New Poetry by Earl Livings

Long Haul Flight

Learning to leave things undone

is a training for death

When you set foot on that plane

for a long overseas trip

what doesn’t get done

on that 200-item To-Do List

stays undone

You may ache for who

you leave behind

as you journey

but not what

And in death, as in travelling,

you take your memories with you,

leave others behind with theirs

can do nothing about this

and all things left undone

but stare at clouds

threaded with starlight,

wait for touchdown

- © Earl Livings 2022

Earl Livings has published poetry and fiction in Australia and also Britain, Canada, the USA, and Germany. His work mainly focuses on science, nature, mythology and the sacred. His second poetry collection, Libation (Ginninderra Press) was published in 2018 and his fantasy verse novel, The SIlence Inside the World, is due to be published mid-2022. He lives in Melbourne with his wife and their ever-growing piles of books.

Bluepepper will once again be open for submissions from 9am 26/4/2022 (AEST). 

Bluepepper regrets to announce that we have tested positive for COVID and will not be accepting submissions until our health has improved. Stay safe people.

New Poetry by Darcy Mueller

Windows 

This room has no windows 

No above no below 

A single bulb dangles lazily 

Casing shadows on your face 

As it meets my eye 

But all I want is a window 

To let in the sky 

This room has only the tick of a clock 

Hung upon the wall 

There are no syllables uttered 

To break its constant dull 

But I want a window 

So I may feel the breeze 

This room has a chair 

In which neither of us sit 

To offer it to the other 

A small but honest gift 

But I just want a window 

To see the passers by 

Your voice, it has a stutter 

As you slowly walk near 

Though you always speak so clearly

These words, I cannot hear 

But I just want a window 

So it may be opened to the sounds 

And with noise of city cars 

May drown this quiet around 

Your hand it has a tremble 

And does not reach for mine 

It looks for something safe to touch 

Then fiddles with the time 

But I only want a window 

So I may breathe the air 

This room now has a silence 

With the clock now in your hands 

And this lonely silence 

To the walls expands 

Oh how I want a window 

So I may hear the sounds 

This room has no chair now 

As you sink into it slow 

My weary feet are aching 

But dont know where to go 

I wish for a window 

So I may sit upon the roll 

In a moment of rest 

Could my feet finally be still 

This room has a door 

That’s been opened but a foot 

But light seeps through it 

So I go and take a look 

I do not need a window 

To see the world outside 

For with this opened door 

The room now comes to light 

This room has a boy 

Who sits upon a chair 

When I look back at him 

He will not return my stare 

He does not want a window 

I did not know before 

That he does not want to see 

The outer world's allure 

This room has an emptiness 

As he does not answer my calls 

My voice floats around the room 

With naught to catch it when it falls 

But I do need a window 

In all the rooms I see 

I do need a window so that I may be free 

That room has a boy 

And he is all alone 

For I am forced to leave him 

I know I must go 

He will have no window 

And therein lies the shock 

For I have known him for many years 

But he is not the boy I thought 

So I shut the door behind me to leave him in the dark 

One lightbulb to guide him 

It nearly breaks my heart

But I must have a window 

For the world I want to see 

And if he will have no window 

Does he not wish to be free? 

- © Darcy Mueller 2022

Darcy Mueller is a second year student at Tufts University studying History and Italian who greatly enjoys writing in her free time. She is originally from Jackson Wyoming where she lives with her parents, two brothers, and sister.

New Poetry by Tony Hughes

That Feeling Like No Other

Under the cover.

Of a thin, worn corrugated sheet 

On a bed. 

In a shack.

By the sea. 

With thunderous southerlies. 

Raining rivers. 

Thick fat 

mud leeches. 

Stuck to us.

Chasing after beer cans. 

Rolling down the hill. .

Relentless nor easters. 

Blowing up sand 

and sand 

and more 

sand 

from the seventh sea. 

All the sand from 

from all our summer's.

shipwrecked 

on your ankles

Jet black, fast on your finger. 

From the carbon mantel lamp.

The kero fridge melts.

Banksia cobs 

turn to coal. 

On a cooking fire 

built for fish 

That feeling only love knows.

That feeling like no other

- © Tony Hughes 2022

Tony Hughes is an Australian actor and singer. As an actor, he starred in The Lost Islands (1976), Chopper Squad (1977–1979) and the film adaptation of Puberty Blues (1981). As a singer he has fronted Bellydance and King Tide. The beach shack referred to in this poem is owned by the family of the poet's late wife, Cassanadra Woodburne, who passed away on 22nd November 2020 after a long and courageous struggle with cancer. 

The accompanying picture of the legendary shack at Era Beach is by the renowned Sydney artist Lucy O'Doherty, daughter of Mambo artist Reg Mombassa.

New Poetry by Paul Mitchell

 
Three on the Tree

Gold HG Holden Premier nineteen seventy-one
sedan with single dint on side door panel
installed a decent hi-fi in it played
Red Hot Chili Peppers on it took
fifteen minutes to warm up
each morning backed into a ditch
on the school run workmen
hauled it out with a winch.
 
Drove it drunk to a pub with mates
listening to Bee Gees Tragedy or something
bought it with the help of a mate who said
it’s gold could see that and what he meant.
 
Cost three-thousand five-hundred
two years later needed money divorcee
dad on the wrong side of what
there’s no right side of.
 
Sold it to a bloke who said
he’d put a new motor in it
mag wheels on it got three
thousand five-hundred for it.
 
Tired of being watched
wherever it went wanted to go
in cognito bought a Daewoo
Station Wagon didn’t have to go
that far but did so sorry at least
let me show you the photos.

- © Paul Mitchell 2022

Paul Mitchell is the author of six books, including last year’s essay collection Matters of Life and Faith, a novel, We. Are. Family, a short story collection, Dodging the Bull, and three poetry collections: Minorphysics, Awake Despite the Hour, and Standard Variation. Minorphysics won the IP Picks national prize for an unpublished Australian manuscript, and Standard Variation was short-listed for the Adelaide Writers’ Week poetry prize. He’s judged the Victorian Premier’s Award for Poetry and his poems, essays and stories have appeared over the past twenty-five years in numerous magazines and journals, most recently The Guardian, Westerly, Antipodes, Meniscus, and Eureka Street. He’s written several works for stage and he’s currently a co-writer with director Chris Nelius on a commissioned feature film for Madman Entertainment. He also co-wrote Actions to Live By, a recent AFL documentary on the Brisbane Lions of 2001 to 2003.

 

New Poetry by Bradford Middleton

A Little Bit Longer

A miraculous arrival has come along and caused a

Massive shift around in mind and room as at last

This place feels almost like home.  It’s not a woman,

Not even a new friend but a couch, beautiful and

Elegant it straddles the space in front of my window

And, often, since Friday night have I slept on it,

Feeling it sooth my aching body after years of

Sleeping essentially on my floor.  I look at it now

With a fondness usually reserved for a new lover

As it taunts me, it’s only 8:27 you’ve got to wait a

Few more hours yet.  This morning I woke and

Couldn’t bring myself to leave its warm confines

As I rolled over a few more times, whispering to

Myself, just a little bit longer.  Tomorrow will

Almost certainly be the same as at last I find it

Easy to get to sleep without the aid of drinking

Myself to the brink of death on way too many

Nights.  At last, a good nights’ rest.

- © Bradford Middleton 2022

Bradford Middleton lives in Brighton on the UK’s south coast.  He began writing poetry fifteen years ago when he first landed here knowing no one and with no money he holed-up and did it merely for something to do.  He’s since had four, sold-out, chapbooks of his poetry published as well as seeing his work feature in the likes of the Chiron Review, Rusty Truck, New Reader Magazine, Paper & Ink Zine and the Mad Swirl.  Follow him on Twitter @BradfordMiddle5.

New Poetry by Paul Tanner

jerk’s circle  

there’s the:

bloated one who eats all the free biscuits

the: chain smoker

the: one who keeps draping a veiny chicken fillet thigh

over your leg

when she’s not blowing kisses at the others

the: one with a new puncture mark on his skinny arms

every time you see him,

long grey spotted arms that shake

the: nail biter

with fingers like bled sausages

the: empty chair

where the guy who keeps doing overtime

would’ve sat

and they all praise jesus

and why? well, why not?

so a long-dead socialist baby coos

as the chicken thigh clenches around yours

like a vice that has goose bumps, as

Melissa, she says “me boyfriend just died”

with a smile

and then there’s

the: you.

- © Paul Tanner 2022

Tanner is barely qualified for minimum wage and he's allergic to cheese for crying out loud. His cat knows your sins.