Seasons Greetings from Bluepepper

While my inbox remains empty, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all Bluepepper readers and contributors a safe and happy Yuletide.

New Poetry by A.J. Huffman

Tonight the Moon

is shining, solemn in shades of blue,
and my head is a balloon, longing
to be a wheel of cheese.  I cannot think.
The fog is sinking through the holes
in my mind.  I howl my despair
at a night that refuses to holler back.
Silence is my echo, my reflection.
I am stagnant and barren
as the pallid globe that has swallowed
my shadow and my mood.
We are a matched set
of misfits, twin migrant insomniacs, doomed
to haunt the shallows of the other side
of midnight. 


- A.J. Huffman 2016

A.J. Huffman has published thirteen full-length poetry collections, thirteen solo poetry chapbooks and one joint poetry chapbook through various small presses.  Her most recent releases, The Pyre On Which Tomorrow Burns (Scars Publications), Degeneration (Pink Girl Ink), A Bizarre Burning of Bees (Transcendent Zero Press), and Familiar Illusions (Flutter Press) are now available from their respective publishers.  She is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a two-time Best of Net nominee, and has published over 2600 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, The Bookends Review, Bone Orchard, Corvus Review, EgoPHobia, and Kritya.  She was also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.  www.kindofahurricanepress.com.

New Poetry by Abigail George

For everything my parents taught me

Weekdays are detonated
On a Monday. Little anticipation for them at
Heart. A sisterhood
Of a garden of weekdays.
We weather soap operas.
The spine of the unchanging
Wedding ring of the
Sun. A young galaxy of
Confetti with unusual
Fused and acute angles.
The borrower is attractive and faithful.
The sun so political. So
Trustworthy. Dripping
With personal velocity.
Mum is that faithful borrower.
She has the trustworthy
Soul of a nurturer. The
Invisible-like cats cling
To me. Love me until
Death. The experience
Of a lifetime. Starlight exhibited at peak
Intervals on the shadow
Of the earth. Mum’s fingers
Have their own calling,

Seed-thief, hollow ways
Of indifference like a
Thief that comes in the
Night or during the day
(Not on my watch). There is a volcanic
Adjustment to be made
Underground. The pull
Of gravity. Of love. Of
Life. Father gave mother
Love. In return she gave me life.
The smell of gloom, of
The history of past mistakes invades
This landscape of the mother
And daughter relationship.
I know the courage of
A father. His quiet. His melancholia.
His yearning is mine and
So is his restlessness. He is
A leaf floating in history.
He is stunned with honour
And blooming power while
My mother is the cold.
She’s the Pacific Ocean.


- Abigail George 2016


Abigail George is a South African poet.

New Poetry by Emma Lee

Calgary still talks about the 1988 Winter Olympics
　
The pen was too good to acquire.
A cheap ballpoint might have fallen
into my bag or got left in a notebook.
But this one wrote smoothly, didn't blotch
and was comfortable to hold in a hotel
stuck between sky-scrapers,
a meshed screen over the windows,
bland meadow prints, neutral bedding,
muffled noises from lines of identical
corridors, half peach wallpaper,
half wood-effect protective veneer,
that lead to more rooms exactly like this
with blank notepaper to doodle dreams on
and a pen I almost didn't leave.


- Emma Lee 2016

Emma Lee's most recent collection is "Ghosts in the Desert" (IDP, UK, 2015). She co-edited "Over Land Over Sea: poems for those seeking refuge" (Five Leaves, UK, 2015) and "Welcome to Leicester" (Dahlia Publishing,UK, 2016). She reviews for The High Window Journal, The Journal, London Grip and Sabotage Reviews and blogs at http://emmalee1.wordpress.com