BLUEPEPPER

fragmented no. 34 when winter is a string of rain between bone and skin   between emptiness in cold rivulets this wet inventory stops the su...

Between the Covers To all who resent his comic books, his only response is “Shazam.” His parents look in on him from time to time, shake the...

Sacred Space My son’s room remains a shrine. He died in his bed and we don’t know why. But I refuse to let his bed become the enemy. I kneel...

Fire Escape The city, on fire, lies still to listen to the song of her sirens and to the balcony serenades sung down, remembering the war-cr...

protection 1          lips sneering curling back on themselves mean and ludicrous his steely smile eeking soft bird sounds cajoling a mother...

Elegy for Walter Benjamin   For forty years we bore the words on our backs. Carved into calfskin and carried them step                by    ...

Below the Ancient Border Trees In a low crease of mountain lies a seeping palace of alchemy and decay. Here there is severance, bloom and ou...

Threshold   the day you died no rustle or ripple fills the space traps me between strikes of the struck bell in silence after the coda fades...

Anniversary Billy Collins’ poem, “Anniversary,” tells of a baby being born on the day someone dies such that the baby’s birthday is always a...

friday night sutra   Once the first-drink glow subsides, you feel a slight pain in your career.                            If you seek not ‘...

Bluepepper will once again be open for submissions from Wednesday 6th January 2021. We trust by then you will all be rested and brimming wit...

From December 1st 2020, Bluepepper will no longer be accepting submissions until further notice. We would like to take this opportunity to w...

Seeing Crepuscular, prodding the boulevard; beeps and bumping, the billowings of craft burps and vapor, a cigarette handy and a thin old fla...

Last Drink The pink and purple jukebox pumps Kenny Rogers checking in on my condition behind a booth last call wafts  over wooden-paneled co...

Local Time   having negotiated  the international departures lounge  in my sleep  I woke on the other side of the globe    the currency was ...

The Somnambulists I go walking in other people’s dreams. Discretely I roam, a ghost among ghosts, nameless the password, nameless the realm....

Blackhole Rage In an explosion of dust settling I expand and engulf the planets that surround Pull them in swallow whole leaving behind scat...

rabbit shed   his weighted heart smacked reality emotion slashed to standstill   heinous ethereal shrouds hung air softly pitched ...

Eye a scene for under-love that begins in riot ends in the petal  of the iris    collide with mine fast in width that lasts in the blue of o...

Sounds of June  I walk into a bright morning. The trees make the hectic sound of wind blowing. The green grass sings and the sky teems with ...