A Poem for Dransfield

a previously unpublished poem for Michael Dransfield by Cornelis Vleeskens c.1973 found among his papers while i was working on them....pete spence

New Poetry by Donal Mahoney

Concert at Bernie's

When Bernie wakes at 6 a.m.

there's a piano on his chest

and Erroll Garner's playing "Misty."

Sinatra's on the headboard 

improvising lyrics

and Krupa's in the corner 

painting on the drums.

The music is magnificent.

Once the song is over 

Bernie chants his morning prayers,

shaves and showers and limps to work

for another day at the gherkin factory. 

The foreman, Mr. Simpkins, is an ogre 

nonpareil, a sumbitch unsurpassed, 

who stalks the catwalk all day long

with megaphone and stopwatch.

At 5 p.m. the factory spits Bernie 

and his cohorts out the door 

so Bernie limps to the Hot Wok Shack

and buys a carton of Egg Fu Yung 

and heads back home to wait for dawn 

so he can hear Erroll play "Night and Day"  

while Sinatra does the vocal and

Krupa punctuates the piece

softly on the drums.

Bernie spends each day in hell but dawn 

is always a concert from heaven.

- Donal Mahoney 2013

Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

New Poetry by Breda Wall Ryan

Childhood Sin

...the earthworm

we split

to see the head

grow a tail

the tail

a new head

instead

five simple hearts

failed

one by one...

another regret

- Breda Wall Ryan 2013

       

Stardrift

Nights we lay still as hares

in our grass form,

balanced the rising moon

on our toes,

skyward-stretched arms

finger-tipped with stars.

Tonight you sit alone

in the screen’s blue glow,

tea cold at your elbow,

while I watch

distant balefires,

light years between us.

- Breda Wall Ryan 2013

Breda Wall Ryan has been shortlisted for several international literary prizes for fiction and poetry, most recently The Fish Poetry Prize, and won the UCD Anthology Contest(poetry) 2011. Her work is published in anthologies and in journals. has won or been shortlisted for several literary prizes. A member of Hibernian Poetry, Dublin, she has an M. Phil. in Creative Writing from Trinity C ollege, Dublin. She has completed a short story collection, The Hardest Winter and Other Stories and a poetry collection, The Woman who Toasted the Owl. 

New Poetry by April Krivensky

Choppy

 The image of you in my head is nothing but a compilation of pixels. 
 Squares filled with shades to figure
 out what they’re actually there for once you’re completely zoomed out.
 I long to zoom myself back in and get lost. 

 Your technicolor checker board of
“I’ll tell you later”’s 
 and 
“I don’t wanna talk about it”’s
 make for a gift wrapped Capricorn horoscope served on
 a gold platter. 

 Inch back to me because inches provide a way 
 for everyone to understand the size of something.
 Like the top joint of your thumb or the 2.54 seconds 
 it took you to leave your apartment balcony.  

 Just talk to me like you would into a tin can.
 Childishly.
 Tell me you want to play.
 Let me teach you the abacus of my breath.
 Each bead that gets pushed is another heartstring
 you plucked.
 I’m still stuck on the other side.


- April Krivensky 2013


April Krivensky attends the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign pursuing a major in Creative Writing. She loves her Dorgi, a good joke, and eating toffee. She lives in Orland Park, IL. 

New Poetry by Kathryn Guelcher

Too Much. I Know.

Listen, friends. I probably either didn’t care about you or even like you

for a long time.  Sorry about that.  Inevitably, there was a moment—

something you said or did, or just exposure over time— when

I realized I was wrong, again, and we should be friends. Forever.

There is almost nothing that can undo this now,

whatever your wishes to the contrary—sorry again. 

And while I’m good for a laugh or two, this moment marks

the beginning of everything getting generally worse for you. 

I’ll forget your birthday, text too often, email too much

fail to ask important follow-up questions, make you read my poetry,

tell meandering anecdotes at a displeasing pitch or volume,

defend the person you are angry with, interrupt your story

with one of my own that is vaguely related, and maybe better.

But probably worse. 

I’ll be decent at unimportant marks of friendship of my choosing,

like remembering your aunt’s quirks, and terrible at any that really matter. 

But I’ll think kindly about you more than you’d suppose.

I’ll manage to suffocate and fail you with my love, simultaneously.

All this, I think you know.  You are not too many in number,

but you are not alone.  So, be irritated, perhaps, but not overwhelmed. 

I can’t help it.  Because once I’m finally done casually disliking you,

I can’t fully comprehend your importance to me. 

- Katyhryn Guelcher 2013

New Poetry by Ivan Jenson

Magic Bread

If you think it can 

be learned

then by all means

apprentice yourself

to a local sorcerer

and see if he can

show you how to 

saw your problems 

in half 

or levitate

above your competition

but as a practitioner

of the dark art

of bringing truth

to light by telling

little white lies 

and punctuating 

it with a punch

line to the psychic

groin

I can attest 

to my fakery 

and admit the flat bread

made by my bakery

is dry like rye

and like life

sliced

the first half devoured

the second 

savored and scattered

and what ever is left

is crummy 

and for the birds

that fly out of hats

- Ivan Jenson 2013

Ivan Jenson’s Absolut Jenson painting was featured in Art News, Art in America, and Interview magazine. His art has sold at Christie’s, New York. His poems have appeared in Word Riot, Zygote in my Coffee, Camroc Press Review, Haggard and Halo, Poetry Super Highway, Mad Swirl, Underground Voices Magazine, Blazevox, and many other magazines, online and in print. Jenson is also a Contributing Editor for Commonline magazine. Ivan Jenson's debut novel Dead Artist is available as a paperback and on Amazon Kindle and Nook. His new novel, a psychological thriller entitled Seeing Soriah is now available as an eBook or in Paperback on Amazon.  A collection of Ivan Jenson's drawings and poetry will soon be published by Hen House Press, New York.

New Poetry by Julie Maclean

on love and war Gallipoli style

Contiki bus down a dirt road
And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda 
on cd       The melancholy version I loved
Should I laugh or cry
on my way  
to the Nek
Lone Pine 
Larrikin
carrying the message
in faux rendering
in a gully, on the beach 
dot dot dash

I was in the wrong place in '87
Missing in Action
an old flame declared Love
GPS not on   not on 

Back home in slow motion
distressed by a freeze frame
at the end of the film
Bullet straight
to the heart of the story
I sobbed in the toilet
of the Wonthaggi cinema

Ataturk calls us brothers,
Your Johnny, Our Mehmet

What do you think?
Could I?
Could you?
I feel
Will you still love me?

Trenches dug   Daggers punched
love letters in the walls

White crosses
flicked over
like pages
of bad fiction 


- Julie Maclean 2013

New Poetry by James Mirarchi

DOLLS

Designer of  mushy Nickelodeon carrot cake stage

has dandruff-dolls in his hair

They’ve set up oil rigs on his scalp

to drill for creativity

When geyser erupts

they catch designer’s ideas in buckets

Then rappel down ropes of his greasy hair

onto floor where dust-trains

transport them to designer’s colleague

A man whose only accomplishment

is a lawsuit-attracting lemon slide

 

The dandruff-dolls hand over buckets to him

Within them

he singles out striking concept for crunchy Nickelodeon blueberry pie ramp

 

While trying to consummate this idea

he fails numerous times

since the main ingredient that is sorely missing

is Heart

- James Mirarchi 2013

James Mirarchi grew up in Queens, New York. In addition to his poetry collections, Venison and Dervish, he has written and directed short films, which have played at festivals. His poems have appeared in Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, Poydras Review, gobbet, Boyslut, Bluepepper, The Mind[less] Muse, Dead Snakes, The Recusant, Subliminal Interiors Magazine, and Clockwise Cat.

New Poetry by Donal Mahoney

Caseworker Determining Eligibility

Cabrini-Green Projects

Chicago, 1963

The child, age two, hammocked in the half

moon of his mother’s arms, is locked

in palsy, yet moves an eyelid as I ask,

moves the other as his mother answers,

application form interrogation.

The father was a white policeman.

“Curiosity,” the mother says. “No more.

I didn’t go with him for money.”

- Donal Mahoney 2013

Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, Donal Mahoney has had work published in Bluepepper and other publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html

New Poetry by Barbara De Franceschi

Transformation

Songbirds find reason to splash

the bush track with cheerful trill.

I cannot hear,

too many deaf ears.

The mooted thud of dusk

invites another solitary night.

Eyes are blind, I miss the colours –

magenta and gold,

sunset mesmerises the horizon

with a peaceful calm

that does not stroke my skin.

I am hag stones in reverse,

unable to protect the heart,

or join fairies as they frolic

in rain-bubbles dripping

from branches laden

with a passing shower.

When did I transform

from an open wind into a closed sky?

Mettle is unwilling to share

the resilience of spear grass growing

in hardy tussocks amongst the rocks,

breath is tannic from the lack

of distilled love words.

- Barbara De Franceschi 2013

Barbara De Franceschi lives in Broken Hill. Besides two collections of poetry, her work has been published widely in Australia, in other countries, on-line and featured on radio. Since 2010 Barbara has engaged with the ENRICH programme (Enhanced Rural Remote Inter-professional Cultural Health) to determine if art based modules (e.g. creative writing) can be beneficial to health professionals in clinical practices by increasing skills such as observation, interpretation and communication.

New Poetry by Gerald Bosacker

BOMB BRAVE     Boston April 15,2013

You could view this killer on any street
but of all assassins you unknowing meet
horribly worst would be the coward disgrace
who lacks the courage to wear his face.

 

Apart from his murders must this weakling hide,
struck cowardly mute, bereft of claimed pride
not seeking blessing of his brutal deed
but somehow urged with his twisted creed.    

 

A clandestine bully, confused by blind hate
could ambush with bomb to assassinate
who he deems deserving, from borrowed throne,
anyone guilty of sin exceeding his own.

- Gerald Bosacker 2013

Note: While Bluepepper is not in the habit of publishing "newstand" verse, this seemed to us a special case.

New Poetry by Jim Piatt

The Stone

I have eternity in my being, but
My body is turning to sand
Under a hot August, sun:
The Sycamore tree is not as old
As I, but it is not turning to sawdust.
The river is much younger than
I, yet she is drying up . . . now just a
Lonely trickle in a stream bottom,
Who sets this all in motion?
Who allows her to dry up and
Me to turn to sand, yet saves the tree?


- Jim Piatt

New Poetry by Gerald Bosacker

YUCK

My parents  don’t agree with me
that broccoli is poisonous .
They  need an expert’s help to see
the reason why I fume and fuss.
I’d eat mud turtle fricassee
but nothing’s more ridiculous 
than momma's creamed broccoli.


- Gerald Bosacker 2013

Gerald Bosacker, Poet and tale teller lives in Arkansas, retired from the corporate world where he was successful although miscast as Vice President of a large chemical company. He now does penance for his sins against the environment with his anti-war activism and poetry.

New Poetry by Phillip A. Ellis

I Dream no More

My forebones crack while smiling, groan and grind
when my lips whisper, speak my heart's thin pain
(as cold and sly as rain that coats the pane)
and rattles, gnashes at night, against its rind
while I am falling far from my split mind,
a comet caught by the sun, its brilliant reign
hating the very thought of healthy rain;
despair, depression, deep ennui? Its kind.

I dream no more, lest dreams become as life:
I smile, my face collapses, falls apart,
releases the stench of weary, gnawing strife;
I dream no more, lest dreams fall stricken numb
like birds ensnared in lime, gravity's heart,
their tongues all torn apart and written dumb.


- Phillip A. Ellis 2013


Sonnet IV

Down in the chambers of an animal's heart
is the rhythm that powers the interplay
of Persian and sparrow,
the inexorable play of predator and prey
that echoes through the arms race of evolution;
when the cat stalks a bird I see it embodied,
in the play of muscles and hungering instinct
that also echoes through the songs of songbirds.

This is neither the time nor sestet
to mark that the process ends with all parties
running on the spot, as time turns the wheel
that sets the world in motion underneath,
like a treadmill or turntable powering the encounter
between fur and feather on the patio.


- Phillip A. Ellis 2013

In the loop

I have just heard down that great chain of robbers, the interwebz, that Tasmania's Island magazine have joined its only vaguely more terrestrial and iron-hearted true blue Overland, in only considering submissions from those who subscribe. Go figure in an apparently pluralistic society. The latter mag all for social engineering, the  former for, well, good old liberal whatever, but both with an apparent intolerance for anything resembling an audience beyond the jealous confines of St Kilda or Sandy Bay. 

As a failed publisher many times over (OK, twice), I appreciate there can be certain pressures, but in this case if, as I assume, the plug has been pulled from above, why not let the old dears die and move on?  Ivor Indyk manned up with Heat, but then I have always judged him to be made of sterner stuff than most.

I count myself one of a tiny minority that actually continues to subscribe to literary publications, but that's mainly because I like receiving parcels in the mail. I would never assume that because I am on one list I have earned automatic access to the other, to be both producer and consumer of product, but that appears to be the business model these two literary dinosaurs are going with.

Oh, and contrary to what the editors of such forlorn periodicals like to tell us, poets are not in fact the only audience for poetry, as my broad experience of people outside the fraternity (yes, I know, I mingle!) has taught me. But when you are peddling such a business model I guess it doesn't hurt to maintain the illusion.

New Poetry by James Mirarchi

Thieves

From a pulpit

a reserved raccoon with a love for classical music

quietly berates me

for fraternizing with some reality TV raccoons

 

Earlier

these celebrity creatures had burglarized my home

stealing my plasma television and Stephenie Meyer book collection

They even mooned my neighbors while fleeing with their cameraman

But the sycophant I am – still decides to hang with them

 

They teach me the fine art of garbage-sniffing

Climbing trees in Zorro masks

And alluringly posing with head tilted down in attack stance

All telecast for the world to see

I’m even recruited as a videographer

for an all-raccoon Pilates show

 

I’m so honored to be associated

with these exemplary extroverts

so different from their more shy nocturnal relatives

- James Mirarchi 2013

James Mirarchi grew up in Queens, New York. In addition to his poetry collections, Venison and Dervish, he has written and directed short films, which have played at festivals. His poems have appeared in Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, Poydras Review, gobbet, Boyslut, The Mind[less] Muse, Dead Snakes, The Recusant, Subliminal Interiors Magazine, and Clockwise Cat.

   

New Poetry by David Ades

Seeing You, Briefly

In this city of rivers and bridges

always looping back on itself,

I no longer know

how to measure distance.

You flitted onto the screen,

hands on hips,

before fading off again.

I would bring you nearer,

whisper into your ear

if only to whisper into your ear.

So short, our passing lives,

too short for words

not to be spoken.

There is ice on the roads today

and night awaits.

Distance tugs at my sleeve.

- David Ades 2013

David Adès is an Australian poet currently living in Pittsburgh. His poems have appeared widely and are forthcoming in Australian and American literary publications including 5 AM, Bewildering Stories, Cordite Poetry Review, San Pedro River Review, Red River Review, Illya’s Honey, Rune Literary Magazine, Poetica, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, The Fourth River and Spiritus.

New Poetry by Joan McNerney

Virtual Love

A

long

slim

poem

full of hyperbole

and alliteration drifted

into the wrong e-mail box.

There she met an erudite

rich text format manual.

They became attached.

Her fleeting metaphors

lifting his technical jargon.

They were a word couple

spinning through cyber space

giddy with inappropriate syllables.

- Joan McNerney 2013

Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Blueline, Spectrum, and three Bright Spring Press Anthologies.  She has been nominated three times for Best of the Net.  Four of her books have been published by fine small literary presses. 

New Words and Inks by Wayne H. W Wolfson

THE Job 3

I had slipped into reverie when I heard that the job would be, "down there", which everyone in the life knew where that was shorthand for. Maybe I would drive the extra miles afterwards and see her. We would have to split up  lay low and it might hedge my bets of not getting caught, one less steely eyed gringo trying to melt back over the border after the bubbling up of trouble. Ana, all the fights, broken promises, it would have melted away in the sun which bakes all the motion out everything down here except seemingly the flies and those who loose their cool and run to get out. It would take little enough effort to find out where she ended up. I would not even have to worry about being too subtle in my inquiries as common sense dictated someone who had just done a job would not be calling the slightest attention to themselves by asking around about anything.  Half of the crew was young, out to make their bones but not patient enough to do it in the right way. We met in a garage that was used for both cars and small planes that would buzz mosquito like over the baked landscape,  which was oven like despite its size, even the shadows were set at a slow simmer. I had two other direct peers who, as Ricardo paced back and forth toy wound too tight, not paying enough attention to the plans, gave me a look that told me they thought the hex was on and something bad was going to happen.  The driver was the nephew of a pal from the old days whose ticket was punched not by the lifestyle but a botched surgery, he was young but versed in the ways and so would be ok.

"You are a long way from Dublin Joyce."

He was glad to see a familiar face and although he did not say it, as we shook hands I picked up on his counting on me to get us through this in one piece, the defacto leader as Ricardo seemed more interested in posturing, acting scenes from what the movies told him was hard. 

There would now be two meetings, this pantomime of one used to placate Ricardo and then back in my hotel room which I would have to make sure was clean before hand, not too hard to do as it was basically a broom closet, the real one where we went over a "B" plan for when Ricardo made things turn sideways. I shaved and quickly did up a few hand drawn copies of a map to give out with the points of interest, escape, hospital and hotel with even smaller, hotter rooms but where they did not ask questions so long as you paid up front in cash. They all crowded in bumping shins on my bed's corners. Half of me had the urge to tell everyone that this was not going to work, we should all split but that would bring on a whole new set of problems. I think perhaps Ricardo just wanted to let the mad dog loose and did not care if it were on a job or to hunt down someone who he thought had betrayed him. He could do what ever he wanted and would not face censure as he could claim it had been a case of bread off of his table, A matter of semantics but he would be half right. I bit down the urge and fast, everyone was edgy and looking to me. "The thing is, not about not getting caught, it is about not getting caught down here. " I took that worry off their minds by letting them imagine it was already a foregone conclusion,the stripping away of extraneous thoughts and worries it allowed for better concentration. I looked around, almost everyone was here except of course Ricardo, his cousin and his friend. I did not feel obligated to save their asses as either of them could have at any point tried to help adjust Riccardo's attitude and make my leadership unnecessary. 

We all had to put on masks which was not his worst idea but i noticed he only wore a bandana hooked over his nose and covering his mouth. Our masks were all animals, sad mascots from imaginary teams. Joyce asked why he too did not have to wear one. With a wink he said that down here everyone looked alike and he could easily blend in unlike us. The sweat was stinging my eyes the smell of something plastic burning, muffled voices yelling "Go-go-go" as we jumped out at the curb, poor Joyce a drunk looking raccoon with a painted on crooked smile. From the get go Ricardo came in heavy which was not necessary as the only people in the place was an old guard a few years past retirement, the owner's wife and two woman looking at bracelets as a way to kill their lunch break. Ricardo smacked the guard with the nozzle of his gun which was long and square. He went down with a moan, someone opening a birthday gift in front of everyone at a party only to discover it is not what they wanted. The woman behind the counter was emptying the blue velvet trays as fast  as she could into into what looked like one of the hotels stained white pillow cases. When she was done Ricardo made a "Tch-Tch" noise and the woman's eyes went wide, I was sure he was going to shoot her. I had been next to him scoping out if there were any hidden cameras. I kept hitting counter edges due to my bunny heads poor periphery vision. I squeezed his shoulder the way a father might. He winced but did not fire. Right before we left though he did take pains to complicate things by shooting out each of the glass display cases. Back at the garage, a piece of plywood stretched over an upturned oil barrel, everything is dumped out. All the guns are put on the table forming a sort of violent border frame to the sparkling mosaic. Only then does Ricardo punch me in the face. I knew no one agreed with him on this not even his cousin but I just took it as i was hours away by my calculation from ceviche and ocean breezes. 

"You do not interfere with how I do a job,,,,,"

"If you had shot somebody you would have forced the police's hand, no one would get in or out and us killing time waiting eventually a desk clerk or bartender  would be tempted by the reward or to make things easier for a retaliative already on ice and turn snitch. As it is had you not shot up the place we could have had a nice head start of a few hours. He went to punch me again and this one I decided I would not take when his cousin stepped forward, he looked nervous, he opened and closed his mouth several times without saying anything, fish out of water taken off hook. Ricardo forgot about further fighting as he had enough dumb animal instinct to worry about what his cousin may report back to his father. The stuff was dropped off as agreed upon, two parties, four witnesses made up of Ricardo and his cousin, Joyce and I so that no one could abscond later claiming it had all been delivered. 

A roll equal to half the takes value minus various fees was given to us, the rest to come after the fencing a few weeks from now. I stopped by the hotel to grab my bag, as a joke or maybe a "fuck you" Ricardo had picked the lock and left the rabbit head on my bed for anyone to see. I jammed it into my bag. 

Back at the garage we did the split. 

I shook hands with everyone including Ricardo and his people. I was just glad it was over with no one being shot or pinched even if my nose was throbbing. 

I told Joyce not to take anymore south of the border jobs as all the old timers were dying off or retiring. In their own ways the jails down here are as bad as those in Russia minus the chess games in-between the torture.

I hopped on a bus as to avoid calling attention to myself by renting a car. The bus lurched across the expanse of highway in surprisingly short amount of time. I think maybe I had been lulled to sleep by the slow parade of cactus and hypnotic circling of vultures.

In the next town I felt it ok to grab a coffee and rent a car. I also put out feelers to a few old local contacts to see if I could get a lead on where she may have landed. I told them I was on the road and would touch base tomorrow. Giving them that time frame would allow them to get things done but it also hinted that I was still in California in case word of the job leaked out. I drove most of the day, singing to myself as the radio offered up none of its songs.

Everything which took concentration and nerve over with I slept straight though to the morning, the bunny head having been pulled out of my bag for me to get my dop kit sat on the bureau next to the snowy television. a perverse hunting trophy.

The next day I made some calls. They had found her easily enough. I could tell Pepe wanted to ask what I was going to do but dare not as it was against his professional code;

"Just to say hello." 

"Ok boss, well let me know if there is anything else you need."

"Vio con huevos" I sad, we both laughed despite how old the joke between us had become.

The town was a few hours away. It was nice enough to bring in tourists and some of the boho's who wanted to live on the cheap, bad enough that she could find some kind of work.

I parked my car and found a clean room off of the main strip as to be able to sleep without the raucous noise of tourists excited ot have briefly escaped their everyday lives keeping me up. 

She would be at the second best bar as the best would have too much security and a cut of all money made would always have to go to the boss.

I slid in sideways and took a seat at the far corner of the bar. I ordered two drinks, one for my thirst one for old time's sake. Noise coming from a booth, i looked sideways without seeming to do so. There she was in a booth surrounded by tourists, all male and fresh faced from the suburbs. She was making her bread by letting whom ever ponied up the money take photos of her feet which were now intricately tattooed as she skillfully lifted tiny scorpions out of a brandy snifter. I had seen enough.

I walked some of the back streets hoping to run into Ambrose Bierce . I had dust from the road on my shoes, i stopped at a shine stand. 

I sat on the cracked green leather chair putting my feet on the dulled pedals.

"A shine and a wax Senor Bunny?"

FINIS

- Wayne H. W Wolfson 2013

www.waynewolfson.com