INVERTED SYNTAX

  • Sublingua 2022 Results
    • Sublingua 2020 Results
    • Sublingua 2019 Results
  • Submit
    • Sublingua Prize for Poetry >
      • Sublingua Writing Retreat Award
    • General Submission Guidelines
    • The Art of the Postcard
  • Store
  • The Fissured Tongue Series
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 5
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 4
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 3
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 2
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 1
    • Online Issue Two
    • Online Issue One
  • The Art of the Postcard
    • About The Art of the Postcard
    • Art of the Postcard Issue 3
    • Art of the Postcard Issue 2
    • Art of the Postcard Issue 1
    • We Are All Artists Exhibit >
      • Video Compilation FirehouseArt Center Postcard Exhibit
      • Firehouse Exhibitors 2022 >
        • Churnage FirehouseArt Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Daniel Staub Weinberg Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Genevieve Rose Barr Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Eva Schultz Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Samantha Malay Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • D Allen Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Hayley Harris Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Tony Peyser Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Sarah Santoni Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Julia Klatt Singer Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Kathryn Kruse Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Meg Freer Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Moira Walsh Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Stephanie Staab Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Anne Swannell Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Laura Knott Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Jo Goren Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • CR Resetarits Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Sarah Ernestine Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Stephanie Johnson Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Charles J. March III Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Emily Mosley Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Grace Desmarais Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Emily Vieweg Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Claire Lawrence Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Meca'Ayo Cole Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Andrea Rexilius Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Christian Garduno Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Salma Ahmad Caller Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Glenn Thomas Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Claire Yspol Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Michael Thompson Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Rikki Santer Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Laura Gamache Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Christine Williams Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Stephanie Beechem Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Imma Dunach Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Ginny Short Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Josh Lefkowitz Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Carolyn Adams Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
      • We Are All Artists Exhibit Guide
      • We are All Artists Submission Form Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
  • Nominations & Awards
    • Pushcart Prize
    • Best of the Net
    • Best Micro Fiction
  • About Us
    • Masthead
    • More >
      • Interviews
      • Blog
      • Resources >
        • Writing resources
        • Mile-High MFA >
          • Mile-High MFA Writers
          • Mile-High MFA Website
          • Faculty News & Interviews
    • Our Contributors
    • Mission
  • Sublingua 2022 Results
    • Sublingua 2020 Results
    • Sublingua 2019 Results
  • Submit
    • Sublingua Prize for Poetry >
      • Sublingua Writing Retreat Award
    • General Submission Guidelines
    • The Art of the Postcard
  • Store
  • The Fissured Tongue Series
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 5
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 4
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 3
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 2
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 1
    • Online Issue Two
    • Online Issue One
  • The Art of the Postcard
    • About The Art of the Postcard
    • Art of the Postcard Issue 3
    • Art of the Postcard Issue 2
    • Art of the Postcard Issue 1
    • We Are All Artists Exhibit >
      • Video Compilation FirehouseArt Center Postcard Exhibit
      • Firehouse Exhibitors 2022 >
        • Churnage FirehouseArt Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Daniel Staub Weinberg Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Genevieve Rose Barr Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Eva Schultz Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Samantha Malay Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • D Allen Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Hayley Harris Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Tony Peyser Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Sarah Santoni Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Julia Klatt Singer Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Kathryn Kruse Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Meg Freer Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Moira Walsh Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Stephanie Staab Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Anne Swannell Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Laura Knott Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Jo Goren Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • CR Resetarits Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Sarah Ernestine Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Stephanie Johnson Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Charles J. March III Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Emily Mosley Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Grace Desmarais Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Emily Vieweg Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Claire Lawrence Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Meca'Ayo Cole Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Andrea Rexilius Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Christian Garduno Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Salma Ahmad Caller Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Glenn Thomas Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Claire Yspol Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Michael Thompson Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Rikki Santer Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Laura Gamache Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Christine Williams Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Stephanie Beechem Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Imma Dunach Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Ginny Short Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Josh Lefkowitz Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Carolyn Adams Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
      • We Are All Artists Exhibit Guide
      • We are All Artists Submission Form Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
  • Nominations & Awards
    • Pushcart Prize
    • Best of the Net
    • Best Micro Fiction
  • About Us
    • Masthead
    • More >
      • Interviews
      • Blog
      • Resources >
        • Writing resources
        • Mile-High MFA >
          • Mile-High MFA Writers
          • Mile-High MFA Website
          • Faculty News & Interviews
    • Our Contributors
    • Mission




​​​The Fissured Tongue Series 

Two poems
Danielle Ferrara
Picture
Untitled #10 by Lisa Berley, mixed media, 12 x 12 in., 2010
From meconium 


Only when the door appears do floors mutate. 

At first there 

                         were only the windows, changing landscapes so that I 
would not remember any of them. 

Despite                    my dreams I had felt
                                   safe.

Many die from overwhelm, I thought.

Her eyes are lost as   moon. I say, Your skin. The words fall like
                 leaf.  I dream of invisible objects pulling

pores apart. Her 
fingers crook. It is for you. Did the stolen collapse, or was 
                it destroyed? There is the heart of wood 

ready to burn and warm me. I am 
reminded of

landscapes that change so fast
I 
cannot remember
them
                                 I decide to
                                 stay

I am among graves. I can no 
longer hear her 
voice.      Would if I were 

a voice she could hear. Each day begins to

feel less real, duller. I know her memories fill me 
when I 

sleep. When I 
finally begin 

to wander among roots, 
loss feels 

conceivable. Mouths and cheeks fill with salt. I take that which 
is not fruit and bury 

it in soil. 
Absence is itself. 

The future colors space, it is hardly a way. 
A rocking of a body is a symbol.                   All is smoke, each  
mistake, pasts woven of scaled rot. The math 
disappears. 

Among others, it is a fragment, a world. The foot swerves out 

of 
the road. The water sends heat
into            mist. She thinks                              she is 
complete orbiting            back, but more likely                 the orbit is gone.

In dreams she may have warmed a spot 
with contact but no longer does 
she sleep. 

She cries over dust                  as it breaks in her 

fingers and smokes as ash. She drifts in a library of the mind,
unable to sit,

a plateau of the wind has seeped out,     past, or 
beyond.

Someone stares at her with their watch. 
She opens a 
book, cannot read, mask too wide. A fairy 

tale, and she bloated. Poem a foot. Poem an 
ear, poem daemon, poem a flame. And we’ll play together. 

And we'll see each other. That's how far we’ve gone

                  And she laughs back. And the 
                                                                 morphing 
a freeze. A watching. A sentencing, 

ability. 
Watch it grow

this   elemental cartoon.
From ​matherial
gull    flowers
ful   fae
la   rein   e
men  fa
quen   fa
fe     fe
la     ​rein
About the Author

Dani Ferrara (co-founder, Nocturne School of Lucid Writing) is a student of the self-healing imaginal. From quantum philosophy to trance, shadow and sound, her poetics embrace the experimental and eclectic. She received her MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics from Naropa University. Her work has been featured in Black Sun Lit’s *Vestiges*, Dream Pop Press, and ARTEIDOLIA’s swifts & slows, among others.

About the Work

"Like much of my work, these poems are fragments of false memories. Hoping to break up my brain's own memories and make room for the new, I surrender to their sound and feeling."

​​About the Artist
Lisa Berley began her career in San Francisco as an art director in CGI and animation after receiving her BFA. She integrated painting, photography and CGI in digital work. Returning to NY for two decades Berley exhibited abstract mixed media works on paper. She moved to Colorado in 2016 continuing to work from deconstructed found images and recently combining it with erasure poetry after the accidental death of her younger son. 

Artist Statement
"My work involves a process of exploring the deconstruction of found words and images.
Fragments of appropriated newsprint images are deconstructed and then reconstructed to make new images and in some cases erasure poems. Through this method the visual and text information is transformed."
FISSURED TONGUE SERIES 
print issues
​art of the postcard
blog
   About
    ​Masthead
    Submit 
    Subscribe
​
    Awards
Contact 
Join Our Team
​Resources
Picture
© COPYRIGHT 2018-2023 ​INVERTED SYNTAX PRESS LLC.  ​
​ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
P.O. BOX 2044, LONGMONT, COLORADO, 80502 , USA  PHONE: 970. 614. 5774