New Poetry by April Krivensky

Choppy

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

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

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

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


- April Krivensky 2013


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

New Poetry by Kathryn Guelcher

Too Much. I Know.

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

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

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

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

There is almost nothing that can undo this now,

whatever your wishes to the contrary—sorry again. 

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

the beginning of everything getting generally worse for you. 

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

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

tell meandering anecdotes at a displeasing pitch or volume,

defend the person you are angry with, interrupt your story

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

But probably worse. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I can’t fully comprehend your importance to me. 

- Katyhryn Guelcher 2013

New Poetry by Ivan Jenson

Magic Bread

If you think it can 

be learned

then by all means

apprentice yourself

to a local sorcerer

and see if he can

show you how to 

saw your problems 

in half 

or levitate

above your competition

but as a practitioner

of the dark art

of bringing truth

to light by telling

little white lies 

and punctuating 

it with a punch

line to the psychic

groin

I can attest 

to my fakery 

and admit the flat bread

made by my bakery

is dry like rye

and like life

sliced

the first half devoured

the second 

savored and scattered

and what ever is left

is crummy 

and for the birds

that fly out of hats

- Ivan Jenson 2013

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

New Poetry by Julie Maclean

on love and war Gallipoli style

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

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

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

Ataturk calls us brothers,
Your Johnny, Our Mehmet

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

Trenches dug   Daggers punched
love letters in the walls

White crosses
flicked over
like pages
of bad fiction 


- Julie Maclean 2013

New Poetry by James Mirarchi

DOLLS

Designer of  mushy Nickelodeon carrot cake stage

has dandruff-dolls in his hair

They’ve set up oil rigs on his scalp

to drill for creativity

When geyser erupts

they catch designer’s ideas in buckets

Then rappel down ropes of his greasy hair

onto floor where dust-trains

transport them to designer’s colleague

A man whose only accomplishment

is a lawsuit-attracting lemon slide

 

The dandruff-dolls hand over buckets to him

Within them

he singles out striking concept for crunchy Nickelodeon blueberry pie ramp

 

While trying to consummate this idea

he fails numerous times

since the main ingredient that is sorely missing

is Heart

- James Mirarchi 2013

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

New Poetry by Donal Mahoney

Caseworker Determining Eligibility

Cabrini-Green Projects

Chicago, 1963

The child, age two, hammocked in the half

moon of his mother’s arms, is locked

in palsy, yet moves an eyelid as I ask,

moves the other as his mother answers,

application form interrogation.

The father was a white policeman.

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

I didn’t go with him for money.”

- Donal Mahoney 2013

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

New Poetry by Barbara De Franceschi

Transformation

Songbirds find reason to splash

the bush track with cheerful trill.

I cannot hear,

too many deaf ears.

The mooted thud of dusk

invites another solitary night.

Eyes are blind, I miss the colours –

magenta and gold,

sunset mesmerises the horizon

with a peaceful calm

that does not stroke my skin.

I am hag stones in reverse,

unable to protect the heart,

or join fairies as they frolic

in rain-bubbles dripping

from branches laden

with a passing shower.

When did I transform

from an open wind into a closed sky?

Mettle is unwilling to share

the resilience of spear grass growing

in hardy tussocks amongst the rocks,

breath is tannic from the lack

of distilled love words.

- Barbara De Franceschi 2013

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

New Poetry by Gerald Bosacker

BOMB BRAVE     Boston April 15,2013

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

 

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

 

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

- Gerald Bosacker 2013

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

New Poetry by Jim Piatt

The Stone

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


- Jim Piatt

New Poetry by Gerald Bosacker

YUCK

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


- Gerald Bosacker 2013

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