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Womannotated – Madonna & Manchild

January 9th, 2021

Madonna & Manchild 

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. 

Continue reading “Womannotated – Madonna & Manchild”

MAY 2020 Guest Editor Is ATEFEH AHMADI!!! THEME: TALISMAN // CHANNELLING THE OUTSIDE

Burning House Press are excited to welcome ATEFEH AHMADI as our MAY 2020 guest editor! As of today ATEFEH will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of MAY.

Submissions are open from today – 1st MAY and will remain open until 24TH MAY.

ATEFEH’S theme for the month is as follows

TALISMAN // CHANNELLING THE OUTSIDE

The New World Doll Dresser by Juliet Cook & j/j hastain

The New World Doll Dresser

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 Replacement therapy is outdated.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”

NO MACHINE WITHOUT A GHOST EDITION NOVEMBER 2019 GUEST EDITED/CURATED BY MAUVE PERLE TAHAT/ARTWORK BY MORIAH M. MYLOD

NO MACHINE WITHOUT A GHOST EDITION NOVEMBER 2019 GUEST EDITED/CURATED BY MAUVE PERLE TAHAT/ARTWORK BY MORIAH M. MYLOD

Continue reading “NO MACHINE WITHOUT A GHOST EDITION NOVEMBER 2019 GUEST EDITED/CURATED BY MAUVE PERLE TAHAT/ARTWORK BY MORIAH M. MYLOD”

2 poems by Paul Brookes

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Art by Moriah M. Mylod

 

I Hollow

 

out the machineries of cold manufactured delight.

Push broom down aisles of persuasion,

 

Tidy stray cardboard packaging, lost lollipops,

Tab ends, water bottle tops into clear bags.

 

Push sud and scrub machine down

Avenues of enticement, lift shoe scud,

 

rice, sugar, dripped carbonated water,

my own boot print to be released, slopped out

 

into whatever weather drips, ices, the shop car park 

through the detached nozzle of cleanliness.

 

▪¤●○•°■■●○•°

 

Latest Fad Is

making shapes

with the soft robots

under your skin.

 

Caterpillars and pigs

manipulated inside

your transparent skin

and muscle into shadow

 

plays of nostalgic silhouette

cathedrals, medieval streets,

Capability Brown gardens,

rivers tumble from mountains.

 

Only the rich can afford

the best internal silhouettes.

Some prefer strip shows

and a pole dancers writhe

 

inside them they control

with a flashlight. Others

hybrid animal/machine 

fantasy battles. Internal

 

tattoos that some say

rot inside after so much

manipulation. Corrosion

bleeds into vital organs.

 

Paul Brookes is a shop asst. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017), A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018),Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019).Forthcoming Stubborn Sod, (Alien Buddha Press).

“this wonder of an era” by Ahimaz Rajessh

       

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Art by Moriah M. Mylod

       as the missiles launched by the famished, agency-severed headless palmyras make love as yatchan/yatchini in the expansive space above the sea, unusually intense acid rain pours down which enthralls the soft-spaceships orbiting the earth.

 

        ‘the upholders of absolute truth say—.’ in the process of putting down: ‘in this wounded era in which a few of those still remain, those who had lost along with their limbs and memories their history to those that call themselves civilized; in this era that makes one wonder how is it even possible to be this much cultured, in this cultured era in which the ancient invisible technology that creates histories out of fictions and makes them myths has meshed itself finely with high technology, truly they say: a society that has not written down and preserved its history proper will be wiped ou—’; in the process of putting down and reading this, does a missile called silence advance up toward my vocal cord and sever my part-asinine chain of thought.

 

       the multiplied yatchi/yatcha missiles fly past mountains and cities invisibly, lighting up electromagnetic spectrum, picking and savoring microwaves, but unsatiated and still famished, they migrate in many directions, departing and arriving toward the targets.

 

 

 

Ahimaz Rajessh (@ahimaaz) has been published recently with Marlskarx, Burning House Press, Big Echo: Critical SF, Paint Bucket, Speculative 66, formercactus, Dream Pop Press and MoonPark Review. He lives in the Union of India.

“centralia, the town that swallows flames” by Kailey Tedesco

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Art by Moriah M. Mylod

our feet have bottomed 

out in the earth-slit.

let it be known 

 

buck was once the name 

of a dog, but not a dog 

of mine. my toddler 

 

arms suffered hives 

from his lick, burned 

redhot from within

 

  1. i feared his cleaning 

himself, a nautilus 

my own body 

 

could not shape. in a kitchen 

like any other, the smoke 

left a beeswarm. before

 

fire, i figured allergies, my skin 

blistering honeyblood. a maggot

lived in buck 

 

for nine days before

anyone noticed. when plucked, 

it was golf-sized, full of 

 

dog. mother fed me 

a milkbone for a moment of 

peace, bleached the 

 

sink of its bloodsplatter until

our dishes were 

poison. the sun rises &

 

there is less  

& less of us. we hold

last vigils by the jesus-

 

shrine, ask for him to 

be with us & in us – a 

maggot. how afraid

 

they must be, jesus

and the dog, having never 

seen hell before. we are 

 

constantly feeding; the holes

are already 

in all of us. 

 

 

 

 

 

Kailey Tedesco is the author of She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publishing). Her collection, Lizzie, Speak, won White Stag Publishing’s 2018 poetry contest, and her newest collection, FOREVERHAUS, is forthcoming from White Stag in 2020. She is a senior editor for Luna Luna Magazine. You can find her work featured or forthcoming in Gigantic Sequins, Electric Literature, Nat. Brut, Black Warrior Review, Fairy Tale Review, Bone Bouquet Journal, and more. For further information, please follow @kaileytedesco. 

“LA COLLECTIONNEUSE” by Nicholas Beren

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Art by Moriah M. Mylod

1.

California mouth sore

gas station brass

 

where a rich black mass

is still in the window

 

The phone 

I use 

crackles 

and never 

makes much 

sense

I feel like 

I’ve read

the internet

too many 

times

and now I know

how it ends

we have 

plans 

to meet 

at eleven

But 

come eleven 

I’m the 

only one 

waiting

underneath 

the crumby 

don’t walk sign

that really 

just says walk 

in either orange

or blue

I always wonder 

what her cruelty means

She tells me 

it means nothing

 

3.

Hauntings take time 

you cannot haunt 

somewhere 

all at once 

and if you ever tried 

you wouldn’t understand 

what it truly means to haunt 

like a horse in the jungle 

the cool smell of chlorine 

the nearness of your dress

 

The final portion of this poem previously appeared in Caustic Frolic.
Nicholas Beren is a New Jersey native. In addition to his poetry, he has written film criticism and arts features for sundry outlets, online and in print. You can find him on twitter @BerenNicholas. He still lives in New Jersey.

“Telling” by Ian Schoultz

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Art by Moriah M. Mylod


stories only 🡪 this message has no content / i will devour / like a written thing 🡪 loomed untitled. /// The / empathy empathy / the main character should die 🡪 submenu / enter // my question is when u say you are say u are sad, what are you sad about? are you sad about the world? the compounded sadness? is a thought sad? how is happy? whose is it and what is it like? mouseclick 🡪 palpable turn //// thought n. – a reliquary of loss; an open document; a semblance; a letting; a source; everyone who’s there. [] [] [] 🡪 the season nonetheless some evocative partially solid thing 🡪 extra limbic 🡪 carrier wave 🡪 mostly 🡪 really 🡪 and as the subject of / what do you see 🡪 praxis in reasonable portions 🡪 father on religion save / save save the whales 🡪 they sick / from heavy metals (character’s demonstration of preconceived prerecorded a priori desires /// “exist” or 🡪 my biological episode (to descriptor string [] [] blessed end blessed beginning) 🡪 second death / wearing the gradual retreat still heard and felt / Object. / have been the road [] [] [] [] [] [] see if you put this like this and this like this / you can make / a mouth a mouth a myth / and it’s the same the same same [the question is]

 

 

Ian recently finished his MFA in Poetry from Louisiana State University. His work has appeared in the tiny and Aberration Labyrinth and is forthcoming in Always Crashing. He lives and walks his black lab, Gabriel, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

 

3 Poems by L. Reeman

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Art by Moriah M. Mylod

J. EDGAR (Dir. Clint Eastwood, 2011)

 

I.

 

i don’t

 

i don’t

 

i don’t         like to

 

i don’t like to        dance,     mother,

 

i don’t like to–

 

EDGAR GO LOOK IN THE 

MIRROR TALK THE WAY THE DOCTOR

TAUGHT YOU TO BE MY LITTLE SPEEDY

 

((i can spit my         words out with    ((with 

((i can spit my words         out with 

 

mother,     mother 

 

i don’t like to dance

i don’t like to dance with     anyone 

((but mostly 

i don’t like to dance with     women

 

–ODD BEHAVIOR

–DO YOU KNOW WHY –ITS SHORT FOR

DAFFODIL HE SHOT HIMSELF–

SIX WEEKS AFTER

–I’D RATHER HAVE A DEAD SON THAN 

A DAFFODIL […] SON

 

II.

 

EDGAR:    you know i care so very much for you […]

CLYDE:     IS EVERYTHING OKAY–

EDGAR:     yes i’m fine–

CLYDE:    DON’T YOU MAKE A FOOL OF ME […]

CLYDE:    HAVE YOU BECOME PHYSICAL–

EDGAR    yes we have–

EDGAR:     do you want me to be half a person–

CLYDE:    IS THAT WHAT I AM TO YOU– INCOMPLETION–

CLYDE:     YOU’RE A SCARED HEARTLESS HORRIBLE LITTLE MAN–

EDGAR:    you’re acting like a fool–

 

[…]

 

EDGAR:    don’t you ever do that again–

 

[…]

 

EDGAR:    Clyde     ((where are you going

EDGAR:    Clyde     ((i’m sorry

EDGAR:    Clyde     ((please don’t leave me

EDGAR:    Clyde     ((i’m begging you

 

 

 

THE LIGHT, RIGHT BEFORE (IT GOES OUT)

 

we are eating our separate smoke in 

your living room: you prop your broken

 

window open with a weapon-part when 

the hot air coaxing us into a fine sweat 

 

[triggers] 

 

my body back into the last jail cell: for weeks

afterwards i wake up dragged out of my car 

 

& my hands cuff-numb again in both our 

beds: i’ve decided love is the awkward way 

 

we dance around the word itself: so in the 

interest of being transparent i am admitting 

 

i am an expert at pretending to be asleep: 

i have done it while another partner fucked 

 

someone else in my bed next to me & 

i have done it to stay home from grade 

 

school & i have done it in jail to placebo 

myself into stillness:  i promise i am not 

 

lying even when i say the same things as 

i’ve said into similarly uncertain mouths: 

 

love is me telling you how to devastate me 

& you choosing not to: love is you wanting 

 

me to believe all the awful things you assume 

would make someone tell you to leave: or, it 

 

is knowing we are pretending not to watch 

each other move / liquid-like / right before 

the light / goes out. 

 

 

THE NEW JERSEY DEVIL STOPS BEING A PACIFIST AFTER WATCHING COPS BEAT ITS FRIENDS INTO THE PAVEMENT 

 

The New Jersey Devil is being followed by an unmarked car (again) (today). The New Jersey Devil sits across from the jail-warden and looks at its own mugshot upside-down. The New Jersey Devil watches the camera watching it eat naked shit naked sleep naked sob naked glare back at it naked. The New Jersey Devil finds the only not-Bible book during the one un-solitary hour and it is Hamlet so thus reads each sentence twice then recites it back to itself like it is the Ghost and the voice-crack and the Accident and the scene-change all at once. The New Jersey Devil is told it is unsafe but the jail-warden is not telling the New Jersey Devil how it feels he is telling it how it is classified. The New Jersey Devil does not know how long it prayed to a sliver of sky before realizing it was just a brick wall’s painted taunt. The New Jersey Devil has handcuff scars for months after. Later, the New Jersey Devil learns a prayer exists in a lover’s language that begs the skulls of their enemies cracked open on rocks like brunch eggs. Later, the New Jersey Devil practices the script of its emergency contact number so often it recitals in its sleep. Now, the New Jersey Devil does not have it memorized (yet) (again). Now, the New Jersey Devil gets one phone call and it rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and

 

 

L. Reeman is an interdisciplinary archivist and poet haunting highway rest-stops. They are the author of INVENTION OF THE MOUTH (Dream Pop Press, 2019), and BAITED MEMORY (Ghost City Press, 2019), as well as other chapbooks, and they have work in the 2017 Bettering American Poetry anthology. They want to hear about your favorite bridge.

“Every Room Whispers Itself into Your Ear” by Juliet Cook

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Art by Moriah M. Mylod

In this diorama, an intermediary exists in between

the good and the bad, but it’s hard to tell the difference

and sometimes the forces combine. 

 

This room is for the disobedient whores

to be stabbed and wrapped in plastic

and then placed in an ornamental circle.

 

In this room, tiny log shaped ornaments 

sometimes change color 

or shape or size to warn you

the next fire is about to begin.

 

In this room, someone will tell you she can cast a spell

in order to reveal who your real friends are,

but what if you find out you don’t have any real friends? 

 

More broken hearts will sink under the ground.

More spells will turn your life invisible.

Everyone has their own interests at heart

to be rearranged into good, bad, evil, dead

 

 

Juliet Cook is a grotesque glitter witch medusa hybrid brimming with black, grey, silver, purple, and dark red explosions. She is drawn to poetry, abstract visual art, and other forms of expression. Her poetry has appeared in a peculiar multitude of literary publications. You can find out more at www.JulietCook.weebly.com.

“Roadblock/Family Curses” by Jessie Janeshek

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Art by Moriah M. Mylod

blood-red nails        tiny ferns    or creek-side bloodletting

    he swears rain is coming

and, oh yeah, she’s pregnant

    and they name all their kids    after each other

    ink changing color, blend in

and their defense is to present me

            as a wild woman in red on fast horses out of our time

but I know every minute of every week

        toward the moor or the seashore.

You say I’m futuristic        but I’m cloyingly nostalgic

    well-read in the gothic        abandoning

the conga line of bleached blondes    to forcefeed the dying cat

        Christmas crackers and charades

and wink if it’s a murder    plaid pants and my father’s failed guillotine trick.

    If you have time I’ll teach you        stuffed with sweet pecans

otherwise you can look in the clear purse

    with the blue gingham pocket for secrets

            vampires haunting New England

        and Vampira on late-nite TV.

I wear a wig like hers    but I’m not starving you

    in my smart suit    in my flowered shell

        and all the good noirs take place by the Hollywood Bowl

a minute per page in the trick house we hear them

    except the one where the girl falls off the boat

in her stolen furs

        and you gut a dog to switch on your sex drive

        and I waterski to our eroding island

sex twice in the summer    a middy dress play

    fat caterwauls

so even when her coat’s shiny        I won’t forget she’s dying.

    I pray for an earlier night no matter what

I pray to come in the storm in a full-skirted green dress. 

    I’m saving it up for the riverbed chase scene

            for the wasp-waisted Los Angeles rainbow

        for the end is immortal/immoral

        for the femme fatale exits unscathed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jessie Janeshek’s three full-length collections are MADCAP (Stalking Horse Press, 2019), The Shaky Phase (Stalking Horse Press, 2017) and Invisible Mink (Iris Press, 2010). Her chapbooks include Spanish Donkey/Pear of Anguish (Grey Book Press, 2016), Rah-Rah Nostalgia (dancing girl press, 2016), Supernoir (Grey Book Press, 2017), Auto-Harlow (Shirt Pocket Press, 2018), Hardscape (Reality Beach, forthcoming), and Channel U (Grey Book Press, forthcoming). Read more at jessiejaneshek.net.

2 Poems by Dhiyanah Hassan

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Art by Moriah M. Mylod

 

The Electric Keyboard Dreams

 

I take the notes out, I take the sounds away.

This is how I unravel the piano player.

When I let her fingers travel me, 

The treble clef trembles.

The bass weeps for the silence

Descending between

One scale and the next —

 

And this is how I’ll play,

This is how I play.

 

Heavy ghosts pour down,

The swimming pool’s full.

Gelatinous grubs wriggling myopic war dance.

The drum behind the keys

Throbbing against the head of a child.

Piano player with a guillotine

for a voice. Squelching arteries. Shine the jugular,

Upside down the garments

Of the Sun. Right-side up now,
Watching her light spill out.

 

And this is how I’ll play,

This is how I play.

 

She knows more than she can handle,

She knows more than me,

A girl-child child-self holding a program for the apocalypse.

She dreams of heaven every night she runs away.

She dreams of heaven every night she can’t run away.

 

And this is how I play,

And this is what we play —

 

A symphony the susurrus of ancient leaves,

Worn down by a million solar winds.

Spines lying bare at the mother’s feet, 

the poetry slipping out her teeth.

Us lying awake — him reaching, she running, we becoming 

little nothings, all over again. Smash the keys. 

The stars shine, all over again.

The seas rumble, the F Sharp screaming

against D Minor’s weeping –

all overwhelming again.

Emptied bellies growing fangs, together

The kids gang up on the weather.

Heal the ice caps by melting their knees into hot tarmac.

No ancestral fevers now to wipe the ash of the world with,

Just these songs. Just these songs,

 

Sang into the hollowed-out trunk

Of a dead tree. A prophecy

constellated in the stars. Brightly now

the fingers of children

dreaming themselves alive

between arpeggios and wet bed sheets.

The planet’s heart strings

 

asleep 

in every child’s unheard

shriek.

 

 

°•○●□°•○●□¤°

 

 

A Strange Joke

 

Sometimes you bruise a fruit

To make sure it’s real.

 

The songs of plastic

Have nowhere to go

 

But back into the

The hollowed-out hearts of their

 

Price tags. A scratch on this orchid

Won’t release the same 

 

Geometry into the air

The form of bliss, the shape of scent.

 

The sugars in these melons

Won’t attract ants, not even in decay

 

Will they be squashed. If not for the

Fire the winds wouldn’t sing

 

Through them. She told me, “Here,

This flower, token of our

 

Love, look. It won’t ever die.” She placed it

in a vase full of water, a strange joke. Alone, I said,

 

“But it smells like nothing. Can we really

Call it love without ever having breathed life

 

Into it, without having gardened

Through debris and detriment, building from nothing

 

The roots needed to feed

The stories we shape – or is this enough,

 

A slide across the screen, the slippery

Borders between attraction and rejection,

 

Handing our love over to the anxiety

That nothing here was built to last past

 

The twenty-first century, so why should we ever

Get real flowers for each other? Why should

 

Anything living be kissed

into the lonely water of the flower vase,

 

To grow old, to wrinkle up and dry,

To die. Why risk it,

 

When all our foods have turned

More lifeless than stone?”

 

I want to be fed by the heat

That comes from fears overridden not

 

By staying somewhere in the middle,

Draining the feelings out of every sentence. I want

 

To be a vessel for the kind of dreams

That grow through even the worst decay —

 

But she never heard a word I said

As she sunk her head back into a pixelated wall

 

Further away than I could see. And that

Was the last I heard of her, for my phone never

 

Rang again. The apps stopped their pulsing for my attention

After I drowned the old thing in sugar and spice

 

And everything nice. The ants cling desperately

To the floor, the vacuum cleaner we bought

 

Isn’t strong enough to clear out

All this rot.

 

 

 

 

Dhiyanah Hassan is an artist, writer, and energy worker whose practice explores the relationships between art, storytelling, and healing. Her work seeks to connect the soul and soil of the internal worlds orbiting within us, finding transformative expressions of the wild, the mystical, and miraculous through artistic and multidisciplinary mediums, facilitating spaces and conversations where creativity is utilized as a catalyst for healing and trauma recovery. Dhiyanah’s poetry has appeared in sister-hood, OCCULUM, and Rambutan Literary. Website: http://www.bydhiyanah.com

 

“Moonlight Part 2” and “Her Will” by Mark Allen Jenkins

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Art by Moriah M. Mylod

 

Moonlight Part 2

 

The moonlit hills,     silvery sentinels

guarding    the silent

desert.     The jagged

mine         mouth,    a black 

hole         into         twilight 

zone

 

Tim’s voice changed, 

pitch higher.

 

When I hurt 

my hand     in the mine,    something

remarkable     got         under

my skin        something

        begun         to change

     me             for better

        I know it is connected to a great plan

set in motion         billions    years

ago                 out        among stars

 

there is substance        in this mine

allows a human             change from mortal into a god       

I am being                transformed

into a creature            of the universe

 

What do you think?

 

I think you need to go back to the hospital 

 

This is a found poem. Source: Pike, Christopher. Hollow Skull. Hodder, 1998. Page 75

 

Her will

 

Transformation    inevitable 

   

She has grown        great

now,             difficult 

with words 

 

cooperate for 

your         own        sake

 

you’ll understand 

everything soon

 

head    slurped     back

she saw stars        grin

demons

 

 

This is a found poem. Source: Pike, Christopher. Hollow Skull. Hoddler, 1998. Page 76.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Originally from the hilly corner of Ohio, Mark Allen Jenkins’s poetry has appeared in Memorious, minnesota review, South Dakota Review, Every River on Earth: Writing from Appalachian Ohio, and Gargoyle. He recently completed a PhD in Humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas and currently teaches in Houston.

2 Poems by Mauricio Montiel Figueiras

resistance and i
Art of Moriah M. Mylod

“Out Come the Ghosts”

The ghost of Guillaume Apollinaire writes on the walls of dilapidated buildings. His calligrams get lost amidst the strangest graffiti.
The ghost of Jane Austen wanders through the Roman baths at Bath. In the steam of time she glimpses people that fall in and out of love.
The ghost of J.G. Ballard watches airplanes coming in and out of Heathrow Airport. In the names of airlines he discerns a secret code.
The ghost of Roland Barthes writes love letters without recipient. He tears them into pieces in order to keep only certain fragments.
The ghost of Charles Baudelaire keeps on hiding from his creditors. He moves from loft to loft when he sees dust dancing in the sun.
The ghost of Felice Bauer likes to take long walks through empty streets. She wears a pair of small boots wet by the August rain.
The ghost of Samuel Beckett keeps looking for crossroads. In each one he sits down to wait for who knows what while he examines stones.
The ghost of Roberto Bolaño works at a closed down detective agency. He goes thoroughly through the files of all unsolved cases.
The ghost of Jorge Luis Borges walks up and down the corridors of enormous libraries. He looks for an encyclopaedia that describes the limbo he lives in.
The ghost of André Breton wanders slowly through flea markets. He searches for uneven objects to marry them in dreamy ceremonies.
The ghost of Max Brod rescues papers that are thrown into the fire. He reads them all trying to find the signs of a masterpiece.
The ghost of Italo Calvino hunts for old maps. With soft, deft fingers he draws new cities on top of beautiful ancient metropolis.
The ghost of Albert Camus goes to bars to watch soccer games. The screaming passion of the patrons makes him smile with nostalgia.
The ghost of Raymond Chandler takes advantage of the happy hour at melancholic bars. He orders gimlets even if they come in empty glasses.
The ghost of Agatha Christie specializes in tasting poisons. She writes down her opinions in a small notebook bound in the nineteenth century.
The ghost of Arthur Conan Doyle designs nets for hunting fairies. He tests them in ancient forests where silence is the one and only king.
The ghost of Julio Cortázar smokes blond tobacco by the side of the Seine. In the flow of the river he glimpses the hair of suicidal women.
The ghost of Simone de Beauvoir sits in her usual chair at the café Les Deux Magots. She flips through a book with only blank pages.
The ghost of Gérard de Nerval takes his lobster out for a walk when the day dies. Amidst the shadows the red pet keeps changing form.
The ghost of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa likes to go to seafood restaurants. He gets drunk on the different smells from the sea.
The ghost of Charles Dickens writes long love letters to the ghost of Ellen Ternan. He trusts in certain birds to deliver them.
The ghost of Marguerite Duras writes on a bench in a park covered with dry leaves. Her ideas materialize in Chinese characters.
The ghost of Sigmund Freud dusts his divan every afternoon. He sits on a chair in silent wait for a patient to knock gently at his door.
The ghost of Gabriel García Márquez stops beneath a storm of yellow butterflies. In the distance he sees the immortal glow of ice.
The ghost of Patricia Highsmith distrusts the calm of Switzerland. In the boats that cross the lakes she sees bloodstains.
The ghost of Christopher Hitchens argues against the existence of God. His audience are paintings of different divinities.
The ghost of Henry James explores vacant mansions. He calls dead children and servants by their names to keep him company.
The ghost of Milena Jesenská picks up letters from empty buildings. She looks for love stories hidden between the lines.
The ghost of James Joyce wanders lost through the streets of Dublin. He looks for guides that show the way to Molly Bloom.
The ghost of Franz Kafka hates insecticides. He tells himself that nobody knows which metamorphoses the night will bring.
The ghost of Pier Paolo Pasolini drives a silver convertible. He takes off his dark glasses to admire handsome young men smiling.
The ghost of Cesare Pavese haunts the house where Constance Dowling died. He keeps looking for the eyes of the actress.

■□●○•°■□●○•°

“The Dead Sailors”

[A ghost story in 20 tweets]

1. The old port groans at midday. Dead sailors come out to watch the sun strike the waves. Eyes full of longing salt and terrible dreams.
2. Dead sailors get drunk on air and stale beer. Hands following routes drawn on forgotten maps. Voices hoarse with nostalgia and foam.
3. Dead sailors wait for the swirling mist to rise. “Something’s coming,” they whisper among themselves. Skin crawling with anticipation.
4. Dead sailors stare at a broken moon. Hoping it would give them a subject to speak of. Mouths agape with a thousand words unsaid.
5. Dead sailors dream of being alone at night. Dark waters around them like cold blankets. Fireflies swimming through the enormous silence.
6. Dead sailors walk slightly hunched over. Carrying the weight of gigantic invisible ships. Feet leaving prints full of muddy water.
7. Dead sailors usually get moonburned. Skin crawling under the light of a million distant stars. Air full of stinging bees of freshness.
8. Dead sailors like to read bedtime stories to themselves. Childhood memories shimmering in the shadows. Words floating like dark pollen.
9. Dead sailors pray for rain. Looking for dark, heavy clouds inside themselves. Palms turned up in order to feel drops caressing them.
10. Dead sailors watch the sun rise over the sea. Old songs pouring from their parched lips. Eyes blinking against the first light of the world.
11. Dead sailors collect messages in bottles. Never reading them but just staring at them. Hoping their content will be revealed in dreams.
12. Dead sailors have nightmares scorched by thirst. Waking up coughing in the middle of the night. Tongues filled with the taste of sand.
13. Dead sailors keep waiting for the flood. Hearts beating slowly in their sunken chests. The smell of imminent disaster in the air.
14. Dead sailors grow tired of staring at the ocean. Hands clutching rusty compasses and torn maps. Wind howling around them like a madman.
15. Dead sailors sing to attract sirens. Voices full of iodine and foam, longing and regret. Lyrics talking about forgotten languages.
16. Dead sailors bathe in moonlight. Hands massaging tired arms and feet. Ancient beads of sweat glistening like perfect diamonds.
17. Dead sailors walk backwards. Hairs at the nape of their necks bristling with fear. Distant footsteps getting closer and closer.
18. Dead sailors listen to old radio tunes. Ears pricked up to catch trembling voices of ancestors lost at sea between bursts of static.
19. Go with the flow, dead sailors pray. May it take you far away from home. End of the air or end of the sea. Whatever comes first.
20. Who rules the deep blue sea? dead sailors sing. Amidst the waves, amidst the storms, amidst the rage. Who rides the chilled wide sea?

 

 

 

Mauricio Montiel Figueiras (Guadalajara, Mexico, 1968) is a writer of prose fiction and essays, as well as a poet, translator, editor and film and literary critic. His work has been published in magazines and newspapers in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Italy, Peru, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He has been Resident Writer for the Cheltenham Festival of Literature in England (2003) and The Bellagio Study and Conference Center in Italy (2008). In 2012 he was appointed Resident Writer for the prestigious Hawthornden Retreat for Writers in Scotland. Since 1995 he lives and works in Mexico City. Since 2011 he has been working on a Twitter novel, The Man in Tweed, in part through the account @LamujerdeM. Instagram: mauricio_montiel_figueiras.

“Song for Swan Elias” by Danielle Notaro

065
Art of Moriah M. Mylod

There was a girl named Swan Elias. I don’t remember what grade she turned up in. She was overweight, nice and sweet, and had blue, cool blue eyes and light, wavy brown hair. I would watch her erase her paper. It seemed her hand and the eraser were made of the same textures, gummy soft. And warm. It seemed she could erase her paper or incorrect markings so effortlessly. Because there was, in my mind, this special oneness between her hand and the eraser. A certain chemical reaction which made the eraser really malleable.

Sometimes, when maybe I erased, I erased too hard and could leave a mark. A streak. But she could erase really cleanly. Leaving no tell-tale sign. Not that it mattered. We were allowed to erase. But it was a kind of magic she possessed and performed and for some mysterious reason it caught my attention. I would become transfixed and allured by her head turning toward me with what I now imagine to be a seductive and sweet smile while she worked her wonder. I wonder if she was doing something to my heart and mind in that moment. Hypnotizing me slowly, warmly, and softening my heart, relaxing my zaniness, and releasing my uncontrollable urge to please. It was like a you can be near me look she gave, and back off a little and watch. You can swim in my electrical, starspinning aura. All those things kids, we kids were attracted to. Sparkles, bangles, gold, magenta, azure, rainbow colors of glitter swirling in Swan Elias’ aura while she smiled at me. And I swirled with them. I was them for that moment and then would land in a pure stream of milky-colored happiness.

Blue eyes, plump, warm hand. Clean white paper. Pink eraser. Charcoal pencil shaped to a fine point. A cylindrical hive of possibility humming at the tip. A cylindrical hive of possibility humming into a fine point. Shavings and curls of shavings resting sweetly in a metal canister—future beehives. No, future bird nests. And I swear, I think Swan Elias wore a head band with birds and baby birds hatching from their nests. Her clothes are in my mind now brushed into a fine velvet. Everything was fine about her. Her sweat beads, her chewed lips. She was good enough to eat. I must have been in love with her, though I didn’t know it. Her big, strong marks of letters, cursive on her paper. Her wrong answers. All of it was acceptable to me. All of her. All of Swan Elias acceptable to me. Swan Elias and her golden heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Danielle Notaro grew up in Easton, Pennsylvania and has been writing, acting, & directing for a zillion years in the Lehigh Valley. She also taught acting & playwriting to kids in the Lehigh Valley as well in Boston where she studied acting with Reality Theater. She participated in several Les/Bi writing workshops. In  NYC, she studied with Karen Malpede, Jean Claude Van Italie (Open Theater Playwrites) and at the Henry St. Settlement she studied with Crispin Larengeira. In Vermont she was in a longstanding writing workshop led by Cora Brooks. In 1982, she joined The Feminist Writer’s Guild and started a theater group, The Onsemble Theater. She has published poems in Women Spirit, Gaia, Womankind, Juxtaposition, Love Your Rebellion, Ovungue Siamo and written a few pieces for Healthy Living (a Rodale newsletter). She published her first book of poems and some prose in 2013 entitled, Limn the Mask. In 2019, she released a CD of pieces from her book w/ improv music entitled, Limn the Chord and won Outstanding Spoken Word Artist from the Lehigh Valley Music Awards.   

 

SEPTEMBER 2019 Guest Editor Is YANINA SPIZZIRRI!!! Theme: ALTERED STATES

Burning House Press are excited to welcome YANINA SPIZZIRRI as our SEPTEMBER 2019 guest editor! As of today YANINA will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of SEPTEMBER.

Submissions are open from today – 1st SEPTEMBER and will remain open until 23RD SEPTEMBER.

YANINA’S theme/s for the month are as follows

Continue reading “SEPTEMBER 2019 Guest Editor Is YANINA SPIZZIRRI!!! Theme: ALTERED STATES”

FAITH/FAITHLESSNESS/DIVINITY EDITION JANUARY 2019 GUEST EDITED/CURATED BY BOLA OPALEKE

FAITH/FAITHLESSNESS/DIVINITY

EDITION

JANUARY 2019

GUEST EDITED/CURATED

BY BOLA OPALEKE

Continue reading “FAITH/FAITHLESSNESS/DIVINITY EDITION JANUARY 2019 GUEST EDITED/CURATED BY BOLA OPALEKE”

So Be It, Amen – Lucas Wildner

So Be It, Amen

We bow our heads before dinner.
He prays; I recite the German
with a hushed voice—
not out of reverence,
but to soften the inevitable slips
from my English-led tongue.

*

When five sat at this table
we held our hands
in front of us Continue reading “So Be It, Amen – Lucas Wildner”

Divine Intervention – Elancharan Gunasekaran

Divine Intervention

Responding to bubble threat.
Vehicle loaded.
Strapped beneath plates.
Moving out.
Location verification required.

East on… static zzzzzzzz
Repeat. Command. Repeat. zzzzzzzzz
East on… static zzz
Cavalry to command: Continue reading “Divine Intervention – Elancharan Gunasekaran”

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