New Poetry by John Rock

River of Dawns

With wind in my arms
All I’m writing is dreams I can’t remember
You’d know I been knifed by a friend and resurrected
By the way I listen to ravens
And climb them into each dawn 
How I saw a fox stand on a deer’s antlers
Digging a den of stars
And helped the deer in too
In this myth of books
I curled up with the sleeping children
And we grew silver-tipped fur of the saviors frosted fire
Of our dreams
Reading palms
But our real cloaks were earth
Were air
Were things you can’t take
You can’t give back
You can’t remember


- John Rock 2019

John Rock grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan in North America and now lives New Mexico's high desert.  More poetry and novels at johnrockpoetry.com 

New Poetry by Terry Wheeler

dolorosa 

those years
between a

charles manson
and ted bundy 

smile

stations of
the cross

played out
on tv

black and white

becoming 
the colours

dolour of
betrayal


- Terry Wheeler 2019

Terry worked in the public service for decades and was inspired to write after seeing Michael Dransfield poems in The Australian newspaper when a teenager. Terry has been published in Australia and abroad since retiring. He lives in Brisbane when not travelling.

New Poetry by Jean Bohuslav

People I met through work

The solicitor who hired me without giving me a typing test

The officer in charge who employed me after the typing test
saying, I could only get better

His secretary who swung her legs and high heels from his desk

The girl who left work eight months pregnant and thought we couldn’t tell

The stockmen who hid seven leverets in my office
and then thought a dead snake in a paper bag might be fun

The accountant who saved me from a pack of farm dogs 
when we went to tell a labourer’s wife her husband was in hospital

The elderly woman who kept driving shoes in her car

The young lad who pulled his false eye out in a frenzy 
after running over his foot with the lawn mower

The men full of alcohol and sexual innuendos who laughed,
elbowing each other as they chose day old chicks

The Headmaster who was wary of meditation
even though he taught philosophy

The shifty Vice Principal who liked the ladies and bolted his office door

His colleague who pulled her top up to show us her new bra

The old lady with no formal education 
who made the hierarchy dance to her tune

The Principal who gave a bad reference to keep a prominent staff member

The supplies officer whose children had left home 
and was nervous about going on a holiday with just her husband

The intelligent Headmistress with great morals and integrity 
who died in the face of unwanted change

The young school boy who visited reception every lunch time
because he had no friends

The gardener who took things slowly because he wasn’t paid enough 


- Jean Bohuslav 2019

Jean enjoys meeting up with the Torquay (Victoria Australia) creative writing group each week and is interested in the philosophy of mindfulness.

Call for Submissions

Bluepepper has altered its submissions policy ever-so-slightly, and thus we are currently seeking submissions to test the murky waters as per the (slightly modified) submissions guidelines in the right sidebar. The new policy does not guarantee any kind of editorial feedback or idle gossip with all you indigent time-wasters, but it will make us feel important for a few hours each week and, well, what's more important in life than feeling important. So go ahead, launch your paper boat on our wine-dark sea and let us see what you've got.

New Writing by Robert Steward

The Hand of Padre Pio

Naples, Italy 2003

I walked along the old, cobbled street of Via della Sanità to the clamour of church bells. The shops had their shutters down, and there was hardly anyone about. The streetlamps and electric cables dangled above me, and the cool morning sun cast long shadows under the wrought iron balconies. On the left was my local café: Bar Moreno, with its outside display cabinet full of croissants and pastries. Next to it were two shrines: one of the Virgin Mary, and the other of the Napoli football player Diego Maradona. Both equally revered. 

 I went in for breakfast. 

 Inside the café the barista was cleaning the coffee machine. He wasn’t the usual guy who worked there. He was smaller and chubbier with a stubble beard. Behind him was a shelf full of spirits and liqueurs, and on the wall hung a black and white photograph of the comedy actors Totò and Peppino drinking coffee. The photograph always made me smile. The only other customer in the café leaned against the bar, reading La Gazzetta dello Sport, his lips moving as he read.

 ‘Buongiorno,’ I said to the barista.

 ‘Prego,’ he replied.

 ‘Un cappuccino e un cornetto al cioccolato, per favore.’

 He handed me a chocolate croissant, wrapped in a serviette from behind the glass counter and started the coffee-making ritual with a familiar clanking sound. The noise made me wince. Each bang went straight through my aching head. The effects of another hangover. I could still taste the Cuba Libre from the night before--Gabriel’s favourite drink. He was one of the teachers from my language school. He knew one of the barmen in Bar Giusy, who supplied us with rum and coke all night. With his glistening brown eyes and trilby hat sat forward, I remembered Gabriel telling me in his Gibraltarian accent: ‘Hey Rob, we came here thinking we could conquer Naples, but just look at us! It chewed us up and spat us out! We’re nothing, man--nothing!’

 His Neapolitan girlfriend had just left him. 

 Today I wanted to do something more cultural, more spiritual--the godly kind, not from the bottle. I was going to visit the Cappella Sansevero, to see the Veiled Christ.

 Sculptured from a single piece of marble, the body of Christ lies covered with the most delicate transparent veils, I read from my travel guide, while waiting for my coffee. The photograph looked impressive.

 What could be more enlightening on a typical Neapolitan Sunday? I thought. 

 ‘Prego,’ the barista said, handing me the cappuccino.

 ‘Grazie,’ I replied, and slid the customary five-cent tip over the counter.

 Outside, the street was coming to life, with people chatting on street corners, riding scooters, going for a stroll, taking a coffee.

 I walked down Via Arena della Sanità, past Palazzo Spagnolo, past the clothes market and past the church of Santa Maria dei Vergini. In the alley leading out of Sanità stood a small statue of the saint Padre Pio. It was customary to touch his hand when you walked past. Maybe it was for good luck or safe passage. Sometimes I touched his hand and sometimes I didn’t. I remember telling my girlfriend Manuela about the custom when she came to Sanità one night.

 ‘Che scemità!’ she said, which means, ‘What rubbish!’

 But when she saw how dark the alley was, she ran back and touched his hand.  

 On the other side of the main road stood Porta San Gennaro, the entrance to Centro Storico. I walked under the huge arch and entered the old city. In the mazy narrow alleys, the buildings looked as if they belonged to a different time; they all looked similar, different, old. Even with my travel guide map I became disorientated and decided to ask the way. 

 ‘La Cappella Sansevero?’ I asked a man, taking a walk with his family.

 The man shook his head, looking at me as if I was an alien. I asked a couple of other passers-by, but they didn’t know where the church was either. Going round and round in circles, I stumbled upon another church and went to ask inside.

 The first thing I noticed was the size of the church. Tall grey and white columns ran either side of the wooden pews, supporting gold and white arches, and on the ceiling, row after row of elaborate gold square carvings, so high it made me feel dizzy, and at the far end of the church, above the marble alter piece, hung a large wooden crucifix, which must have been over two metres tall.

 A young priest in white robes was trying to usher the tourists out of the church.

 ‘Signori, la chiesa sta per chiudere,’ he said gently.

 I didn’t know churches closed at lunchtime on a Sunday, I thought. Then again, everything closes for lunch in Italy. 

 I approached the priest in the main aisle. He was about my height and probably the same age. He had short dark hair, dark eyes with high cheekbones and a dimple on his chin.

 ‘La Cappella Sansevero?’ I asked.  

 ‘La Cappella Sansevero?’ the priest replied. ‘Are you English?’

 ‘Yes, I’d like to visit La Cappella Sansevero--to see the Veiled Christ.’

 ‘Ah, yes. The church you’re looking for is just around the corner,’ he said, holding his hands together. ‘Are you alone?’

 ‘Yes.’

 ‘This church also has some wonderful treasures. Would you like to see our cloister?’ 

 Why not? I thought. A lot of churches in Naples had hidden treasures, never seen by the public.   

 ‘Okay,’ I replied.

 ‘Come.’ He opened out his hand, showing me the way, his white robe hanging from his arm.     

 He led me through an old wooden side door to the entrance of a cloister. It was dark and secluded with a familiar smell of damp. It reminded me of my basso studio flat in Sanità. The old iron gate was locked, but you could still see through to the courtyard inside. It looked more like a gothic crypt than a cloister with its ribbed vaults and pointed arches.

 ‘Can you see the statues in the alcoves?’ the priest asked, putting his arm round my shoulder. ‘Look how beautiful they are!’

 He held me so close that I could feel his stubble on my cheek. Sweat glistened on his forehead and nose, and there was a sharp heady smell of body odour in the air. I subtly tried to pull away, but before I could do anything, he pointed to the other side of the cloister, holding me even tighter, his large hands like a clamp.

 ‘And look at those over there!’ he said, breathing into my ear. ‘Wonderful, aren’t they?’

Santo cielo! I thought. What the hell is going on here? 

 This was way beyond being tactile. I had the impression he wanted to do more than just show me his blessed masterpiece! 

 The dusty white statues stood in the corners of the cloister, draped in haunting shadows; their faces looked on in horror as if witnessing a sickening crime, their eyes aghast, their mouths open. The whole scene started to spin round in my head. As he explained the history of the cloister, I tried to prise myself from his grip. 

 But how do you disentangle yourself from a member of the clergy? I didn’t really want to start wrestling with a priest! 

 ‘Look how thin you are!’ he laughed, rubbing my belly. ‘A guy like you should eat more!’

 When he finally let me go, I became aware of the space between us. I wanted to run, escape, cry for help, but I was speechless. He looked at me as if nothing had happened. The word untouchable came to mind, sinister, dark, depraved. I felt sickened. 

 ‘I have to go to lunch now.’ The priest smiled, opening the side door to the church.

 ‘But if you come back at four-thirty, I can show you more.’

 Outside the church, the sunshine was sudden and bright. I was even more disorientated than before. I didn’t know whether to continue on my journey or to... or to... I just don’t know. What do you do in a situation like that? I tried to piece together the images in my head; it all happened so quickly. 

 I should’ve said something, I thought. I should’ve done something about it. I should’ve... I should’ve... I should’ve touched Padre Pio’s hand!

- Robert Steward 2019

Robert Steward teaches English as a foreign language and lives in London. He is currently writing a collection of short stories, several of which have appeared in online literary magazines, including: Scrittura, The Creative Truth, The Ink Pantry, Adelaide and The Foliate Oak. You can find them at: twitter.com/theroadtonaples

New Poetry by Abigail George

Stepping into a winter sun while the spaghetti sauce cooks

People will always talk. Learn to forgive. Life
is hard. It rains, even in summer it rains. Questioning
life is complex. Her identity was like a calm
breakthrough. Apollo of Africa take note of
the human life of our fallen struggle heroes, of the
wasted potential of liberation, the political
way. The shine of the afternoon has its own
tapestry. I think of Mishka and her husband
in Paris. I think of making love in Paris. I think
of Sylvia Plath in Paris with her beau on her
arm. I'm alone again. I'm on my own again. I'm
the Outsider in this vast unknown, undoing Max,
haunting ghost in a summer wonderland, and
I want to move away from this place where I don't
quite belong. This place of hurt, of pain, of
an eternity of suffering. This place where people
like Julian, and Michael do not love me. Go back,
my soul whispers to me. Years of silence
have followed me from swampland to city filled
with blood, and water, and marrow, and land
and sea. All I wanted you to say was that you
loved me. All I wanted was to survive, find the
exit out, make plans to marry you. All I wanted
was for you to save me, call me sweetheart, call
me darling, have a honey child, a breathing lesson,
but in this age of painting fruit in a bowl, and
baking sweet potato you found another girl,
while I was drinking tea, and thinking of Sylvia
Plath and Ted Hughes. While I was thinking of
Bessie Head, and a man called Max, another man
who did not love me. Another man who did not
care if I lived or lived on in death. Call me by my name.
Call me a parenthesis, call me girl, or virgin, call
me ex-lover. I desire to be bone-thin again. I can't
get this stain out, Can't get the stink out. It has been
there for days. Suffering begins with her. The
woman I call Mother. I eat peaches from the
can hungrily, she's the ghost from a childhood
view, star-my-eye to the telescope. In Mother's
world I was a stranger. Nobody loves me. The
sea meets the world in her brown eyes, the drawing
of a map, matter is only conjured-up myth. Don't
look at me. Look at my heart picking up the pieces.
I went up a hill, and came down a mountain. Mikale
understands, but he loves another. I am always
letting them go, talking about my generation, about
King and country, about surrendering lovers to the
stars, to Updike, Rilke, Hemingway. There is ice

in my veins now. There is the dream of fields, the
perspective of snow, of adrenaline, the hardiness
of years spent in therapy, and everything is fragile
here. Mother is ominous. And I am the future glory of
woman, an illustration of marriage, silence dances
on my fingertips. Everyone ignores my cries for help.
I don't know how to love, how to translate lovemaking.
Spoonfuls of sugar, a show of dust in the desert,
flesh, dawn, stain. I look for you, but you're no longer
there. You're dead to me, but not to another. Here's
a waterfall, a shroud to cover up their laughter. Flux
is flexing his muscles through the night as he loves
another. They laugh at me, they laugh at me. Mother
takes me by the hand, pushes me into the sea. Watches
all of my sin drown into the channel, watches me
not ever coming up again. This makes her happy. I'm
epic. I'm legend. I'm finally loved. The sea loves me.


- Abigail George 2019

Abigail George is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated writer. She is the author of eight books, recipient of two National Arts Council grants, one from the Centre of the Book, and another from ECPACC. She briefly studied film at the Newtown Film and Television School in Johannesburg. She is the poetry editor for African Writer, editor at Mwanaka Media and Publishing, and she has two chapbooks ("Of Bloom and Smoke" and "The Anatomy of Melancholy") forthcoming from MMAP and Praxis Magazine. Her latest book is "The Scholarship Girl" which is available from African Books Collective in the UK and Amazon in the States.

New Poetry by Jim Conwell

The Sun is not Living

It does not keen.
It is a vast, unencompassable cauldron, 
And gives us light 
which we have grown eyes to see by, 
warmth against the void’s chill tongue. 

It is shining today 
in a sharply-angled, wintry sort of way,
stabbing through the angle of the Earth’s tilt 
as the plants discard bits of themselves 
sinking back into the dark interior of the soil 
to dream until the warmth returns 
and calls them back to life. 

The wind is moving over us, 
I hear its uneven breath in the trees. 


- Jim Conwell 2019

Jim Conwell was born, and has lived most of this life, in various parts of London. He has had poems published in various magazines including The Lampeter Review, The Seventh Quarry, The SHOp, Turbulence, Elbow Room and Ofi Press, He has had two poems shortlisted in the Bridport Poetry Prize. 

New Poetry by Michael Keshigian

Unforeseen Endings

An old man lived here
before our purchase,
raised in this home,
he became a widower years later,
forced into reclusiveness
as a result of a menial pension,
lack of societal skills and death of his spouse.
It didn’t end well for him,
the neighbors say, always alone,
downsizing to three rooms
from eight that existed, enough to cook,
sleep, and exercise his passion for writing
in a six by ten area with a desk, chair,
and computer as necessary tools
to engage his fantasies
between appointed meals
at indiscriminate times,
piling dishes till the end of the week.
Stuffed in desk drawers
we found printed pages of returned manuscripts,
identified with his name and address
atop five to fifty lines of various poems,
tri-folded, but extended flat,
no longer restricted to an envelope,
the second drawer, a file,
compiling a record of those efforts
no longer imprisoned in the first level.
A lonely story related by isolated artifacts,
a story neither one of us considered
would become our own.
A home withered, released by time,
as if severed by an axe
from the expectation assumed
at all beginnings.


- Michael Keshigian 2019

Michael Keshigian’s thirteenth poetry collection, The Garden Of Summer was released April, 2019 by Flutter Press. He has been widely published in numerous national and international journals, recently including Red River Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Oyez Review, Bluepepper, Muddy River Review, Smoky Quartz and has appeared as feature writer in over twenty publications with 6 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)

New Words by Tommy Vollman

 It wasn’t the sleepwalking that bothered me. I woke up outside more often than I care to remember, but still, the sleepwalking never really bothered me. I was terrified, though, of the tracers. The tracers scared the shit out of me.

 My parents were concerned, but only about the sleepwalking; they never knew about the tracers. I never told them. I mean, how the hell would I even have begun? I don’t think they ever knew I made it outside, either. If they would’ve known I went outside, holy shit—I’d have never heard the end of it.

 I’m not exactly sure when I started sleepwalking, but I don't remember doing it before the fourth grade. Fourth grade was rough. I had a hell of a time paying attention, and I missed a lot of the things my teacher said. When she—Ms. Burtich—noticed, she’d call me out in front of everyone. And those call-outs happened four or five times a day. She had to have known that something was up. I suppose there’s a chance she didn’t. Or maybe, she just didn’t give a shit. But I think she knew. And maybe she could’ve done something, something to help. At the very least she could’ve tried being less of an asshole. But she didn’t. Instead, she used me to sharpen her talons. I’d be sitting there, chasing tracers, and she’d come down on me about how I was daydreaming or whatever. If only she knew what wa to listen.

 No one wanted to hear about the tracers. Of course, I really never tried to explain them. I didn’t know how. I felt crazy because of them, and so I was scared as hell to say anything. I mean, how cs really going on. If only I could have explained. But even if I could’ve, she wouldn’t have wantedould I expect anyone to understand the tracers when I wasn’t even sure what they were?

 I thought about the tracers all the time. Somebody would ask if I was okay, and I’d get so close to saying something, but then I wouldn’t. I couldn’t ever manage to say anything about them, so after a while, I just quit trying.

 Now, when I think back, I wonder why I didn’t say anything, I wonder why I didn’t ask for help. But I don’t have an answer. I suppose I just hoped that one day they’d stop. Eventually, they did. I mean, try to imagine, as a nine year-old, telling somebody about the white-hot lights that zoomed in front of your face—tiny little comets—that just suddenly appeared out of nowhere and shot across the frame of your vision for five, ten, twenty minutes. Try to imagine telling people about the blue streaks that the tracers left, the ones that blocked out some things but not everything. I could never be sure what was real and what wasn’t.

 There’s no explaining something like that.

 I’d have been at a specialist in a half-minute. And maybe I should’ve been at a specialist, but I never told anyone about the tracers, so I wasn’t. I just hoped and prayed as hard as I could that they wouldn’t happen during baseball games when I most wanted, when I most needed to see everything clearly.

 Hell, I spent so much time with the tracers, it was hard to pay attention to anything else. And that’s why fourth grade was such a fucking disaster. Fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth weren’t as bad; I suppose I learned how to cope.

 Baseball, though, was my one constant, my fixed point, my escape. The tracers never came during baseball games. Sometimes they came before, other times after, but they never, ever came during a game.

 And I needed to keep it that way.

 Sometimes, though, I’d get anxious. I’d wonder if a bit of glare that caught the bill of my cap was a tracer. Or if the glint from a swinging metal bat was one. Or if the reflection off a car door or windshield or rear view mirror out in the parking lot was one. It got so bad—my dread of the tracers—that I’d think up all these complicated scenarios and repeat them over and over just to keep my mind off the tracers: runner on first, no outs, I’m playing left field and the lefty at the plate swings inside-out and hits one down the line. How do I break? How do I field the ball? Backhanded, of course, but do I spin and throw or take the extra step, plant, and throw? Is the play at second or third? How fast is the runner on first? What kind of jump will he have? I’d spend my time unraveling a seemingly infinite tangle of possibilities just to keep my mind off the tracers. It was my hope that this sort of unraveling—an attempt to keep my mind busy and engaged—would keep the tracers away, far away from the baseball diamond. And it must have worked because they never came during a game. Baseball was—and stayed—my safe spot. Baseball remained free, clear, and unencumbered.

 Everywhere else, though, did not.

 My fourth-grade classroom, for instance—Jeri Burtich’sroom 4B—was a haven for the tracers. 4B was everything the baseball diamond wasn’t. 4B was a nightmare, a Petri dish for tracers. I hated 4B almost as much as the tracers themselves. Sunday trough Thursday, my sleep was bullshit. I’d lay in bed and think about 4B and those fucking tracers. I’d think about how they’d burn over my eyes, and how Ms. Burtich would be up my ass about not paying attention, and how I wouldn’t say anything when she brought me up to the front of the class and held my hand while she told the class the assignment. She’d make me stand there while she wrote it out for me.

 “So you can look at it and concentrate,” she’d say, all slow and drawn-out like I didn’t or couldn’t understand English or something. I understood English just fine. It was the tracers that were the problem. And her. She was a problem, too, with her fat, soft hand lightly squeezing mine, her breath way too hot and close.

 She always sat in one of the tiny chairs that were made for elementary kids so that part of her enormous ass would struggle to escape between the two metal bars that held the lumbar support in place. When she was in one those chairs, the lumbar support seemed to struggle to escape the chair, to escape Ms. Burtich and 4B entirely. I always expected one of the chairs she sat in to just explode under her weight, but none ever did. She was so fat and puffy, she probably weighed nothing. She was a marshmallow, I figured, which is why none of those chairs ever exploded even though every single one should have. She was mostly made, I guessed, of puffed air. And she wrote as slowly as she spoke, but her writing, unlike her speech emerged as a series of slanted, hooked loops, always crafted by a felt-tip marker that was light blue or bright pink or neon green. She never wrote on the lines; those hooked loops always ran diagonal across the sky-blue rules. And that bothered me most about her. What made her think she didn’t need to stay in the lines when everyone else did?

 But a 10 year-old doesn’t think things like that. And if they do, they definitely don’t say them, not to their 4th grade teacher, not to anyone. And so when Ms. Burtich called me out, I stood there and struggled to try and repeat something I hadn’t heard in the first place.

 It wasn’t like I didn’t want to pay attention to her; it was simply that I couldn’t. And that, I suppose, was why I never talked to anybody about much of anything. Everything was so goddamned exhausting. My feelings, the tracers—everything—made very little sense. And I really wanted—needed—things to make sense. The fact that nothing seemed to add up, short of baseball, made me feel a little hopeless and quite a bit alone, which only made the tracers worse. The more I worried, the more hopeless I felt, and then the more frequently the tracers occurred. And when they came, they stayed around longer. Five minutes became ten, then twenty. I began to talk to myself to try to calm down, to convince myself that everything, eventually, would be okay. Of course, it was nearly impossible for me to believe anything I told myself. Still, I continued until one day something happened, something strange, something I still can’t explain. One day, my voice—the voice that came mostly in whispers as I tried to calm myself, to tell myself everything was going to be okay—changed. My voice didn’t sound that much different, it didn’t get deeper or louder or anything like that. What happened, the way it changed, was that it got stronger, more persistent. And that strength made it easier for me to listen, which made me feel less hopeless. And even though I still didn’t tell anyone about the tracers, I felt less alone. The strength of my own voice gave me power. But that power didn’t chase away the tracers or make me really believe that things would be okay.

 But maybe that wasn’t the point.

 Maybe the point was that at a young age I got the opportunity to learn that true freedom meant being able to embrace whatever happened, whether I understood it or not. Freedom, I learned, was really just possibility, which made it seem much less appealing than it probably actually was.

 Of course, I’m no expert.

 But here’s the thing: The tracers stopped one day, suddenly, and they haven’t come back even though I worry almost all the time that they will. And when the tracers stopped, so did the sleepwalking, which never really bothered me that much in the first place.

- Tommy Vollman 2019

Tommy Vollman is a writer, musician, and painter. He has written a number of things, published a bit, recorded a few records, and toured a lot. Tommy’s work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the “Best of the Net” anthology. His stories and nonfiction have appeared (or will appear) in issues of The Southwest Review, Two Cities Review, The Southeast Review, Palaver, and Per Contra. He has some black-ink tattoos on both of his arms. Tommy really likes A. Moonlight Graham, Kurt Vonnegut, Two Cow Garage, Tillie Olsen, Willy Vlautin, and Albert Camus. He's working on a novel entitled Tyne Darling and has a new record, Youth or Something Beautiful, slated for release in early-2019. He currently teaches English at Milwaukee Area Technical College and prefers to write with pens poached from hotel room cleaning carts.

New Poetry by Nathanael O'Reilly

Running II *

At the end of the lane, turn right
onto Coolamon Road and right again
at Farrer Road. Return past the new
housing estates, cramped embodiments
of the Australian Dream. Run through
thick autumn fog as water drips from limbs,
boughs and leaves. Run down Pine Gully
Road through Estella and Boorooma.
Dig deep in the uphill homestretch
climbing Mambarra Drive to Booranga
past the RAF memorial, sheep-strewn
paddocks and the winery. Set lambs
bleating, mistake rocks for rabbits,
disturb many murders of crows.


Lunch

Heat up a can of beef and vegie
soup for lunch. Make four pieces
of toast and spread Western Star
butter generously. Add Saxa
salt and pepper to the soup,
open a longneck of Sheaf Stout
and pour a tall glass. Eat and drink
while gazing out the window
at a bloke on a motorbike herding
a mob of sheep along the road,
pushing stragglers out of the olive
grove while the black cat meows
and scratches the fly-screen,
seeking entry from the verandah.


Afternoon

Brew your afternoon coffee
then step through the kitchen
doorway onto the verandah.
Watch the black cat dash down
the steps heading for home
beneath the house. Sit still
on a chair sipping in the autumn
sunshine. Stare at the rabbit
on the hillside until it turns
into a small grey rock then back
into a rabbit. Finish your coffee
and go inside. Iron trousers
and a long-sleeved shirt. Shave
in preparation for the evening.


- Nathanael O'Reilly 2019


* Three poems from the Booranga sequence

Nathanael O’Reilly is an Irish-Australian residing in Texas. His books include Preparations for Departure, Distance, Cult, Suburban Exile and Symptoms of Homesickness. His poetry has appeared in publications from twelve countries, including Antipodes, Bluepepper, Cordite, Headstuff, Mascara, Skylight 47, Snorkel, Verity La and The Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology 2017.

Who let the dogs out?

As a platform for open and constructive expression and engagement, Bluepepper shares the international community's grave concerns for the future of Australian democracy in light of the recent AFP raids on the home of a Murdoch journalist and the headquarters of the ABC. That there seems to be an element of vindictiveness in the actions of the AFP is highlighted by the fact that the raids weren't conducted for more than a year after the "offending" stories were published and broadcast. If either story posed such a threat to national security and our standing in the Five Eyes, then why not greater urgency in executing the warrants? Peter Dutton, the Federal Home Affairs Minister, ducked and weaved when this question was put to him, leaving Bluepepper with the distinct impression that the law sits very low on his list of priorities. You would think this a strange attitude from an ex-member of the Queensland Police Force, but perhaps some of our colleagues north of the Tweed could cure us of our misconceptions.

One positive result of the AFP raids was to bring the Murdoch Press and the ABC together in a united voice of outrage and despair at this judicial overreach. Both organisations have justified cause for concern, especially after the acting AFP Director, Neil Gaughan, mooted possible custodial sentences for the journalists involved. This is a worrying precedent, and one against which Australian journalists and media organisations are almost powerless to act without urgent legislation or an amendment to the constitution. As things stand, freedom of the press is merely "implied" as a pillar of this country's free and functioning democracy.

It cannot be stressed enough at this juncture that Australia is the ONLY modern liberal democracy where such actions as last week's AFP raid are legally permitted. All people everywhere who believe in a free and open democracy should take a moment to reflect on this fact. Laws matter. The laws that our parliaments enact matter and can have enduring and largely unforseen consequences down the track without due diligence by said lawmakers, not to mention rigorous scrutiny by the Fourth Estate. 

It may, therefore, be appropriate at this point to highlight the fact that for more than a decade the Murdoch press has been a vocal critic of attempts to introduce a Bill of Rights in this country. Their arguments against such change strike Bluepepper as rather opaque, but in essence the Murdoch argument has been that a Bill of Rights would represent a vote of no confidence in Australia's parliaments and the traditions in which individual rights (so they argued until last week) are enshrined. The AFP raids show such faith to be on very shaky ground indeed. Custom is not law, and in the face of the kind of judicial over reach the world has just witnessed in Australia this point also cannot be stressed enough. Arguments that a Bill of Rights would politicise our judiciary also appear moot in the light of recent events.

Of course, there is a risk with any legislation that it will in fact limit rights in the very act of guaranteeing them. This strikes Bluepepper as a legitimate concern, but we believe the only way to mitigate such failures is to open a full and frank discussion now on the subject with input from all Australians in every corner of the country. We pride ourselves that as a nation we are always able to pull together in a crisis. Well, Bluepepper suggests we are facing a crisis of the first magnitude right here right now. It is an existential crisis with the same generational implications as the crisis of climate change, and we find ourselves in both these cases at a juncture in the modern history of this country. Bluepepper believes we will be judged by our actions (or lack thereof) by future generations. The status quo has proved itself manifestly inadequate. People should not be deterred by arcane matters of law. The issues, we believe, are fundamental and fairly straightforward. Certain rights that are currently only implied in our constitution need to be enshrined as a matter of urgency in order to prevent such incidents as last week's raids ever taking place again. Power must be open to scrutiny or all the laws of the land are a dead letter.

Bluepepper accepts that in penning this editorial there could be consequences down the track. We accept this in the spirit of one largely flying blind. However, we implore anyone commenting on recent events to choose their words carefully until we all have a clearer idea of where exactly we stand in the eyes of the law. Bluepepper believes that all the journalists and editors involved in this sorry episode acted in good faith and in the best interests of their readers and of their country. If the Prime Minister and his Cabinet believe they govern in the interests of their much-touted "silent majority", then they have won this fight. Bluepepper cannot in all good conscience sit back silently and let that happen.

New Poetry by Doug Holder

Harbor Walk, South Boston

It was the smell
that briny
elemental sweat
of wizened hard rock
moss
tangled up in green seaweed
the white waterfall
splashing 
abandoning its load
in the placid canal.

I had to stop
the moment I smelled it.
It was something
that my father was drawn to
it righted his round shoulders
made his face crinkle with laughter.

That smell.
Emerging from the vaginal portals
that spray of light
slapping him with the doctor.
That smell
on his pleasuring hands
the troop ship
heading to the coast of France
the salt adding speckled white
and fright to
his stubble.

The smell. The sea.
His beginning.
The expansive horizon,
and the narrowing
end.

We spread his ashes
far up the Hudson
but we knew they would travel
to the seminal sea
and someday
that's where
I am 
meant
to be.


- Doug Holder 2019

Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press of Somerville, MA. He has recently collaborated with playwright Lawrence Kessenich on a new play based on a short story he wrote "The Patient." It is going to be published by the Presa Press, and  has had a staged reading at the Playwright's Platform in the Boston area. Holder's poem " Oh Don't She Said, It's Cold" adapted into a song by singer/songwriter Jennifer Matthews, will be preformed by the dance company "text moves" in the fall at various venues in the area. Holder is the arts editor of The Somerville Times, and teaches writing at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, and Endicott College in Beverly, MA. He holds an MLA in literature from Harvard University.

New Poetry by James Walton

Mallacoota guesthouse, between States

We slept in Henry Lawson’s bed
in the days when the world was wide
at a place where pelicans and kangaroos
gambolled on a horizon of lawn
sloping to the inlet jetty
all those years ago
the road to Conran closed by forbidding rains
You ate shortbreads telling me the crumbs
could never forget us
the way they disappeared in the sheets
like fish diving to or away from bait
a forever slight of need
At smuggler’s cove we rescued a penguin
the one station copper laughed
telling us to just put it back
giving us bandaids for our fingers
A long stretch of days bent our way
the veranda smell of ozone and bracken
pipe and shirt sleeves held up with elastic guards
the owner trying to find a place in the world
a Checkpoint Charlie the eye of the needle
You went through without me
just as I looked down to validate our passes


- James Walton 2019

James Walton is published in many anthologies, journals, and newspapers. His collections include 'The Leviathan's Apprentice', 'Walking Through Fences', and 'Unstill Mosaics'.

New Poetry by Claire Roberts

ONE

Every library is a pile of seasonal leaves;
amber-coloured pages crack
like twigs underfoot

and scent the air around my cubicle
with the arms of a young maple tree:
a crimson sentry leaning on the windowsill,

my favourite book clear as a name.
I have one life and poetry another.


- Claire Roberts 2015

New Poetry by Brian Rihlmann

Owen's Water Chimes

The rain spatters against the window
and I am taken back to his dingy room
in that old flophouse on the north coast,

where we sat 20 years ago 
chatting about books and drinking whiskey
during a winter rainstorm,

and he occasionally held up a finger,
interrupting me,
and saying, "Listen!"

He called them his "water chimes,"
the beer cans and bottles
he tossed out the window into the alley,

and heard melodies
in the plinking and plopping sounds
of raindrops on their hollow shells.

I was 25 then, he was 50 years older,
and I thought he was drunk,
or just a crazy old bastard.

Now I sit, listening to the rain,
windblown against the glass
drumming like tiny insistent fingers,

like someone waiting for me
when I'm running late,
but I'm not sure just what for.


- Brian Rihlmann 2019

Brian Rihlmann was born in NJ, and currently lives in Reno, NV. He writes mostly semi autobiographical, confessional free verse. Folk poetry...for folks. He has been published in Constellate Magazine, Poppy Road Review, Cajun Mutt Press, The Rye Whiskey Review and has an upcoming piece in The American Journal Of Poetry.

New Poetry by Margaret Holley

Lilacs

Have I written enough poems for one lifetime?
Do I really need to search for words for this

breath they breathe out and I breathe in,
pulling the sprig in close to my face, this scent 

I have loved since childhood when it taught me 
what spring is?  Richard Wilbur called it

“the pure power of this perfume,” and no one 
has lent it a finer bouquet. So now I can simply 

be silent, close my eyes, and breathe it in. I can 
sit in my room in the oncoming dusk reading 

“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” 
slowly all the way through, weeping shamelessly

for the heart-shaped leaves, the hermit thrush,
and Whitman’s love for Lincoln — and for us, 

crowds of us all across America who gathered 
as the funeral train with the coffin traveled west,

town by town, toward Springfield for burial, 
just as our nation itself very nearly died.

Instead of going to bed, I’d rather go back out
into the dark to lie down in the ivy and myrtle 

under the lilac bush and let my thoughts 
rise up wordlessly around its sturdy twigs, 

its clouds of tiny, opening, four-pointed stars.
I’d rather be a painter, a dancer, a singer,

a dreamer wondering if I’m asleep or if I’m 
waking, oh please, waking at last.


- Margaret Holley 2019

Margaret Holley’s fifth book of poems is Walking Through the Horizon(University of Arkansas Press, uapress.com).  Newer poems have appeared in online at Algebra of Owls, Bluepepper, Eclectica, Gnarled Oak, The Tower Journal, and Valparaiso Poetry Review.  She currently she lives with her husband in Wilmington, DE, and serves as a docent at Winterthur Museum and Gardens.

New Poetry by Jonathan Beale

The first blue spring days 

The Magnolia dawns!
Misting over the sultry fields… 
That Chagallian mood bleeds
Through to the idyllic
Blissful, dreamy and then mellow.

Until another god divines:
Wisteria, majestic! Regal!
As the chimes of St Marks Basilica.
They hang observing 
As the gods and angels. 

The Ceanothus sitting on the corner. 
Standing bereft of purpose,
Other than its own beauty,
Its own meaning - 
There is nothing bluer.  

Lavender: bridging springs finale.  
Springs new birth rite, Lavenders meaning.  
Killing springs winter -
Brushing away the charm
Into another day, another season.


- Jonathan Beale 2019

Jonathan Beale has had his work published in over sixty journals including Danse Macabre, Mad Swirl, Ygdrasil, Red Wolf Editions, Sheepshead Review, Poetry 24 et al.  He is also published in two anthologies ‘Drowning’ and ‘The Poet as Sociopath’ (Scar publications). And one to be published ‘Do not be afraid’ a small anthology dedicated to Seamus Heaney. His first book of poetry The Destinations of Raxiera (Hammer and Anvil) in November 2015. He lives Surrey U.K.  

New Poetry by Abigail George

The genius of the fish

(for the Dutch poet Joop Bersee)

My mother was a woman who cut a striking figure in 
blue jeans even well into her sixties. She was a 

woman half-formed by the green sea. You would find 
me after watching my favourite soap in the afternoon

weeping amongst the glaciers, catching the oyster-cloth
of my breath considering every forward lurch of my 

sin into hell. I will still remember and go on remembering.
A mother who was also a sister, a daughter who was now

an orphan. Touch me. I am flesh and bone like you,
chiseled into an aching, living, breathing thing. Into this

human body engineered for love and the psychology of 
it all, of most of all disability and I think of the genius 

of fish. How they move in water, gulping in air through
their gills. Supreme triumph after triumph. How perfect

they seem to be on the surface of things. They’ll never 
know what it is to dance in their bare feet or sadness or

electroshock therapy. I think of you with a kind of longing.
Sometimes in the same way I think of John Nash. I over-

think of this empty mirror. No reflection, no muse, no
nation there, no habitat, no cave dweller. I’m more or less

drone than bat. Seed is found there in the elements and 
dimensions of nature. People are found there in swimming 

pools in the same way they’re found numb after taking pain 
medication. Girls remind me of Updike. Faces that I have no 

longing to kiss. Boys remind me of Sartre and Beauvoir’s 
relationship. Their union erratic, unpredictable. With their 

faces that I have no longing to kiss. I long for you. How
I long for you. Your company, to sit next to, to understand

that there is only this love in the world and that nothing
divides us absolutely. You’re reflection projected, muse

interrupted, chaos and disorder exploding like bombs 
in my brain. I write to reach you. All I ask in return is that

you accept me high and low, crushing and numb, deaf  
to the burn wound of my soul, to the voiceless bone sticking-out.

You’re my girl, you’re my girl, you’re my girl. Reminding
me of Updike, Rilke, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Bambi.


- Abigail George 2019

Pushcart Prize-nominated Abigail George is a South African blogger, essayist, poet and short story writer. She briefly studied film at the Newtown Film and Television School in Johannesburg. Her latest book is The Scholarship Girl published by Zimbabwean Publishing company Mwanaka Media and Publishing and edited by Tendai Rinos Mwanaka. She is the recipient of two grants from the National Arts Council in Johannesburg, one from the Centre of the Book in Cape Town and ECPACC in East London.

New Poetry by Terry Wheeler

hyde park

bugger all degrees
of separation for
cattle ticks and
the bush bred

wondering if don walker
ever ran across
great auntie evie
up at the cross

when hyde park winos
on the picnic tables
were the best
chess players

awol for a week while
on tour they found
thelonious monk there
asleep on a park bench

evie the black sheep
would’ve connected
with thelonious or don
outside the square


- Terry Wheeler 2019

Terry worked in the public service for decades and was inspired to write after seeing Michael Dransfield poems in The Australian newspaper when a teenager. Terry has been published in Australia and abroad since retiring. He lives in Brisbane when not travelling.