New Poetry by Louise McKenna

Leaf

Wait

let me pause like a comma

            to read the history of this leaf

                        a flyer swing-boating on a current of air

                        if I could catch it

                            hold it like this

                        up to the light

this yellowed papery message

is pin holed with stigmata

after a brief assignation

with a year of sorrows

and a red gum older than Australia

such unweighable loss has always been with us

            trees spending their currency

as the sun x rays each capillary

look up through

the silhouetted lungs of the tree

to the cracked blue pane

of sky

the only remedies

are our faithful roots,

the impossible apex of a

shoot

- © Louise McKenna 2021

Louise McKenna is an Adelaide poet. Her chapbook ‘The Martyrdom of Bees’ was published by Garron Press in 2016. She has been published in many journals, including ‘Cordite’ and ‘Meanjin.’ She is currently working on a second chapbook and is elated to have a working title at last.

New Poetry by David Adès

The Continuous Ephemeral 

 

Even though a multitude of poetry books — 

dog-eared, thumbed, hauled from place to place — 

 

stayed with me a good, long while 

 

and there were loves and friendships along the way, 

I possessed nothing that I sought or thought to possess, 

 

save for the thought of possession that, too, departed,  

 

another echo sounding in the vault of the dead, 

the lost, coins falling through the holes in my pockets. 

- © David Adès 2021

David Adès is the author of Mapping the World, the chapbook Only the Questions Are Eternal and most recently Afloat in Light (https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/afloat-in-light). In association with Mascara Literary Review, David is a recipient of the 2020 Don Bank Writing Residence (extended into 2021 due to Covid) together with Michelle Cahill, Debbie Lim and Michelle Hamadache.

 

New Poetry by DAH

fragmented no. 34

when winter is a string of rain

between bone and skin  

between emptiness

in cold rivulets

this wet inventory stops

the sun from breathing   

there’s a young man sitting

on a porch

huddled up to a cigarette

, his expression : all of his

dreams defeated

, heavy eyes , as if sinking

the rain , a damaged lung asking

for breath : if only to sleep

when it rains

my hands are like cold fruit

covered in ice , the shivering

puddles at my feet

walking with heads lowered

a man and woman , as fragile

as pawns . the heart is like this

: every life is a riddle , riddled

with emotions

, the young man doesn’t know

what to think

, the man and woman tremble

, and the water , a mirror reflecting

their unbearable sorrow  

I avert my eyes , as if forbidden

to look at them

, or to assume their secrets

- © DAH 2021

DAH is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best Of The Net nominee, and the author of nine books of poetry. DAH lives in Berkeley, California, where he is working on his tenth poetry collection, while simultaneously working on his first collection of short fiction.

New Poetry by John Grey

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 their heads,

return to the business

of raising the rest of their children.

Meanwhile, his head is buried in Spiderman,

treating every frame with such reverence.

Or making eyes at Wonder Woman,

the glorious Amazon he is saving himself for.

He’s twenty-five but won’t look for a job.

As long as he gets his allowance,

he doesn’t need the money.

And, he figures, why be a Clark Kent

who’s just Clark Kent and nothing more.

He longs to fly

and have the strength of a hundred men.

Instead, he’s overweight

and still wets the bed.

He won’t be coming to your rescue

any time soon.

- © John Grey 2021

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and Connecticut River Review. Latest book, “Leaves On Pages” is available through Amazon.

 

 

New Poetry by Robert Pegel

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 and pray there nightly.

As if the words thought might bring him back

to lie in that bed and all will be right in the world again.

As I depart from the room after my nightly ritual,

I touch three pieces of clothing,

one at a time, that remain on his bed after four years.

One black t shirt he wore on our last vacation shortly before he died.

An oxford blue shirt he loved and wore in his last class picture.

And a little light brown teddy bear mini blanket

we searched for and found from when he was a toddler.

He used to rub the silk from the edge of the blanket

against his lips as he watched cartoons.

My mind relives the days of Calvin

from all three of those times.

Then I hit my heart twice

and give a peace sign to heaven salute.

It won’t bring him back.

But it brings back stages of his life

to my mind for an instant.

And for now, my mind is the only place left

where I can capture a moment in time.

- © Robert Pegel 2021

Robert Pegel is a father and husband whose only child, his son Calvin, died in his sleep four years ago.  Calvin was 16 and died of unknown causes.  Robert writes poetry to help process the unimaginable.  He hopes others will find inspiration in his writing which may help them cope with suffering they are experiencing.  Robert graduated from Columbia University where he majored in English.  He has only begun submitting his work recently.  He has been published in Down in the Dirt and The Unique Poetry Journal. 

 

New Poetry by Edward Raso

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-cries she had once heard from atop the ash heap

by those breathing-in the dooming bones of the unknown,

just another layer in the anthropocene of a first responder.

How I've missed her warm glow, as I've faded here in the luxury of being

an outsider at times of tragedy

who will be heard from. Who will go? Who will come back and begin again?

I miss the quieting of her commotion as I fade to the tree frogs' haunted dollops

that pulsate through the suburban insect static.

The fire, uncitied, still lies to the happily red and ravished

through the fingerstuffed ears of those who give invitation 

to warm their frostbitten hearts, leaving only hospital waste and a little more

space—    

Another striped shroud is stripped and bleached and put back into circulation.

What is it you fear when you lie still and as lonely as a smoldering city 

silencing what (boozesexmoneylovefamily)

you've drawn up around yourself to muffle

the voice at the base of your skull that whispers the one thing

you never wanted to know, at every moment of your drawn up life.

Who else is there to pay what you owe?

- © Edward Raso 2021

Edward Raso's poetry has been published in The Mystic Blue Review and is forthcoming in RAW Journal of Arts. His fiction has been published in Causeway Lit as the winner of the 2016 award, eFiction Magazine, and Soft Cartel, among others. In music, he has written, performed on, mixed, produced and recorded over 15 platinum and gold albums. He lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with his family.

New Poetry by Jean Bohuslav

protection

1          lips sneering

curling back on themselves

mean and ludicrous his steely smile

eeking soft bird sounds

cajoling a mother’s senses

     to her death

through the cat door

early morn

perfectly placed amongst christmas presents

beneath the spruce

not a feather disturbed

nor drop of blood

2          feeding five greedy mouths

every day

nested on a shed beam

just inside the door  

it wouldn’t be long before they’d

circle with the flock

over sheep paddocks

    to join the morning cooing

he was seen before    

     in hindsight

checking on their growth

and when just right

took them all

at morning light

that bloody hawk

 

3          a golden labrador in the top paddock

biting every sheep possible

    while the rifle was retrieved

they fled to the bottom flat

the shot rang through the valley

local farmers rang for news

they knew we’d been losing ewes

the young lad had been walking his lab

fronted

picked up his dog

tears rolling down his face

not realising he was standing on two legs

of our pet sheep raised by hand

and in lamb

she used to disappear and then turn up again

he said

- © Jean Bohuslav 2021

Jean Bohuslav lives  on the Surf Coast of Victoria, Australia.  She is interested in mindfulness and philosophy which some times influences her poems.  Her work can be found in Kissing Dynamite, Mad Swirl, Poetry On The Move, Tango Australis as well as Bluepepper.

New Poetry by Lewis Braham

Elegy for Walter Benjamin
 
For forty years we bore the words on our backs.
Carved into calfskin and carried them
step
            by
                    blistering
                                        step
through the desert.
Yet you lasted forty hours in the Pyrenees with a broken heart.
Timing everything—ten minutes walking, one rest—on your pocket watch.
Spent on an escarpment like an immolant to your briefcase.
“The manuscript is more important than I am.”
Lost.
Nothing but the planet will be anymore
because now we copy and paste.
Click Send.
If only we could you then or
Backspacebackspacebackspace over the whole debacle
Arendt: “One day earlier Benjamin would have got through without any trouble. Only on that particular day was the catastrophe possible.”
How absurd.
Benjamin, benoni, son of my pain.
The last zion out of Yakov and Rachel—or tried try to—too late.
Binyamin, spirit man, twenty-first century spook,
ectoplasmic love machine, alive in the multiplication of your texts.
These pulpy pilpul, digital doppelgangers reduced?
to zeroes and ones.

- © Lewis Braham 2021

Lewis Braham is a graduate of Brooklyn College's MFA program in creative writing. His work has appeared in the Ekphrastic Review, Tuck Magazine, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Reuters and Bloomberg.

New Poetry by Lisa Bledsoe

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 outrageous gift,

where Mystery sings her invitation:

Walk here with me, unhurried.

Wear boots you don’t mind getting soaked or foul

and carry a stout branch for balance in the mire.

Here your private hopes and furies are unjudged.

You are known, a confusion of roots, stinging vines, 

spoilage and color: orange and olive, deep stone

and umberleaf—all with the sweet breath of sky

above. Will you name your ruin and collapse

haunts of potential? What would it call for

but your own inpouring of immoderate love?

- © Lisa Bledsoe 2021

Watched by crows and friend to salamanders, Lisa Creech Bledsoe is a hiker, beekeeper, and writer living in the mountains of Western North Carolina. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of two full-length books of poetry, Appalachian Ground (2019), and Wolf Laundry (2020). She has new poems out or forthcoming in The Blue Mountain Review, American Writers Review, Sky Island Journal, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Red Fez, and River Heron Review, among others.

New Poetry by Marilyn Humbert

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

stranded like a drip of dew in morning heat

a dust mote in pale-beam’s flicker

before stars turn on their blinking lights

a place darkness grinds me down

- Marilyn Humbert 2021

Marilyn Humbert is a Sydney poet.

New Poetry by Charlie Brice

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 commemoration of the dead

person’s life. Who died on my birthday,

June 7, 1950? I’m gonna crank up the

Google machine right now and check that out.

The only famous person I can find who died

on my birthday is Charles S. Howard, the millionaire

owner of the famous racehorse, Seabiscuit.

Oh for god’s sake! How humiliating.

Who has heard of Charles S. Howard?

He’s not famous, his horse is. Couldn’t have

some internationally known novelist or poet

have died on my birthday? A Nobel Laureate,

or even a famous acrobat or lion tamer, or possibly

an all-around world champion bronco rider?

What about a guy who, single handedly, pulled

twenty fellow marines out of quicksand in Korea

after one of his hands had been blown off

by a grenade so that he had, quite literally,

saved them single handedly? But no, the guy

with whom I celebrate every birthday never

did anything but own a horse.

Who the hell was Charles S. Howard anyway? I bet

he’d never ridden a horse. I bet he spent his time

drinking mint julips, smoking stinky cigars, and

reading the newspaper at his exclusive men’s club

while he sat in a red leather chair that made fart

noises every time he changed position.

Then again, who am I to whine that no one famous

died on my birthday? What will the person born

on my death day think about me?

Oh great, on the day I was born some obscure,

unknown, minor poet, not even a footnote

on Duotrope, some verbigerator obsessed with

nuns and death who, as an atheist, claimed

he had no soul and whose soul, therefore,

had nowhere to go, died on the day I was born.

Not only didn’t he own a famous racehorse,

he didn’t even possess a famous moose,

or turtle, or anteater.

 

I want to apologize now, before my demise,

to the poor bloke or lass who draws my death                                              

to commemorate on his or her birthday.

I’m sorry. Make a wish. Blow out the candles.

Live a good and decent life. 

- © Charlie Brice 2021

Charlie Brice is the winner of the 2020 Field Guide Magazine Poetry Contest and is the author of Flashcuts Out of Chaos (2016), Mnemosyne’s Hand (2018), An Accident of Blood (2019), and The Broad Grin of Eternity (forthcoming), all from WordTech Editions. His poetry has been nominated for the Best of Net Anthology and three times for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Atlanta Review, Chiron Review, Pangolin Review, The Sunlight Press, Sparks of Calliope, and elsewhere.

 

 

New Poetry by Stu Hatton

friday night sutra

 

Once the first-drink glow

subsides, you feel a slight pain

in your career.

                           If you seek not ‘small-talk’

but its opposite (whatever that may be),

where, & with whom, might you begin?

Do you find speaking becomes somewhat

possible?

                 And then to seek what: closure?

opening? or the petalled eye

of oblivion?

                     Are you yet another who sings

a love of borders, who’d suffer

any old flustered tale?

                                         Or if pressed

to name names, will you point the finger

at all the other pointing fingers, each aimed

at a different mugshot of the moon?

                                                                   As you stumble again

on the dim set of Night of the Introvert,

beware the low-hanging wisdom:

‘it is only a thought

that will trouble’.

- © Stu Hatton 2021

Stu Hatton lives and writes on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung country in Campbells Creek, Victoria. Recently his work has appeared in Burrow, Otoliths and Verity La. He is currently preparing his third poetry collection, entitled In the Not-too-distant Present.

Bluepepper returns 6th January 2021

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

Submissions closed until further notice

From December 1st 2020, Bluepepper will no longer be accepting submissions until further notice. We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a safe and happy Christmas and hopefully see you back in the New Year.

New Poetry by Carson Pytell

Seeing

Crepuscular, prodding the boulevard; beeps and bumping,

the billowings of craft burps and vapor, a cigarette handy

and a thin old flask but a day long. I think it's not so bad.

They still do talk, from under and above twilit canopies

I hear cackling, coughs, expatiation of poor paraphrases

as if it's something new to do and find it uneasy to frown.

I can almost smell the sugary throats of them now, 

touting everything under the sun then everything beyond it;

all the stars, maybe water, themselves when they say it aloud.

I feel them there as wind knows other winds

which hit and halt then stir about storms, then pause

and settle into the quiet steam off coffee cups.

And it's that time, out for constitutional cacophony.

Most everyone needs coffee now, even if what's more

appealing is more homebrewed talk, less inhaling thought.

Which is bothersome. I find in these polyphonies seeming

to be the only one listening enough to be just in saying

no one seems to be listening enough to say anything justly.

People need that coffee, need to wake up a little,

if only long enough to get on home and into bed 

long enough to wake up thinking not but what they said.

So somewhere I sit, perhaps a bench, furtively gulp 

and light my cigarette because it's gone out of style

and - knowing no other style - wait, wait for the steam talk.

Being blind, you forget other people still can see you

and your tears. Myself, people, ideas, we come and go.

I think it's not so bad, but that's all I can do.

- © Carson Pytell 2020

Carson Pytell is a writer living outside Albany, NY whose work has appeared in numerous venues online and in print, including Artifact Nouveau, The Virginia Normal, NoD Magazine, Rabid Oak and Bluepepper, among others. He serves on the editorial board of the journal Coastal Shelf, and his short collection, First-Year (Alien Buddha Press, 2020) and chapbook, Trail (Guerrilla Genesis Press, 2020) are now available. In December 2020 he is slated to participate in the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project.

New Poetry by Yash Seyedbagheri

Last Drink

The pink and purple jukebox pumps

Kenny Rogers checking in on my condition

behind a booth

last call wafts 

over wooden-paneled counters

into my ripped, soothing seat

into a half-empty glass of Merlot

my fourth or is it my fifth?

a face with steel star eyes 

waits

to lead me to rectangular rooms

with many shadows

- © Yash Seyedbagheri 2020

Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program. His stories, "Soon,"  “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” and "Tales From A Communion Line," were nominated for Pushcarts. Yash’s work  has been published in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.

 

New Poetry by Suzanne Verrall

Local Time

 

having negotiated 

the international departures lounge 

in my sleep 

I woke on the other side of the globe 

 

the currency was familiar 

the exchange rate was horrendous 

 

I patted the pockets of my pyjamas 

in search of a toothbrush 

while an orange cat rubbed 

figure eights between my legs 

 

and touching down 

another jetload of somnambulists

- © Suzanne Verrall 2020

Suzanne Verrall lives in Adelaide, Australia. Her poetry, flash fiction and essays appear in various publications including The Interpreter’s House, Australian Poetry Journal and the Southampton Review. For links to her work go to www.suzanneverrall.com. 

 

New Poetry by Darrell Petska

The Somnambulists

I go walking in other people’s dreams.

Discretely I roam, a ghost among ghosts,

nameless the password, nameless the realm.

Skies churn clouded, fogs trouble thought,

tremors tell of transience and sorrow.

We meet in stairwells, bedrooms, bars.

Eyes speak our stories—they cannot lie.

Our hands touch in gentle affirmation,

their strivings mere shadows on a wall.

Words we whisper congregate in corners:

only there can we know their meanings.

Silence dogs our footsteps. We try,

but cannot outrun, the buffet of its waves.

Have you found a way? we ask each other.

Dare we hope?

The rooms of our eyes hold no answers,

yet we keep to our circuits, unabashed,

some strange chemistry emboldening us

like blooms by a dark moon swayed.

No dimensions constraining, nor weathers,

we pass, pale tinctures of ourselves,

dreams ruffling like pages in books.

Shall we emerge into light?

Through lean existence we drowse,

legends of morning teasing our ears.

- © Darrell Petska 2020

Darrell Petska is a writer from Madison, Wisconsin. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Buddhist Poetry Review, Nixes Mate Review, Right Hand Pointing, Boston Literary Magazine, Verse-Virtual and Loch Raven Review. His published work and upcoming publications can be viewed at conservancies.wordpress.com

New Poetry by Eric Persaud

Blackhole Rage

In an explosion
of dust
settling

I expand
and engulf
the planets
that surround

Pull them in
swallow whole
leaving behind
scattering 
of dust.

- © Eric Persaud 2020

Eric Persaud is an Indo-Guyanese American living in New York City. He is currently working on his doctoral dissertation in Public Health and writing stuff in his free time.

New Poetry by Jean Bohuslav

rabbit shed

 

his weighted heart smacked reality

emotion slashed to standstill

 

heinous ethereal shrouds hung air

softly pitched 

the requiem 

ran bloodied fur and flesh

 

torture 

dragged, stretched, twisted

lifeless bodies

carpeting floor

 

mauled kittens 

legs once nested in fur

dangled chewed breeding boxes

motherless

 

surreality melded aluminium

wood, ether and concrete

 

high wire windows screamed sharp 

cold light 

down across shavings

 

displaced corded drinkers 

stretched sideways

hung rafters 

like eerie webbed stage props

 

numbed disappointment 

rose

this inner gallery cold

still   

siphoned to a lull in space and time

anesthetized 

blunt

 

frenzied elements 

fully drained

 

biting winds outside

waiting

to whip up structure 

some type of normality

 

inside

empty 

ran the rabbits’ gauntlets

blues, gingers, chocolates, whites 

there

but gone

- © Jean Bohuslav 2020

Jean Bohuslav lives on the Surf Coast of Victoria where she belongs to a poetry group.  Her work can be found on Kissing Dynamite, Mad Swirl, Poetry on the Move, Tango Australis as well as Bluepepper

 

 

New Poetry by Kathleen E. Krause

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 orange crisp mornings

 

where matter grows

to a sizzle 

where we eat the other 

like newborns

- © Kathleen E. Krause 2020

Kathleen E. Krause was winner of Phoebe’s Greg Grummer Poetry Contest, chosen by Brenda Hillman. Her work has appeared in Agni, canwehaveourballback?, Danse Macabre, Denver Quarterly, The Four Way Reader #2, LIT, Lungfull!, Pennsylvania English, Provincetown Arts Magazine, Really System, Salonika, S/tick, and Terra Incognita. Her chapbook, Broth, was published by Linear Arts. She graduated from the New School with an MFA in 1999, and currently lives in Brooklyn.

New Poetry by Heather Sager

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 white and gray 

clouds, tall as schooners. 

The sky’s blue depth welcomes me.

I touch the leaves of a locust tree. 

The spindly leaf radiates, verdant and green.

I marvel: in winter the tree limb stood gray,

now I shake this leaf that resembles a hand.

A blue-black dragonfly whirs past.

I sneak past the siding of some houses

to find 

a green dragonfly 

clinging to a garden hose,

incognito.

My house stands in the distance— 

I cling like the darner to a shadow

to admire the shape of hearth and home

from a safe distance.

- © Heather Sager 2020

Heather Sager lives in Illinois. Her recent poetry appears in Amethyst Review, Visitant, Door Is A Jar, dreams walking, Harbinger Asylum, The Wild Word, Backchannels, Sandpiper, Writing in a Woman's Voice, Ariel Chart, and elsewhere. Heather also writes fiction, most recently for The Fabulist Words & Art and Slippage Lit.

New Poetry by Paul Tanner

the last bus

the lamppost hums.

holy shit,

there’s a ten-pound note sitting in the kerb –

I bend down, snatch it up, shake the rain off it:

it’s a bad job.

cheap paper. 

the queen wonky.

the colours faded.

I turn it over

and the other side’s blank.

can’t believe I was suckered:

it’s the bad street lighting.

this treacle lamppost glow,

it makes the forgery look glossy, 

a bloodier orange 

compared to the dark of the street

and I look around the dark of the street,

scared I’m being laughed at 

by boys in the bushes. 

what can I do? 

I drop it back in the kerb

cross the road 

and hide in the bushes with the boys, 

waiting for the next sucker. 

fucking bus never showed anyway. 

- © Paul Tanner 2020

Paul Tanner is a UK poet who no longer works essential retail and is still finding it difficult to believe a Tory government is paying him to stay home and write.

New Poetry by Earl Livings

Over

And there you have it,

each metaphor for life—

game, battle, meditation,

path of heart, soul making—

unravelling at the first sign

of your death bed.

Each one had merit,

as a bright jewel looked at

from each angle

hints at that deeper beauty

only a simultaneous view

might reveal. Yet each word

you use to describe those views,

and the darkness beneath them,

are never enough, and you shiver.

And so there you have it,

this enigma of being full

of life and not knowing it,

not knowing if you ever

fully displayed your jewel.

And maybe that is the true gift—

accepting the doubt

and hoping that before life

calls you to account,

a laugh, a scent, a touch

will summon you

to remember, to smile,

to give thanks for mystery,

this darkness blinking at you.

- © Earl Livings 2020

Earl Livings has published poetry and fiction in Australia and also Britain, Canada, the USA, and Germany. His work mainly focuses on nature, mythology and the sacred. His second poetry collection, Libation (Ginninderra Press) was published in 2018 and he is currently working on a dark ages novel and his next collection of poetry.

New Poetry by Paula Reed Nancarrow

Q.E.D.

- for Lilabet

I cannot prove the triangles congruent

though they sit neatly inside the circle

their sides a radiant X: Isosceles twins.

A bow tie. A butterfly. 

You sit at our dining room table

plotting it out for me: 

This is given.             That is self-evident. 

Your chestnut hair tumbles over your face

hiding your acne. Tiny holes remain

in the table’s surface from my old

Spirograph. In the quiet privacy 

of your mind, you see the logic of shapes. 

My noisy brain makes twins rubbing

noses.  A bow tie.  A butterfly. 

It is all simple deduction

except for what we begin with: 

A point has no space.  

A line has no breadth.

A plane has two dimensions 

and goes on forever.

Angles are inclinations. 

Chords incline toward what is 

demonstrated. Ergo I am given

you. Over and over, 

like Anne Sullivan at the pump,

you spell postulates into my hand 

until suddenly - fresh and clear and cold –

Elegance overwhelms me.

- © Paula Reed Nancarrow 2020

Paula Reed Nancarrow is a poet and storyteller living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Paula has told stories at the Minnesota Fringe Festival and the Moth Grand Slam at the Fitzgerald Theater, and has read her poetry at Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts and the Loft Literary Center. She has a doctorate in Victorian religious literature from the University of Minnesota but has always managed to find work anyway. 

 

New Poetry by Patricia Davis-Muffett

Immortal

Last night, the dinner conversation turned

to all the ways you might have died so far:

chased by a baboon in Africa,

nearly falling off a cliff-face pursuing wild horses in Wyoming,

and the ways we cheated death together

on our honeymoon, the bear coming to us in darkness,

sniffing around our carelessness camp. 

At 23, we were so certain in our immortality.

The children were surprised

that I had almost died as well

before they were ideas

when they were just our cells--

the mountain stream that almost took me

down the Rockies, down 14,000 feet,

the wind that overtook us on that mountainside 

in Patagonia, when you kept me bound to earth.

What is not said:

the six months while the middle child grew,

trying to become a human person,

while you convulsed and shrieked,

as I waited in the ER lobby,

those long, bright nights,

when the head of neurology told us

you would either die or get better,

after long tormented testing.

Somehow, the sudden drama

of the cliff face,

the crocodile

the baboon

the wild horses

seems more fitting but also

less terrifying--

a death brought on 

by your lack of caution,

your wild love of wild life.

We all hope this is how you’ll go

suddenly, with drama

consumed in a moment

not nibbled into crumbs.

- © Patricia Davis-Muffett 2020

Patricia Davis-Muffett holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota and her work has appeared in several journals including Coal City Review, Rat’s Ass Review and One Art Poetry Journal, on public radio, in the di-verse-city anthology of the Austin International Poetry Festival, and is forthcoming in The Orchards Poetry Journal, and Amethyst Review. She lives in Rockville, Maryland, United States, with her husband, three children, one good dog, one bad puppy and a demon of a cat. She makes her living in technology marketing.

New Poetry by Holly Day

Out in the Garden

The morning glory vines are trying to 

hold me in place, I can feel them tremble

beneath my feet, tiny fingers twisting in 

endless curlicues,  bursting into purple 

flower from the exertion of trapping me. 

I pull my foot away, take another step, 

can feel the ground sigh behind me as 

the morning glories stretch futile and 

then retreat. 

The lilies are trying to stab me to 

death, I can feel their tiny points

poke up through the soil and 

stop at the bottom of my feet. If I 

just stayed here, stayed still, 

the tiny red points would push all 

the way through my flesh, my bone, 

crown bright green and brilliant 

through the tops of my feet and burst 

into bloom. I lift my foot carefully, 

step over the vengeful clumps 

of hybrids and orientals 

just in time. 

- © Holly Day 2020

Holly Day (hollylday.blogspot.com) has been a writing instructor at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and Harvard Review, and her newest poetry collections are Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing), The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body (Anaphora Literary Press), and Book of Beasts (Weasel Press). 

 

New Poetry by Carson Pytell

Feeling

Exact digestive processes after dinner I do not know

nor care to so long as it went down well and satiates.

The conditions under which the tobacco plant grows best

does not cross my mind heading to the window afterwards.

Why purple is the color of the sky at dusk baffles me

only when I'm not looking at the soft evening clouds.

The distance of the sun, moon; trifling matters compared

to photosynthesis, tides, sun tans and nights moonbright.

And death? But a distant abstraction while I smoke

and consider myself smoking, and other felt things.

One can remain alive not knowing the functions of the heart

but cannot go on living ignorant of how their heart works.

- © Carson Pytell 2020

Carson Pytell is a poet living outside Albany, NY whose work has appeared in numerous venues online and in print, including Artifact Nouveau, Cruel Garters, Rabid Oak and Crack the Spine, among others. His short collection, First-Year (Alien Buddha Press, 2020) and first chapbook, Trail (Guerrilla Genesis Press, 2020) are now available.

New Poetry by John Tustin

Sunshine in the Glass

 

Pure sunbeams in the bottle,

Sunshine in the glass.

Cold lovely sunshine,

I pour it into me as I read Neruda

And listen to Johnny Cash

With a storm just left

And another one coming.

The water has never come into the house

Except once and it wasn’t much.

 

Sundown in the bottle,

Sundown in the glass.

I put the sundown into me

As I read Charles Bukowski

And listen to Ray Wylie Hubbard.

The devils are squatting in the corners of the room,

Wings unfolding,

Waiting for me to fall asleep.

The angels are leaving,

Wings folding,

As I finish the last glass,

Close the book,

Turn off the music.

 

There’s no sunshine left.

The bottles in the garbage,

The glass in the sink,

The clock always moving.

I walk toward the bed.

The devils wait with slobbering mouths

And gleams in their eyes, on their claws,

Their horns and their tails.

The devils wait for my sleep.

The angels wait for the opening of the next bottle,

The pouring into the next glass.

- © John Tustin 2020

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals in the last dozen years. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

 

New Prose Poetry by Howie Good

Disaster Mode

The lake has an island that has a church on it with fine black cracks etched all over. It’s the place where the disaster originated. Everything else has been declared safe for visitors. The sky is a shade of orange I never experienced before. A smell like the rancid diapers of the spawn of Satan crawls through trees. A tame fox sits posing in front of a sign that says NO JEWS AND ANIMALS ALLOWED. Joggers, dog walkers, and young parents with strollers slow down as they go past. I catch the expression on their faces, mostly a combination of surprise and puzzlement. Sometimes they smile.

- © Howie Good 2020

Howie Good is the author of two new poetry collections, The Death Row Shuffle (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and The Trouble with Being Born (Ethel Micro-Press, 2020).  

New Poetry by Kate Clarke

The Dark End of The Street

(for Alyce Guynn)

Your sister, Alyce, reminded me 

what, in my grief, I had forgotten.

And later on, I came to see 

myself, in some film of you, 

New Jersey, a radio interview.

You were heading for Hoboken, 

chasing down Frank’s shadow.

It was shot a month before we met 

The month you called ‘Magnetic May’.

There you were, chattering away 

in the studio, being the performer, 

talking of Nashville, Cowboy Jack Clement: 

“his battered boots were alligator.”

And there it was. There he was. 

Bruised boy, flimsy as gauze, 

voice subdued, heart a lead weight.

What was it you used to say?

“I was singing on the sad side of the note.”

We were at the dark end of the street,

for sure, right at the start. 

It didn’t take long for you to stand taller

Didn’t Alyce say: “I found my jazz”?

The man in black, discovered colour. 

I did that. You did that too. 

Look at what two fools can do 

- © Kate Clarke 2020

Kate is a journalist by trade who also works as a copywriter and a PR account manager. As a lyricist she worked with her husband, the writer and performer Terry Clarke. Terry recorded and performed throughout the UK, Europe and the US throughout his career. He passed away in April 2020. Kate lives in West Wales with their two sighthounds, Sunny and Vera. 

https://www.kteltowers.com/blog

New Poetry by Marianne Brems

One Fresh Start

I spill wine that darkens my carpet,

I know this scar,

like jaws around my throat 

will remind me daily of my carelessness.

I attack the stain with sparkling water

and vigorous rubbing.

To my surprise, all traces vanish, 

handing me one fresh start 

in a broken world. 

I return for a moment to a time 

before I learned my mother 

couldn’t fix the pain 

of skinned knees, 

before I knew that pieces 

fall into place only after many 

have not, 

before I found skin color

more of a constant

than the growth of tree rings,

before I saw a world 

where hate doesn’t disappear, 

it just hides under rocks 

until someone comes along 

and kicks them away.

- © Marianne Brems 2020

Marianne Brems is a writer of textbooks and poetry. Finishing Line Press will release her chapbook Sliver of Change in 2020. Her poems have appeared in literary journals including The Pangolin Review, La Scrittrice, The Sunlight Press, and The Tiny Seed Literary Journal. She lives in Northern California. Website: www.mariannebrems.com

New Poetry by Zebulon Huset

 

Like Candy Cane Spirals

 

Only not at all. I'm sorry.

That was just a familiar image 

of two unlike things

combining congruously, 

and I'm sure

I stole the image

inadvertently

with some miracle of 

cryptomnesia

when I looked over

and saw the curl of hair 

fit so perfectly 

around your ear,

every twitch of head

tickling lobe, 

and I have no tangible reason

to connect that image 

of your hair 

wrapped 

around your ear

and us lying in bed,

spooned effortlessly

with my scarred, 

beaten knees slipped

into the soft cavities

that reside behind yours,

except to consider

the curve of white and red

in the hook of a candy cane.

- © Zebulon Huset 2020

Zebulon Huset is a teacher, writer and photographer living in San Diego. His writing has recently appeared in Bluepepper, Meridian, The Southern Review, Fence, Rosebud, Atlanta Review & Texas Review among others. He publishes the writing blog Notebooking Daily, edits the journal Coastal Shelf, and recommends literary journals at TheSubmissionWizard.com.

New Poetry by James Walton

 

These things of hope, Spring reprise
 
a lizard so small on the broken vase
drinks and looks back motion less
the unflappable virtue of a nodding iris
all Van Gogh wheezy at the angle
the horse paddock bounteous with feed
an abandoned rusty bike maintaining a post
cherry blossom graffiti over the porch
how the noise of children swimming amplifies
the clamorous life of air
a neighbour’s dog being spotted
walks by to the fence next door
our postman yelling penitent
how much he loves the new letter box
a swelling memory of the great west sea
as Tasmanian Devils stole the cooking chops
waking to rain just loud enough to hear
corrugated radio stations broadcast in between
budding shoots out of the midnight kernel
of trees willing life to be
you unfurling in the morning
complaining of my bony shoulder
a stranger’s handshake above fallen wire
the unravel of borders in an embrace

- © James Walton 2020

James Walton is published in many anthologies, journals, and newspapers. He is the author of four collections of poetry. He lives in Gippsland. He can be found at jameswalton.poetry.blog

 

New Poetry by Fred Pollack

The Art of the Probable

As deserts spread, and the need

for any walk depends

on how much water you’ll need

to make it, the trope of Sun

as, what was it? truth, sensuality,

moderation, something Greek,

will cease to appeal. Already

Siberian shamans no longer mention

ice. Fire won’t symbolize

anything ever again in

Australia. And you know what the oceans

are up to. When the current

plague ends and crowds return

to theaters, the Sylvia Plath Story

with a sexier title will fill the screens 

but no one will imitate her. Rather,

a New Impersonality

will rule the workshops –

so dry and intimidating

all poets will believe in it.

- © Fred Pollack 2020

Author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS, both Story Line Press; the former to be reissued by Red Hen Press. Two collections of shorter poems, A POVERTY OF WORDS, (Prolific Press, 2015) and LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018). Pollack has appeared in Salmagundi, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Fish Anthology (Ireland), Magma (UK), Bateau, Fulcrum, Chiron Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, etc.  Online, poems have appeared in Big Bridge, Hamilton Stone Review, BlazeVox, The New Hampshire  Review, Mudlark, Rat’s Ass Review,  Faircloth Review, Triggerfish, etc