Gnashing Teeth Publishing

| words that get in your teeth

Book-Demon Questers by Hibah Shabkhez

Book-Demon Questers

We are drawn to dragonblaze shadows,
Moths to candles’ skin-toasting frolics,
For the seed of ruth that within glows
Enduring foul clementine colics

Tumour-like through blood and bone it spreads,
The hunger for peaches seen entire
In a husk-vale of dragon fire

We stumble thus to the demon’s lair,
And into the dread cavern we plunge;
Raise our quills high upon the prayer:
‘May we draw story-blood as we lunge!’

Tumour-like through blood and bone it treads,
The quest for book-demons set afire
In smashed flowers of a city-mire

~

Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, a teacher of French as a foreign language and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in the Rockford Review, Qwerty, The Blue Nib, Ligeia, Cordite Poetry, Headway Quarterly and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.

Blog: https://hibahshabkhezxicc.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @hibahshabkhez
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hibahshabkhezsarusaihiryu/
Instagram: @shabkhez_hibah

BOOK REVIEW: Gusher by Christopher Stephen Soden

Gusher, the recent Queer Mojo release from Christopher Stephen Soden, takes his first publication (Closer) and fine tunes it. Soden writes, “For this one moment / your connection is enough

BOOK REVIEW: Refugee by Pamela Uschuk

Pamela Uschuk’s 2022 release, Refugee, stands at an angle in the line of poetry collections. Hers is a unique perspective which weaves potent emotions and experiences into the fabric of

Goodnight, Taj Mahal by Andre Peltier

Deep below earth, clay and sand, deep below roots and aquifers, it lies in wait. Like that silent coyote stalking her white-tailed deer through the brush, it waits patiently and

connect

we love hearing from you. tell us everything