goat, she said,
“Well? Get in.”
In the cab, her unpainted grin told me she knew god was in our favor.
I asked, “Is there somewhere we can go?”
There was. We beelined for a carpet store dumpster, snagged up a barndoor sized roll of brand
new scrap, & lit out for the great plain countryside.
She remarked, “The fields are pretty this time of year. They make me feel nice.”
I didn’t tell her, but I was already hard. I said, “Yeah, fields. Nice.”
Dead leaves & river bottoms. Pussy lips & apple bottoms.
Mud flap chicks dipped in chrome & splashed with shit. Cattle prods & three legged dogs.
It didn’t matter how far she drove, I forgot the road home long ago.
We slapped the carpet down on the concrete slab of a no longer standing house that had blown
away. In the wide open spectacle of giant air, we went at it.

Both of us kept our boots on. Stripped to bareback steel toe penetrations, the west nile mosquito
swarms came & drank our blood. We came together and forgave each other for the lack of love.

Mike Barlow is a self taught vulgarian. More idiot. Less savant. Self published in a thousand
penitentiary letters. Went for what felt like years running from several respected communities
most wanted lists. Has stolen food for other reasons than hunger. Rehabilitated: for the sake of
conversation. Hasn’t ever understood a thing. Couldn’t be more pleased with his (sic) self

A Good Place To Die by LaVern Spencer McCarthy

“When are you going to do it?” Lenny asked Susan.

“When am I going to do what?” she responded, laying a card carefully on the dining room table where she was playing Solitaire.

         “When are you going to kill yourself?” Susan glanced at him warily. 

         “I have no desire to kill myself.”

         “But you need to,” replied Lenny. “After all, it was you who had the affair and ruined my name in this town.”

         “Your name!” Susan screeched, slapping the card she held onto the table. “What about my name? Not only have you trashed me to my friends, you went to every bar in town talking about me, trying to get sympathy, but all they did was laugh at you.” Lenny kicked a small trash can over. 

         “I would never have done that if you had been a faithful wife.”

         “But the affair was over five years ago,” she reminded him. 

         “So I heard,” he retorted, but it’s new to me.” Susan stood, ready to leave the room.

         “You shouldn’t have listened to my former lover’s new girlfriend when she called here trying to make trouble.”

         “Oh, is that so? When I asked you if it was true, I expected you to lie, but now I know you told the truth about everything.”

         “Yes, I did,” she replied. “You should be man enough to let it go.”

         “I will NEVER let it go!” he roared. “You should die.” Susan ran into the bedroom and locked the door. Lenny had been this way ever since he found out about Susan’s affair. She felt like throttling the hussy who called her home and demanded Susan come talk with her about Susan’s former lover. Susan had refused, and the woman informed Lenny. None of this would have happened if the man she gave her heart to had kept his mouth shut.

         Susan became a pariah in the town where she lived. Everywhere she went she could hear snide remarks behind her back. Leering men made obscene gestures. She was forced to shop two towns over so as not to be seen by anyone she knew.

         Lenny was not innocent. He backhanded Susan for the slightest thing she did wrong, even before her confession about being unfaithful. She often went to work wearing dark glasses because of a black eye. As a receptionist at an insurance company, she had to be presentable. It was hard to hide a cut lip or swollen, bruised face. Her boss threatened to fire her if she didn’t leave Lenny. She had no place to go, no children, no family. No one cared what happened to her. 

         Lenny hung around her work place, often waiting for her at the ground floor of the elevator when she got off work. His face in a perpetual sneer, he would inquire as to when she would commit suicide. He decided he wanted to be present when it happened. Susan told him not to worry. She would make sure he was there if she did it.

         She wondered what Lenny would do if she did kill herself. She was the only one who worked. Lenny was a dead-beat who never lifted a hand to do anything except drink and play video games. Their marriage had gone steadily downhill. She wished she had never met him.

         She also wished he would see a therapist or mental health worker. Of course, anyone would be upset if a spouse cheated, but Lenny went too far. The torment had been going on for a year. Lenny began suggesting various places for Susan to kill herself.                                               He wanted her to shoot herself in their flower garden, but she said that would disturb the neighbors. There were too many parents with children at the city park. No, she would not go there. But she was thinking of ending her life more and more. What did she have to live for anyway? Lenny’s constant barrage of hatred and ridicule were causing her a great deal of depression and despair. Because of trauma Susan had been eating more. She was a big woman before, but now she topped three hundred pounds, something else for Lenny to make nasty remarks about. 

         At last Susan decided to do what Lenny wanted. When it happened, Lenny was

there just as she had promised. As he was walking past the building where Susan worked,

she jumped from her office window on the twelfth floor and landed squarely on his ugly

head. 

LaVern Spencer McCarthy, has published eight books of poetry and four books of short
stories plus three journals. Her poems have been published in Visions International,
Poetry Society of Texas Book of The Year, Open Skies Quarterly, National Federation of
State Poetry Society’s Encore, Austin Poetry Society’s Austin’s Best Poets, A Texas
Garden of Verses and numerous state anthologies and newspaper columns.
Her poem, October’s Agenda was nominated for the Pushcart Award in 2023.

3 poems by Juliet Cook

Sawing Through

Lap dance underwater with

sharks.

Limbs tossed into 
bleeding mosh pits.

Those still alive are uniform,

guns, glass, hate.
Won’t stop shooting,
biting, spitting out

splintered heads they don’t want
to swallow.

Lacerated tongues which

can no longer speak.

Stuffed animal lair only

allows meat eating breeds

filled with contracting, contractual,
expanding killer teeth.

Dialect of smashed windows 

dragging you away.

Intrusive Obsession 

Hiding in the background,
then quietly limping to the side

of my peripheral vision,
then suddenly racing towards my headspace.


Screaming internally then constricting

my throat with heaves and gasps and

compulsions, every membrane screaming

obsessive images about how men are looking

at creampie dripping down 
younger women’s thighs 
and I’m a boring middle
aged woman his age

 
with saggy breasts and a heart
instead of just an opening

aimed to explode in his face.

Like a Ouija board strobe light inside

my brain, this obsession won’t stop

until my head splatters.

Invisible Ink

Possible poem lines emerge in bed,

in the midst of what seems like a semi-dream/

semi-reality state, followed by internal glitch

in which a semi-truck aims to run over

my new lines or my entire head. 


I thought I had managed

to temporarily sit up and 

write down my impending words, but

the first pen was devoid of ink. 

The second pen spit a thin drizzle

of almost invisible blood,

which soon disappeared. 

When I awoke, nothing new

was on the page. Had my words ever been there

at all? I could no longer remember the words
which had felt like they were writing themselves

inside my semi-invisible brain.

Perhaps it was just an illusion.

The bedside table was loaded

with hundreds of sheets of paper,

repetitive to-do lists. But no poetry. 

My new lines must have been 
thrown away or swallowed or 
trapped inside the dream or else 

never fully existed. 

I re-entered real life,

viewed the latest news,
saw death, murder, evil

worse than nightmares.
Part of me wished I was still stuck
in a dream. If I look away, am I acting
like another dead body is invisible ink? 

Juliet Cook doesn’t fit inside an Easy-Bake Oven and rarely cooks. Her poetry has appeared in a peculiar multitude of literary publications. She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, most recently including “red flames burning out” (Grey Book Press, 2023), “Contorted Doom Conveyor” (Gutter Snob Books, 2023), “Your Mouth is Moving Backwards” (Ethel Zine & Micro Press, 2023), “REVOLTING” (Cul-de-sac of Blood, 2024), and “Blue Stingers Instead of Wings” (Pure Sleeze Press, 2025). Her most recent full-length poetry book, “Malformed Confetti” was published by Crisis Chronicles Press. You can find out more at https://julietcook.weebly.com/.

from wastes / wraiths by James Knight

in air thick with lack of light deep stink of hot mammal

and stabbing breath

looped like my passage through this space

what is it we fear when images come to mind

do we sense something that inhabits rooms and woodlands

beyond exhalation

under duress

my door ceases to be mine

I crumple into an apology the bedsheets are too clean for me

when the human beast arrives it hunkers down and won’t budge

remembering the man gone mad asleep

clubbing his family to death

James Knight is a poet, artist, performer and publisher based in the UK. Publications include Cosmic Horror (Hem Press), Rites & Passages (Salò Press), Machine (Trickhouse Press) and Void Voices (Hesterglock Press). Website: www.thebirdking.com. Bluesky: @badbadpoet. Instagram: @jkbirdking.

Music #4: To Wander by Robert Frede Kenter

What was our poison touch, of palm lines

centred on hands, opening chords

into the body, incisions rent inside

like wreathless layers of skin?

A glorious kinetic estrangement 

feed-back loops speaking in tonality /  

urban reconstruction:  organ runs,  skronky sax,

industrious clarity / at the edge. In the frame, 

increments. And 

some time later, New York City,

alone. Glorious / audacity.

I saw your shadow forty feet long crossing

father demo square to come up stairs

after the ritual throwing up of food 

I tossed down the ring with the skeleton key.

Enactments between us always began with something 

breath/ less. Taking starkest energy. 

Was it you then, 

dressed in a white tuxedo? Art student

of midnight, your ironed shirt,  clover-patterned pants

sitting angular at the edge of a conceptual stare, 

a concrete floor, iron bed-sit, installation.

Being, the notion of prayer, 

or, in waiting at an abutment outside the Mudd Club

or somewhere else , in another outfit,

I remember your troweled performance on a couch

in the sprung rhythms of acid house.

Such memories / walk / me waking 

forward

to specular lipstick on pale skin,

circular meridians drawn in cups

from a river. 

To tie red hemp rope around your

waist,  tautly hold down your thigh

to hook beneath the back of knees 

for levitation,  a shuddering radio static 

meeting clustered mind, gathering up

in suspension’s glove for inertia. We ache 

in de-evolution towards ancestors, the 

awesome incisive markings, spine of 

your bridge, arched, offering, gravity-less

spectral juxtapositions: wigs / wraps, 

buttoned / in collated 

collars; marginalia  /collective sighing of electric

guitars in process  /a novel /

pages with annotations, yes, without 

you we are in for a long triage.

Hand over hand, climbing over 

indelicate industrial clamor, unrolling   

typewriter ribbons to erase propaganda broadsheets / smear

the news and various 

other kinds of puppeteer topographies / 

with spilled black ink blood.

Wandering / steps behind a

procession. At the parade grounds of immolation,

we sit on our knees, for hours / Try to 

stand up straight with

a wishbone lodged in the prism of

your throat, already broken, outmaneuvered /

we were plates of glass, shattered

fragments, separated from everything. 

Sometimes /planes take off from here,

on time. Even cauliflower 

softens in the pan.  You were once

serenaded by electricity volts, hand-held by numbers

of your fans who came to see you perform.

 (new stanza)

Now / (note): I serenade your memory. 

Dictate stenographic emblems 

to exposed toes. I

want to shake in crescendo, howling

in a complicated realm of teeth.

Programmed noise for synthetic generative 

chatter. 

Titled, Music # 4: It is /

so cold outside. Never forgot 

your urgency /

The predilection / to wander.  

Robert Frede Kenter is a widely published writer, visual artist, performer, & publisher of
Ice Floe Press (www.icefloepress.net) with work in over 200 publications published or
forthcoming including: Watch Your Head, Harpy Hybrid, ballast, winged moon, ABR, storms
journal, heavy feathers, petrichor, Cable Street, Burning House, Pissoir, Lost & Found Times,
Blood & Honey, Otoliths, Paragraph, The Prose Poem Journal etc.. In Anthologies incl:
Capitalism is a Death Cult (Sunday Mornings at the River), Speaking in Tongues (Steel
Incisors), The Book of Penteract (Penteract Press). Interpoem 1 & 2 (Sedserio), Glisk and
Glimmer (Sidhe Press). Select books: Moon Writing (with Catherine Graham) (Ice Floe Press,
2026), In the Blueprint of Her Iris (with Vikki C) (Ice Floe Press, 2025), Father Tectonic (Ethel
Zine, 2025), Audacity of Form (Ice Floe Press, 2019). Robert was guest editor of Secrets and
Lies (July, 2019) at Burning House Press and has lots of other projects on the go.
Soc media X: @frede_kenter, IG: icefloe22, r.f.k.vispocityshuffle, Bluesky:
@rfredekenter.bsky.social‬.

3 poems by Laurence Lillvik

American Sonnet #61

did you leave me here to collapse 

or was your intention to transform 

me into an elk? it’s important to 

know because we used to park

at the waterfront in Red Bank 

and make out and there was 

that one time when a cop car

pulled up right next to us and 

it looked like I was all alone in 

the back seat of my car and you

really seemed to … well, you 

had a flair for the dramatic, and

i often behaved like a child, blood

sugar issues and all of that shit. 

Wraith

I’ve been privy to your bold designs, 

Cold-called by piss merchants in

The dead days of spring, and seen 

Your type on the esplanade, 

Gumming yourselves mute, with 

Expectations of recognition.

And who am I, you may ask, 

So granular in my critiques of 

Pure season, when just last week 

I was pulling my skivvies on 

With a pair of grilling tongs? 

Hey, even a cool breeze on flayed skin

Is better than a hot sleep with dreams of you. 

Even a dozen spins 

Around the town’s worst rotary, 

Exit signs obscured by the 

Shimmying smog you call a

Marine layer, won’t leave me as dizzy

As one playback of your voicemails.

Selected Ambient Works

An outstretched and oversized-

Darlin’ you can kill kidnap me-

Kind of hand. Ringless 

In the dull light, sunbleached

An afterthought. The roving

Cloudburst with ark-making

Deluge revisits your pathway.

It’s unusual for the snakes 

To roost in the fickle strawbeds 

Of your youth. Time-released 

madness always often tricks 

The lizard brain into a ceasefire. 

Oh honey honeyed ointment, 

Leave us sticky and commendable

Laurence Lillvik (Portland, OR) is the editor of “Skullcrushing Hummingbird,” an international arts and literature zine. A new full-length collection of poems, “Catharsis Is Never Fully Shorn From Glee,” is forthcoming from Trident Press in the spring of 2026. His chapbook “Criterion” (Greying Ghost Press) was a featured small press title at Powell’s Books. His poetry has also appeared in several literary journals and DIY poetry chapbooks. Musically, Laurence is the founder of KalloHumina, an umbrella project for solo work and live improvised collaborations. He’s worked in Public Libraries for over two decades. IG: larstarts / skullhum.com

SUMMER NEEDS by Sara Matson

<1>

my suede hand

warm + gloved

pinning swollen fist on 

either side of ur mandible

+ screaming until the jaw

snaps (so visceral !)

my wet thigh sticky

(unexpected blood)

i tuck my body beneath

stubbed nose cold comfort

watching my verbal tics echo 

in the rugless lobby

my god, 

that’s what summer needs

a cropped linen jacket

just shaped enough

to warm my tits in 

cool summer shade

no pride or shame in making

an old woman cry

… i’m the old woman

<2>

the ridiculousness of lunch glass

or getting chewed out

in the afternoon thicket 

… unthinkable !

vibrant creature,

effervescence of youth

forest green + humbled by

succulence or prosperity,

buccal fat smeared in shiny layers

refracting age or wisdom

<3>

then me

+ the vibes i give: 

                   nervous forgiveness

                   stuffed with love which cannot carry

                   s w a m p

                   incurable lack/deepest ache

                   sun schemes (insofar as to stop the sun

                                     and it’s bullshit)

                   but like,                … friendly ?

yes, 

my hairline continues

to fur itself by fireplace

many extra fingers invited to 

light + curl 

squeezing crunch into velvet

 
before botox is just called youth

let me lick yours like a ruffle, 

like a scream in church !

in my mother’s voice: 

                            CRY OUT A WINDOW ABOUT IT

                            TELL THE MIDNIGHT MAN 

                            REMEMBER THE SLIME RIVER

ah,

of course

her indifference reminds me

to invoke the river of slime

to soak my sins in

the neon absolution

of undone mildew stains

like imposition over injury

<4>

the back of my neck 

is so hairless

(from          the accident)

that when i was nailing my wistfulness

to the new wallpaper

i adhered myself to the baseboard

gathering dust like spring grain

in my historically accurate suit

admiring medieval books

on weddings 

+ informal sutures 

Sara Matson (she/her) is a poet in Chicago and host of the seasonal online reading series Words // Friends. Her poems can be found in Discount Guillotine, Kicking Your Ass, The Chicago Reader and elsewhere. Her favorite color is lime green and you can find her on Instagram @skeletorsmom and Blue Sky @saramatson.bsky.social. 


FEBRUARY 2026 Guest Editor Is Ingrid M. Calderón!!! Theme: LOVE & HATE

Burning House Press are excited to welcome Ingrid M. Calderón as the seventh BHP guest editor of our return series of special editions! As of today Ingrid will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the month of February.

Submissions are open from today 1st February – and will remain open until 25th February.

Ingrid’s theme for the month is as follows

___

LOVE & HATE

___

Where does love end and hate begin? As an advocate of love in all its manifestations, I‘ve often found myself pondering and teetering on the soft umbilical cord of disillusionment when it comes to these emotions. I am not alone. Love & hate are siblings, —often share a room and define themselves by the company they keep. If needs remain unmet, what changes and how fast before combustion? If disappointment isn’t addressed, love and hate begin their resentful coexistence of two high volume breeds of circuitry.

All feelings at once please!

Ache. Want. Lust. Desire. Hate. Hostile. Loathe. Thirst. Hunger. Disgust. Violence.

I invite you to send poetries, hallucinations, uncomfortable journal entries and artworks pulled from the depths of where love & hate live inside you.

Ingrid is a poet, seer, collagist and the solitary editor of Resurrection magazine. She resides in Los Angeles, CA

___

  • SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
    • All submissions should be sent as .doc or .docx attachments to guesteditorbhp@gmail.com. No cover letter is necessary but please include a short third-person bio and (optional) photo of yourself for potential print with your submission. You may also consider including social media usernames, especially if you’re on Bluesky/Instagram– I want to promote your work!
    • Please state the theme and form of your submission in the subject of the email. For example: LOVE&HATE/FICTION
    • Submissions are open until 25th February and will reopen again on 1st March 2026 for a new theme/new editor/s.

    • 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.

_______

BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing Ingrid M. Calderón – friends, arsonistas, send our February 2026 guest editor your magic!

JANUARY 2026 Guest Editor Is KAWAI SHEN!!! Theme: ULTRAVIOLET

Burning House Press are excited to welcome Kawai Shen as the sixth BHP guest editor of our return series of special editions! As of today Kawai will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the month of January.

Submissions are open from today 3rd January – and will remain open until 25th January.

Kawai’s theme for the month is as follows

___

ULTRAVIOLET

  • Fresh bruises, wine stains, amethyst talismans, wilted lilacs, metallic fougeres, overripe mulberries, indigo children, laser burns, grape candy, supernova dust
  • Inspiration: Sei Shonagon, William S. Burroughs, Angela Carter, Mervyn Peake, Réjean Ducharme, Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, Aurora Mattia

Kawai Shen is based in Canada. Her fiction was shortlisted for the 6th edition of The Metatron Prize for Rising Authors and was selected for the Best Canadian Stories 2025 anthology. She has published work in khōréō, ergot, Extra Extra, The Whitney Review, A Fucking Magazine, and more. Her book, Wavering Futures, is forthcoming with Metatron Press in 2026.

AUTHOR PIC: photographer, Paul Hillier.

______

  • SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
    • All submissions should be sent as .doc or .docx attachments to guesteditorbhp@gmail.com. No cover letter is necessary but please include a short third-person bio and (optional) photo of yourself for potential print with your submission. You may also consider including social media usernames, especially if you’re on Bluesky/Instagram– I want to promote your work!
    • Please state the theme and form of your submission in the subject of the email. For example: ULTRAVIOLET/FICTION
    • Submissions are open until 25th January and will reopen again on 1st February 2026 for a new theme/new editor/s.
      • Fiction: Fiction should be limited to 1,500 words or (preferably) less. Up to two micros (maximum 500 words) may be sent.
      • Poetry: You can try your luck with poetry, but this issue will focus on purple prose. Submit no more than three poems.
      • Art: Submit a maximum of six hi-res images of your work in JPEG format (maximum size 2MB) with descriptions of each work (Title, Year, Medium) in the body of the email. File names should correspond with the work titles.

_______

BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing Kawai Shen – friends, arsonistas, send our January 2026 guest editor your magic!

DECEMBER 2025 Guest Editor Is MATTHEW KINLIN!!! Theme: My Heart Is Empty: Responses to The Life and Work of Nico

Burning House Press are excited to welcome Matthew Kinlin as the fifth BHP guest editor of our return series of special editions! As of today Matt will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the month of December.

Submissions are open from today 1st December – and will remain open until 21st DECEMBER.

Matt’s theme for the month is as follows

My Heart Is Empty: Responses to The Life and Work of Nico

Matthew Kinlin lives and writes in Glasgow. His published workst include Teenage Hallucination (Orbis Tertius Press, 2021); Curse Red, Curse Blue, Curse Green (Sweat Drenched Press, 2021); The Glass Abattoir (D.F.L. Lit, 2023); Songs of Xanthina (Broken Sleep Books, 2023); Psycho Viridian (Broken Sleep Books, 2024) and So Tender a Killer (Filthy Loot, 2025). Instagram: @obscene_mirror.

——

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: NICO/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 21st December – and will reopen again on 1st January 2026/for new theme/new editor/s.

BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing Matthew Kinlin – friends, arsonistas, send our December 2025 guest editor your magic!

Boreal by Autumn Richardson

i.

carnelian willows 

flint veins of the river

hoof-worn rock and a drifting 
scent of ungulates

	       	          (scars in stone
		                   fossil trails)

magnetic north 

	          pilgrimage

I bow to the illuminations 
within wounds

the work of days: 

	          a re-membering of 
	          that which is now torn

in pockets of moss I rest my eyes 

throats of earth open
	
	            a hive of tongues sings

as blue-antlered dawn falls 
vertiginous over mountains


ii.

deadfall, muskeg

	            flakes of mica

the cryptic living 
tinted with winter 

	           (each nivean heart 
	            an individuated star)

high bright tooth 
of winter moon

hill-spines arc – 
every 
vertebra 
a birch


iii.

the lake rim glows
but its eye is dark

clouds and rain 
dissolve there

	            (and shores 
	             and rock)

within catacombs
of willow

a bobcat
	             ruby-throated
attends to its altar 
of rabbit

	              and the forest, 
	              dimming

snaps shut its 
anthracite 
wings


iv.

the river is
coal-blue sap

	             deadfall
	             tamarack

there are flickerings at the edge 
of my vision – 

	             movements 
	             through 
	             the long-bodied 
	             pines

(wolves are stirring, elk are stirring
in the cold embers of this forest)

and water 
is a dark bloom, is never still 

	              hylae swell

bones blacken


v. 

between blue-skinned spruce
and a fire calving light and heat

at an altar of water where all
are subsumed or broken

darkness is drawing 
everything
open – 

	            a long-stemmed
	            and leaning dark

within which I may
be scented or seen

and so I try to be silent

to intuit each movement within
this catacomb of branches

to not give myself away


vi.

in a place wholly inaccessible 
I arrive to sticks and cold rain

beside white birch
at the edge 
of a silent lake I rest 
and wait

for the one voice of night 
to share with me its oldest name

. . .

Autumn Richardson is a poet, editor and translator. She has authored 5 collections including Heart of Winter, An Almost-Gone Radiance and Ajar To The Night. Since 2009 she has been co-director of the multi-media publishing house Corbel Stone Press alongside British artist Richard Skelton. Between 2013 and 2022 she co-edited the influential journal of ecopoetics and esoteric literature, Reliquiae. Originally from Canada, she now lives on the west coast of Ireland.

www.corbelstonepress.com

NOVEMBER 2025 Guest Editor Is C.C. O’HANLON!!! THEME/S: JOURNEYS

Burning House Press are excited to welcome C.C. O’HANLON as the fifth BHP guest editor of our return series of special editions! As of today C.C. will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the month of November.

Submissions are open from today 1st November – and will remain open until 25TH November.

C.C.’s theme for the month is as follows

—JOURNEYS

~~~

JOURNEYS: Physical, Psychological, and Imaginary, embracing words and images, in all forms, as well as complexity, resisting the superficial, algorithmic narratives of social media.

~~~

Photo by Given Rozell.

~~~

A self-described ‘vagabond, diarist, and wreck’, C.C. O’Hanlon’s fragmentary memoirs have been published in various anthologies, including Best Australian Essays 2005 and Best Australian Stories 2004 (both published by Black Inc, Australia), A Revealed Life: Australian Writers And Their Journeys In Memoir (ABC Books, Australia), The Odysseum: Strange Journeys That Obliterated Convention (John Murray, U.K.), Zahir: Desire & Eclipse (Zeno Press, U.K.), and Dark Ocean (Dark Mountain Project, U.K.). A founding features editor of Harper’ Bazaar Australia in the late ’80s, his mainstream journalism and images have appeared in The New York Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, Variety, Travel & Leisure, the Australian editions of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and scores of other newspapers and magazines.

He now lives a nomadic life with his American wife of 38 years aboard a small, sea-worn old sailboat named Wrack in the southern Mediterranean. They have three adult children.

_______

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: JOURNEYS/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 November – and will reopen again on 1st DECEMBER 2025/for new theme/new editor/s.

BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing C.C. – friends, arsonistas, send our NOVEMBER 2025 guest editor your magic!

Labyrinth / Erasure by Teresa Mestizo

With subtleties broken, / discourses returned / much heavier / A fresh train of disquietudes / sighed often /Sparks of temper; / the puzzle and the plague / But, in full view, / all things in the world / answer consequently: / fallen, rescued / The deepest impression, / a fine truth to any purpose — / that odd legacy / of occasion

Teresa Mestizo is a Chicagoan Xicana currently based in a small
mountainous town in Mexico where she writes, teaches, translates
& makes art. These poems are part of her recent erasure series using
Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-1767).
More of her work can be found at teresamestizo.com

Ambiguous Dirt by Austin Miles



one much quieter
one much more talkative,

interpreting daylight as if it were a room

			depleted sidewalk wants
		2 tell u (me) some
				thing

	something só imp. It

had to wa
	  it

	a pile of dirt remains ambiguous

laying on the stone like that
	
	can it tell the future?

can the most mundane
	can it (not) shine in my eye?

a rock gets lost but ppl forget

then nothing much done today

sometimes sleep
	but sometimes not.	
washed away
							
an interesting turn of phrase

someone walks into a bar
	but someone
				someone tries to convince me of something
but i’m conversing with a 
			desk lamp

the problem w the world today:
				   
				    the problem w the world today



Austin Miles is from southeast Ohio. He is the author of
the chapbook Perfect Garbage Forever (Bottlecap Press)
and has poems published in Touch the Donkey, Reap Thrill,
Don’t Submit!, and elsewhere.

Data Lake (excerpt) by Judson Hamilton

5.
Dusk completes its sundowning as crowds of people begin to congregate. Dark tourism is streamed on the brick walls of the town square. From the sewers: the fatberg sits in silent judgment: Popcorn lungs blooming in the young. Distant bleeps and glitches. A Faraday box stuffed with emotions. New fiberoptics beneath the cobblestones. “10G bae bee! 10G!!” The pale green glow of a billion minds humming beneath these streets. “Shot up some estrogen and grabbed the mic. Never felt so free.” GhostBots™ linger on the edge of the crowds asking if we need resurrecting. We lie supplicate at the open pit. Body heat rises up. Visible by the light of our screens. Easter eggs in a snuff film. *cherry vape clouds* Generational grief pegged to a wildly fluctuating index. <current artery blockage at 65%> The attract screen welcomes us to join the deceased. We line the open mass grave with our phablets. We place them gently along the edge. Our banking details auto-scrolling. Endless digits glowing in the night.

6.
Piles of burning mattresses. Labyrinthine tent cities tunnel deep in the night. Dynamos of madness. Blister packs of fear litter the sidewalk. People slicking their hair back looking to make a name for themselves. Mag-lev handcuffs are issued to citizens of good standing. Making arrests has become de rigueur. “Don’t get left behind – make yours today!” They say, ecoterrorism is back on the menu – whether we like it or not. Try decreasing memory footprint to speed things up. *panicked breathing, faces flush with relief* “It’s ok. It’s ok, guys! It’s all behind login.” Blood boys wandering aimlessly. Leashed to IVs. They skirt the vortex at the center of the town square. They gather in the murk. Peel like shadows off the brick walls. Supplicant and meek they are loaded into trucks. :the fatberg sweats in the dark: Bonfires burning large and bright on every street corner. Feverish dancing, arms flailing. Engagement rates are up! Distant bleeps and glitches. Drones pinging in the night. This is a place where no one wins. “Welcome to the unsubscribe center. You made it!”

7.
Washing bones to arrive at their final incantation. Broken teeth litter the streets. Shattered bottles line the curbs. Burger boxes and Styrofoam clamshells shift and slide along the sidewalk. :the fatberg wheezes from the sewers: “Dark empaths on the prowl” Great is their grift and short is their thrift. The pavement is covered in feces. Broken tents sway in the wind. A yellow sulfurous pollen burns the nostrils. Blankets everything in its stench. Blister packs of disappointment clog the sewer drains. The dispossessed have set up shop at the local mall. All honeycombed out with anguish architecture. Occult practices sold here for a price. *whispering* i’m on the verge. Flickering at the edge of sense. Cut-tongue mumblecore. Agitated. Carbonated. Overstimulated. Wandering the halls looking to score code. Countless stalls in cramped space. Frenetic haggling. Stale sweat and burned pharmaceuticals. JUUL pods litter the tile floor. Stimming on glitterbombs. Tech spells and hexes coded in COBOL. Etsy witches paid in arcade tokens. “Hey there are gravity sinkholes everywhere here so – watch your step.”

Judson Hamilton lives in Wroclaw, Poland.
Bluesky @judsonhamilton.bsky.social
https://neutralspaces.co/judson_hamilton/

Two Poems by Corwin Ericson

Sculpture Garden

Brick Professional Building
enislanded by offramps.

Asphalt Curbs Pushed onto the Mulch
by the plow service
spell something broken
in the lot of the brick professional building.

Black Plastic Rat Traps
every twenty paces 
under dead brown junipers
ring the brick professional building.

Box for Patient Samples
bolted to the masonry
outside the back basement door
of the brick professional building.

Five People in Cars Eating by Phonelight
two of them wearing scrubs
each of them alone
behind the brick professional building.

Oft-Gnawed Fisher Price People
collect pathogens
in the children’s corner
of the brick professional building. 

* 
Inholding

Where feral bloodroot blooms
prettily, where knotweed and bittersweet
are bad ideas that have won the meadow
where there are wells and springs
and cairns and cellars
there is a heavy chain and hook
hanging from a maple too old to tap
where her late husband
butchered their cow.

Corwin Ericson is the author of Swell, a novel, and the collection
Checked Out OK. His work has appeared in Volt, Jubilat,
Harpers, and elsewhere.

(Image: Ralph Eugene Meatyard. “Untitled,” 1963. Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery)

Two Poems by Dan Melling

A Tense to Describe a Duck That Isn’t There
After Asger Jorn’s The Disquieting Duckling

Duck would have been erupting. 
Duck would have erupted. 
Duck continuous erupt 
in the would / have been. Future 
duck the perfect erupts. The never duck 
eruption. 
present simple farmer 
haybales fowl in the is and ises in the ed 
of rural whitewash 	each breath 
	a flesh of brushstrokes. 
a tense to describe the temporal
stretch of canvas. Dapples
of birch leavings to stack 
in impasto. An erupt

	to duck a basal ganglia.

*
A-Political Self-immolators

We fizzy & piffy lakeside straight shooter boys
shoot stray cats from the Baroque balcony boys
we’re landslide boys eat crab boys big bullet 
bully boys hooligan melodies & tenebrous eyes boys
sparkle sparkle little pig we ride rapid boys wide 
boys locked safe boys sink to the depths the Davy 
Jones boys real boy’s boys’ boys locker room 
boys’ talk boys neck foam boys nick phones boys rock
-a-bye baby boys the blue-eyed boys bish bash
bosh job’s a good’un boys we’re those landgrab boys
swamp stab boys drain the blood dig the liver
boys pile-driver boys we’re deep-sea diver boys
black-lung coal miner boys real DH Lawrence boys 
big tough boys with big tough toys oioioi boys 
make some fucking noise boys we’re poison boys
burn the fields salt the earth shatter seas stone skim
boys we’re the make room boys the me-first boys
the boys with a fire in our fists we’re pollution boys 
we’re gruesome boys those lumpen laymen men 
of the earth serf boys we’re wind & rain boys fight 
through snow sludge through mud we breathe gas 
boys bottle rocket shrapnel boys we’re front-line boys 
Gulf War Syndrome born alone die alone eight
pawn boys dethroned boys deflowered & defaced
face the music boys on my mark we go over
trench foot shell shock whizz-bang boys no man’s
land landless boys no stake in society ASBO boys
we’re high fire boys burn like mustard boys
we burn water baptisms of gas explosions stop
drop & roll up a fatty we’re rock n troll star
boys steal your hearts & leave a scar life sentence no 
possibility of parole we’re born to die boys beautiful 
corpse cheap funeral Amazon coffin & BYOB
boys search & destroy boys given no quarter hung
drawn & quartered we’re those coup de grâce
coup d'état boys raze the dead seize the day gone
tomorrow boys we’re the lost boys the last boys
last of our name last of our nature we’re ouroboros 
boys anonymous boys we see things say things 
you wouldn’t dream boys you wouldn’t feed us
to your dog you wouldn’t touch us with his you’d
off with our heads you wouldn’t be seen dead.

Dan Melling is a writer from the UK.
He holds an MFA in Poetry from Virginia Tech and teaches creative writing
at Liverpool John Moores University, where he is also pursuing a PhD.
His work has appeared in The Rialto, X-R-A-Y, HAD and elsewhere.
He co-edits Damnation literary journal.

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