The muffled sound of your maple-infused voice stirred me; it trapped me in a vertiginous whirlwind of fire and water.
What the hell is this— this fighting that bends, never breaks—starves, yet illuminates.
You are the cement of the sky; the sun casting skin cancer and eternal glow, the stars that count wishes and blow to
dust.
How can one be the spit of the smoker— and the silver faucet that cleans it?
Blinding fog that chokes and shows the way;
I am a diver, not a seer.
Sylvia Plath Momentum
Blood-like fragments in a silver sky— I know it’s not true; why, then, should I lie?
The water poisoned; hellfire in my brain— thoughts like ashes, yet your smiles remain.
If you can’t see it, will it destroy you? I’m still surrounded by roses, illusions, boredom.
And love keeps stuttering the words of a slut, embracing what pours up out of the mud.
Clay for the unwise, moulding the impure. I talk to God, yet like
she said; the sky is empty—
I taste iron.
Karina Longo is a neurodiverse Brazilian-Italian poet based in Milan. Her poetry has been featured or is forthcoming in Expat Press, Be About It Press, Resurrection Mag, Some Words, Dodo Eraser, Michigan City Review of Books, Prosetrics, and elsewhere. Karina was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Find her on X: @TheDarkestStar_
Burning House Press are excited to welcome Alexander Booth as the fourth BHP guest editor of our return series of special editions! As of today Alexander will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the month of September.
Submissions are open from today 1st September – and will remain open until 25TH SEPTEMBER.
Alexander’s theme/s for the month are as follows
—LANDSCAPE
LABYRINTH—
Black Square and Red Square by Kazmir Malevich
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LANDSCAPE // LABYRINTH
*
When the painter’s friends, however, looked around for the painter, they saw that he was gone—that he was in the picture. There, he followed the little path that led to the door, paused before it quite still, turned, smiled, and disappeared through the narrow opening.
– Walter Benjamin, Berlin Childhood around 1900 (trans. Howard Eiland)
*
Each one of us, then, should speak of his roads, his crossroads, his roadside benches; each one of us should make a surveyor’s map of his lost fields and meadows.
Gaston Bachelard (trans. Maria Jolas)
*
“Though Minos blocks escape by land or water,”
Daedalus said, “surely the sky is open,
And that’s the way we’ll go. Minos’ dominion
Does not include the air.”
– Ovid, Metamorphosis (trans. Rolfe Humphries)
_____
Alexander Booth is a poet, translator, collage artist and printmaker who lives in Berlin. Recent translations include books by Friederike Mayröcker, Alexander Kluge, Gerhard Rühm, and a new translation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. His collection of poems Triptych was published in 2021 and Kantor in 2023.
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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: LANDSCAPE/POETRY Or LABYRINTH/FICTION
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 SEPTEMBER – and will reopen again on 1st OCTOBER 2025/for new theme/new editor/s.
BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing Alexander Booth – friends, arsonistas, send our SEPTEMBER 2025 guest editor your magic!
Deep in the forest in a flannel nightdress, a little girl lingers without much on her chest, shame in her heart, much to confess. Here she is safe, completely at rest. Gone the behemoths of yesteryear. Her cheek on chenille, her brain bereft of all fear inside this night sans starlight except a meek constellation of which faithfully appears from a bedside nightlight replacing a moon which made her weep more nights than swoon. Tonight she looks no father than this light of her room which is not a metaphor — means to write. No beseeching big teeth inside these woods — it ends with her pen like make believe should.
Bury bereavement in cellar below with buttercup onesie, Château Pétrus Merlot — a godless sacrament you know is mortal sin. Silicon reproduced to simulate skin so your spouse can begin, maternal virgin, again. Sleep walk through mutual grief she countermands, rationing love, plastic in pale hands. Keep cries deep in your throat until she’s asleep. A baby monitor projects its first weep — graveled, full grown. The hell two have reaped, one remembers alone. Insatiable thirst nursed by propped-up bottles inside brownstone, She suckles a doll while you drink alone.
In this desolate place I can almost hear
the sacred buzzing of bees, glimpse
an endless canopy of emerald leaves
pulsing against a clear cobalt sky. Continue reading “Ghosts by Lucy Whitehead”→
gone
the minister for war
gone the guns,
the minister for rain and rivers
in conference
with minister for forest and
minister for music and poetry, Continue reading “2 Poems by David Hallett”→
The world seems so scary but really it’s
scratching our eyes out in order to start
a new current. Electricity will replace
every color. Pupils will either expand
or explode. Replacement therapy is outdated.
It is time to get rid of everyone. Continue reading “The New World Doll Dresser by Juliet Cook & j/j hastain”→
I see, I said, when I saw, but if I am to believe, be it in science or in faith, then what I said, I saw, I did not see. There was something else entirely, and it was there, right there, for me to see, but I only see what I saw, and what I saw was not there. Continue reading “2 Prose Poems by John Peter Apruzzese”→
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