Submissions now open for 2022

 Welcome back to Bluepepper and a new and hopefully much more peaceful and productive year. Submissions to Bluepepper are once again open. Please consult the guidelines in the sidebar before submitting.

New Poetry by Robin Dale

The Journey Towards The Seen

bells sound

as if recovering

from vomiting

the back paddock

is moving

further away

across the iron fields

floats the ghost

of the pastor

some of the cows

are missing

this APC with 6 wheels

in camouflage

driven by a child

of 17

there is a large

black bull

in the herd now

bells sound again

a feeble reed

the pastor-ghost undresses

and edges on

unseen

the army squeezes

the blood out of

the trees

and their

unseen

- © Robin Dale 2021

Robin Dale is a UK born writer living in Ferntree Gully, a suburb of Melbourne. He emigrated to Australia in 1970 with his family at the age of eight years. He is fifty-nine now. In his late twenties, Robin Dale contracted schizophrenia which for many years was extremely debilitating. However in the past five years or so he has made a remarkable recovery and is now able to concentrate more fully on writing. He writes mainly poetry, generally on the eternal themes of love, death, transience, nature, and spirituality. Many of his poems are quite psychological in inspiration and content. He remains virtually unpublished.

New Poetry by Michael Ricketti

West      

Her storms came last night howling out of the west.  less the clutter I remember the shaking of the walls.  more a concentrated weight a strength.  two hands extend two arms with diligence push.  the house from its foundation clean.

- © Michael Ricketti 2021

Michael Ricketti was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Lenapehoking.  He lives in Nicosia, Cyprus where he works at Kuruçeşme Projekt a community education and art initiative.

New Poetry by Barbara De Franceschi

Is There a Theme to Life?

Perhaps a polka dot scenario,

like spots behind closed lids

where breath is held

waiting for a sensual touch

that takes too long to hatch.

Maybe life is a banana,

smooth curves, 

spongy flesh,

akin to hips

fatigued from bearing genes.

Or a boat afloat on stormy blue,

one-sided love smashed on rocks,

passion churned on congealed froth

like cold cappuccino

sour and clotted.

Is life just divided light?

Fragments of transparency,

vague prisms,

dust and space.

And what of a tree?

Anxiety scraped into kernels,

branches stacked with homely nests

the nearest we get to domestic bliss.

Life could be a pumpkin patch:

running amok,

overladen,

except for Halloween.

Thoughts turn to purple grapes

in the midst of fermentation,

tannin mistakes aging in oak.

Shall we settle on chi?

The inner self half empty

with the hiss of past lovers,

half full of bubbly promises.

Does that mean life is a fizz?

- © Barbara De Franceschi 2021

Barbara De Franceschi refers to herself as an arid zone poet from Broken Hill. Besides three collections of poetry, her work has been published widely in Australia, in other countries, on-line and featured on national and regional radio.

 

 

New Poetry by Les Wicks

Tumbletown

There’s a shadow on the lung

of the village where I live.

Cass tries hard

for a while

then out comes the knife again.

David has done wrong things

he mistakes stagnant for stasis.

He can be viral, we are vigilant.

Ginelle, new mother

has a degree & a need…

needs to feel she still exists.

The biker next door has an appetite.

Her hubby comes home each night exhausted.

Constable Perkins tries hard

but there’s only so much…

Valerie runs a gallery

& cooks for ailing neighbours.

The kids can play soccer every Saturday,

odd Farley has written a book.

We have nurses, holy folk

& a plumber with some great jokes.

You can’t say there isn’t help.

Dodder Pete could tell you some stories.

His war is tamped down

to jokes & a twitch when he tries to sleep.

The owner of the village doesn’t live here.

We heard some stories about him on the news

but have forgotten.

What is the point of knowledge without power?

That febrile teenager Tina

has no ambition other than leaving.

She will not succeed

because though we only see a few streets

(to be honest barely that)

this village is endless.

 

It burns & excretes plus

there’s that nasty cough.

- © Les Wicks 2021

Les Wicks is a Sydney poet. His latest collection, "Belief", was recently released by Flying Islands Press.

Click here to secure yourself a copy

 

 

New Poetry by James Walton

A Levee to Absence

the cards are brief this year

in shallow condolence

a levee to absence, broken

the scattered sorrow

left for salvage

how they talk of passing

yet visit as though gentle as

the first faint call

the quiet summons to duty,

steadfast the whether of breaks

the happiest dispersed

days drag through cement

mercury for the veins of us

caught in winter, November

veers without season

too cold for painting

this colour we were

a dash to break a sentence

run for cover, highlight

crimson for specifics

an outline to bridge

this stalling year’s account

supernumerary to how and why

between twig and wake

this inconvenient bird

a rustle of dark, nests

then stirs unbeckoned

daubed as it must be

wily and propped against

a door of feathers for words

open notebook of hours

I sit the post waiting

sandbagging against breach

- © James Walton 2021

James Walton is published in many anthologies, journals, and newspapers. He has been shortlisted for the ACU National Poetry Prize, the MPU International Poetry Prize, The James Tate Prize, and the Ada Cambridge Prize. Four collections of his poetry have been published. He was nominated for ‘The Best of the Net’ 2019, and is a Pushcart Prize 2021 nominee. He is a winner of the Raw Art Review Chapbook Prize. He was a librarian, a cattle breeder, and mostly a public sector union official. He can be found at: jameswalton.poetry.blog

 

 

 

New Poetry by Jalal Mahamede

Set Me Free

Everyone's voices are taken.

Everyone's breath smells.

It seems that sounds are heard from the depths of a deep well.

All eyes are on the black galaxy.

It seems that heads are separated from their bodies

and have been thrown away –

they have rolled in the dust and mud.

‏The hands have been severed and tied in a chain of injustice,

and each foot has chosen a different path to walk.

‏The body is numb and doesn't solve anything.

All screams hit the wall; they hit our mouths like a fist.

This is not fantasy, this is reality.

‏

But the day you came, you made a salve with your hands for this tired heart.

You polished my voice with your voice,

you caressed my hands.

‏You gave breath to this nearly dead body

and invited me to gaze from the darkness of the galaxy

to the bright and warm lantern of your heart.

I know that all of me is imprisoned

and the way to reach you is through the wall of hatred

those who live in your neighbourhood have erected.

I know that you will save me, as well.

- © Jalal Mahamede 2021

Jalal Mahamede is poet and artist and nine years detained Arab Ahwazi refugee working from his prison cell in Australia. He has  never been tried or charged, but remains detained for arriving in Australia by boat and seeking protection. He draws from his personal experience to express his moods, feelings and visions through art and language, influenced by his late father Kazem Mahamede, a renowned traveling poet and photographer. He hasn't lost hope that one day he will be released.

More info see: https://www.jalalmahamede.com/

New Poetry by Heather Ellyard

Brutal is the Garden

Brutal is

the garden.

Roses die

bewildered.

Mirrors break

where they stand.

Their shards

scatter

like knives.

Grief is

a sharpened

war cry

let loose

in the valley

of echoes.

A violent crop.

The map

of hope is

overlaid with

a thousand

nameless

wounds.

Brutal is

the payback.

Brutal are

the hybrid songs.

Over and over

the fruits rot.

And their seeds

tremble

in Paradise lost.

- © Heather Ellyard 2021

Heather Ellyard (HSE) is an artist/poet, born and educated in Boston USA who migrated to Australia, and became a citizen in 1985. She has held 30 solo exhibitions, nationally, and is collected publically in the NGA, the AGSA, the Federal Parliament House, the Jewish Museum of Australia etc. She has published essays in national Art Magazines and Art Books, and in Constellations Journal of  Poetry USA. She was a Finalist in the Blake Prize for Art 3 times, and in the Blake Poetry Prize in 2020. She currently lives among the granites in Central Victoria.

New Poetry by David Adès

Rising, Finally, From the Reverie 

Rising, finally, from the reverie 

of his life, the man looked around, 

seeing clearly for the first time 

the long trail of damaged hearts, 

the litany of disappointments, 

taking in the bruised landscape, 

the fallen trees, the ravaged sky, 

and there rose within him, 

from an untouched depth, 

a bellow, an anguished cry 

he let loose into the world 

as if it could unmake 

what had been made, 

as if it could sanctify, 

redeem, cleanse, though it 

did nothing but meet 

a woman’s howl, another man’s 

shout, and another and another, 

until the whole world clamoured 

and kept clamouring, 

so many bellows and howls 

for the universe to hear, 

all the suffering we suffer 

and don’t know how to bear.

- © 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 James B. Nicola

The Shortest Distance

The shortest distance between two people

is prayer. You might have thought it should be love?

Think: horse-drawn carriages making a trip

have broken down, nags crumbled, fallen, died,

for trysts. But send prayer overseas

without even a postage stamp affixed:

you know that it arrives there instantly.

The technique works best when the expectation’s

humble, but the sentiment sincere.

- © James B. Nicola 2021

James B. Nicola’s poetry has garnered two Willow Review awards, a Dana Literary award, eight Pushcart nominations, and one Best of the Net nom. His full-length collections include Manhattan Plaza, Stage to Page: Poems from the Theater, Wind in the Cave (2017), Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists (2018), Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond (2019), and Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense (2021). A Yale grad, he also has enjoyed a career as a stage director, culminating in the nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Guide to Live Performance, which won a Choice award.

New Poetry by Linda King

you want to borrow hope from the saints

these days the world rests on fault lines

every city brought to its knees

every road    a suspension bridge

over raging rivers

the wreckage keeps piling up

rubble and dust and no breath to take

you want to borrow hope from the saints

from their careful collection of blessings

want to quiet

the crackle and static of your heart

to stop riding the darkness

at three in the morning

you want tomorrow's rain

to stop falling

- © Linda King 2021

Linda King is the author of five poetry collections including Reality Wayfarers ( Shoe Music Press, 2016) and antibodies in the alphabet ( BlazeVOX Books, 2019)  Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals ( including Bluepepper) in Canada and internationally.  King lives and writes on The Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada.

New Poetry by Tony Hughes

Till the Wind calls the Sea

(The Twelve Stations of the Grief) 

The first four months 

To know love

is to not have love.

  

I can’t feel anything:

hunger for food

thirst for drink

tired for sleeping

one foot step to the next

one after the other 

how do you live 

without your lover’s 

breath on your skin?

You live waiting for the veil to lift 

for the wave to stop crashing 

for the window to stop opening 

for this mad mantra 

these tumbling 

thoughts one 

after each other 

to last 

longer 

The second four months 

I don’t hear 

your name anymore 

I call it out

CASSANDRA 

three times I call 

I can hear it again  

it sounds so good 

I run to it 

I try to hold it 

to  touch it 

to smell it

to taste it

to eat it 

to sleep

with it 

What else 

am I meant to do 

with this 

elegiac 

silence 

I call your name

again and again

Into the

fucking 

elegiac air                                                 

time wins 

time always

wins 

it cant find 

land anywhere 

the air is too solid 

CASSANDRA 

has been

atomised

more months pass 

Ghosts are thoughts 

thoughts are ghosts 

dreams are real 

you visit four times

 

I say its ok 

my succubus 

you can stay 

you say no 

you whisper 

I have to go 

the wind calls 

the sea 

You point to the light 

from across the river 

the light that lasts longer 

than the oldest tree  

that’s where

I’ll be waiting

for you 

where the wind 

calls the sea 

This twelfth month

Everyone loves Yoko now

just another cycling thought

 

I peddle into Sydney park 

carving layers from the 

peppery skin of my grief

Under a big blue blanket sky

in the pretty city

I scratch this self awake 

it is time to live again 

Peddling my thoughts 

into Sydney park

that’s a big hill 

up to the skate bowl

I wish my wish

could be here

where the dogs

run free

chasing poems

with me 

Till the wind 

calls the sea

- © Tony Hughes 2021

Tony Hughes is an Australian actor and singer. As an actor, he starred in The Lost Islands (1976), Chopper Squad (1977–1979) and the film adaptation of Puberty Blues (1981). As a singer he has fronted Bellydance and King Tide. (Courtesy of Wikipedia). Cassanadra Woodburne, the CASSANDRA of this poem, was Toný's life partner and best friend and mother to their two wonderful children, Georgia and Eddy. She passed away on 22nd November 2020 after a long and courageous struggle with cancer. The photo was taken at Era Beach where Cassandra's parents own a shack.

New Poetry by Erina Booker

Sketch

I’m going to draw this poem for you

so you can see what I can see:

in this small stratosphere so much

is silhouetted starkly against a plain backdrop

I’m taking a large square sheet of white drawing paper

and at the top I’m drawing a butterfly with flapping wings,

strange to see one so high, tissue wings

fighting to stay in shape against the wind

from the right is a knife-edged swoop of swallow

with forked tail in iconic shape

I’ll colour its wings Prussian Blue

and add a glaze of glimmer

a ladle of Terracotta on its upper breast

in the background, upper left,

I’ll draw a suggestion of the cluster

of gulls and ibises

hanging handkerchief-hemmed

errant stragglers, drifting, chilling

and then the showpiece, new to me,

the friendly currawong on a glass pane

of the balcony

Ivory Black with flashes of Chinese White

on tail and edges of wings

eye of Deep Cadmium

soft Silver Grey beak with predatory hook

I could use a 2B pencil for this, dark and fine

better than the soft and smudgy 4B’s

de rigueur for writing music

So! I’m ready to go

when he drops kamikaze

against the background void

simply falls, free-falls

into the blank air

legs straight

wings clasped to sides

as he was before,

dropping so fast I don’t see

his wings open

I only see this performer’s

fierce prowess of DNA – falling with flair

into greedy gravity,

confident that he will fling open

his safety-net wings

like black matador’s capes

diverting a trajectory of fated death

How could my cartoon of a stick-figure-black-bird

straight legs hanging like a child’s drawing

convey the glorious potency of skill

the savage clasp on life

against this pallid background

of unremarkable Sky Blue?

 

- © Erina Booker 2021

Erina Booker is a Sydney-based poet. She has published eight collections of her work, and contributes to journals, internationally, in Australia, and online. She enjoys giving recitals, seminars, and judging competitions. Erina has a Major in Literature within her Bachelor of Arts degree, and a Postgraduate degree in Counselling. Her interests are extensive and never-ending.

New Poetry by Kitty Jospe

You Just Never Know

You and I don’t know the man framed in the doorway—

and he doesn’t know he’s in this picture, and the room

doesn’t know my friend and I see it as a ballroom

we name a leap into the museum of emptiness.

We see possibilities, not a waiting room with two lonely

benches, who will not know any viewers. 

Does this room invite you to seek something you don’t yet

know? What do you know about a doorway, a room? a stranger?

I start to wonder what dance of art was here before?

Perhaps it was the exhibit of Aaron Fowler’s larger

than life works? Perhaps it was in this empty gallery,

Aaron played on a piano for hours searching for inspiration —

little knowing he would create a piece out of wooden siding

his friend was removing from his house —

a large-scale sculpture where those boards become

88 keys..

Perhaps the room still echoes with his dreams and ideas

he coaxes— following his Grandma’s mantra, inviting

us to follow it too: you need to speak it into existence.

- © Kitty Jospé 2021

Since 2004, Kitty Jospé turned her work as docent into explorations of ekphrastic poetry, and pursued workshops and an MFA in poetry. (received in 2009 from Pacific University, OR)  Since Feb. 2008, she started  weekly sessions to help people to be more attentive readers and increase appreciation of good poems. Her 6th book, Sum:1 appeared in March 2021,  http://www.foothillspublishing.com/2021/jospe.html

You can view more of Aaron Fowler's work here: Aaron Fowler

 

New Poetry by John Tustin

She now sings the same song to her new lover

“she now sings the same song to her new lover” - Charles Bukowski

She now sings the same song to her new lover

That she sang to me

Even though he was also her lover before me

And back then she sang a different song

In a different key

Without that expression on her face

She has now

As the rain outside their window falls

All around my whispered name.

- © John Tustin 2021

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

New Poetry by B. Lynne Zika

The Problems Incurred in Having a Dead Body on the Couch

It’s a bad sign

when they come

to appraise

the house

and

you’ve only got

ten minutes

to figure

out what

to do

with

Grandpa.

- © B. Lynne Zika 2021

B. Lynne Zika’s work has appeared in numerous on-line and print publications, including The Somerville Times, Sheila-na-Gig, Poetry East, and globalpoemic. She was editor of Blood Pudding, co-editor of Spillway, and worked as a closed-captioning editor for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. She received a Pacificus Foundation Literary Award in short fiction, and her photography has received several awards, including the 2020 Top Creator Award from Viewbug. Images may be viewed at https://artsawry.com/.

New Poetry by Nina Rubinstein Alonso

In Madrid          

Long train ride passing thirsty farmland

slow bullocks in the fields rocky country with

boulders rolled by glaciers curious configurations

near rivers shrinking dry finally reach Madrid

Hotel Mora on Calle del Prado with a balcony

facing the street no way to avoid hearing arguments

getting physical in outside cafes but we prefer

this energy to weary dreary La Coruña 

take a walk through El Retiro park watch water

gushing neatly in irrigation ditches toward trees

otherwise the whole place would blow away

as it’s a desert hot dry sidewalks cracked and parched

hard as cement a small green pond perched center

guarded by 18th century lion statues with boys

climbing their backs some couples rowing a few 

in pedal boats others nearby in a cafe then I realize

black people have been sitting there being ignored by waiters

because they’re black until they give up quietly walk away

unmistakable insult of a woman and two girls treated worse 

than invisible by staff pretending not to see humans  

Plaza Mayor attracts flocks of swallows wheeling flying

criss cross circling and last night two men stood clapping

for their dogs without leashes hell no not here but we

can’t afford fancy restaurants glittery expensive places

with waiters in cummerbunds linen tables set with four forks

find a cheap bar serving sardines fried squid and salad where

people bring babies all hours of the night but I’m mired in

immediacies of stifled effort mixed with exhaustion as I can’t 

fix what’s nasty and ugly yet can’t let it go though it’s time for

my dance workout while Fernando’s smoking on the balcony.

- © Nina Rubinstein Alonso 2021

Nina's work has appeared in Ploughshares, The New Yorker, Ibbetson Street, etc. Her book, "This Body", was published by David Godine Press, and her chapbook Riot Wake is upcoming from Cervena Barva Press. A story collection and novel are in the works as well as a collection of poems from travels in Spain, from which this poem is taken.  Nina is also a ballet teacher, and one of her dearest friends, the artist Heather Ellyard, lives in Victoria.

New Poetry by Margaret Ruckert

final resume

the aim of this poem

is to use up the irresistible

bait of small talk  

to usurp your expectations

taste the lemon of fish

the vinegar of air

in the tides of relationships

I was standing in a bar

near a group, reminiscing

about older workers, ‘codgers’

long retired from the company

people seen from a distance

on nodding terms, names afloat

on the oceans of time …

at some lull in the fishing

for answers on the bare horizon

one would throw a line

cautiously, in the direction of

I wonder where H or B is now?

- © Margaret Ruckert 2021

Margaret Owen Ruckert is a widely published poet. After a career in TAFE Science, she retrained to tutor English. She is short-listed for the 2021 Society of Women Writers National Poetry Competition, having won first prize in 2007. Two books, You Deserve Dessert and musefood, which won an IP Poetry Book, explore café society. Sky on Sea, a book of tanka, was published recently*. As Facilitator of Hurstville’s Discovery Writers, she presents regular writing workshops.

New Poetry by Doug Holder

Signs

(for my late wife Dianne Robitaille)

A fallen autumnal leaf

perfectly lands

in the template of my hand-

I almost crushed it

with my wet sorrow..

A sudden red bloom

on a dying geranium 

a crown

for us brittle leaves 

below.

When I close

my eyes

cameos of her smile

flicker

on my 

very black screen,

like an old silent

movie.

The sudden

wide-eyed-shock

of the cat 

tail erect--

pointing to the ceiling

to some shadow

some trace of a spectral 

being.

The bird

that I could only see

when I laid my head on

her pale, deflated stomach

flickering with

frantic flight...

I felt the warm wind of the lake

gently sweep her away

I saw her

once more

in the mournful

davening

of the trees.

- © Doug Holder 2021

Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press. He teaches creative at Endicott College right outside of Boston. His latest poetry collection is "The Essential Doug Holder." He lost his wife , the poet Dianne Robitaille in August of 2021.

New Poetry by Lynn White

Life After Death

Something has startled me 

where I thought I was safest,

where I thought I belonged,

so I will follow Whitman

in avoiding the still woods I loved

and the fields where I used to walk.

I won’t emerge from my home 

to meet my friends in the open spaces,

or hug them and share a coffee, 

there are no cafes anymore, in any case.

Even the ground has sickened.

The men in white suits spray disinfectant 

over streets and beaches to stem its diseased flow.

But still I’m alive to the sounds of spring

rising from the decay and death of winter.

Still I’m alive to the prospect of summer

when the fertilised ground shows the life

that death has bestowed on it and blooms.

- © Lynn White 2021

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net  and a Rhysling Award.