Fall 2013 Poetry 4

Hemispheres

by Valentina Cano

As he hibernated he felt her

walking the house.

Pausing to inspect the cracks

in the wall he’d dug out with screams.

One snailed foot at a time,

she counted the nights he’d sat

hands holding eyeballs as thick

as balls of yarn.

She walked and he slept,

dreaming of cocooning roots

and the greenest dress

draping her body like a warm breath.

Bio: Valentina CanoValentina Cano is a student of classical singing who spends whatever free time either writing or reading. Her works have appeared in Exercise Bowler, Blinking Cursor, Theory Train, Cartier Street Press, Berg Gasse 19, Precious Metals, A Handful of Dust, The Scarlet Sound, The Adroit Journal, Perceptions Literary Magazine, Welcome to Wherever, The Corner Club Press, Death Rattle, Danse Macabre, Subliminal Interiors, Generations Literary Journal, A Narrow Fellow, Super Poetry Highway, Stream Press, Stone Telling, Popshot, Golden Sparrow Literary Review, Rem Magazine, Structo, The 22 Magazine, The Black Fox Literary Magazine, Niteblade, Tuck Magazine, Ontologica, Congruent Spaces Magazine, Pipe Dream, Decades Review, Anatomy, Lowestof Chronicle, Muddy River Poetry Review, Lady Ink Magazine, Spark Anthology, Awaken Consciousness Magazine, Vine Leaves Literary Magazine, Avalon Literary Review, Caduceus,White Masquerade Anthology and Perhaps I'm Wrong About the World. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Web and the Pushcart Prize.You can find her here: http://carabosseslibrary.blogspot.com

AIR MAIL LETTER

by Linda Thornton Peterson

Like a V in the sky

I see the wild ducks fly.

Fall has finally come

Now the ducks are on the run.

Then, I hear the wild ducks cry

As they paddle through the sky

Calling out to find a pond in which to lie.

They hear their echoes round the bend

And hope they soon can settle in.

The cattails wave; the sunset glows

But their leader never knows

If he will find what they will like

A lonely lily pond for the night.

Bio: Linda Thornton Peterson, a Louisiana native, retired from Northern Illinois University as a psychotherapist and teacher. Six of her short stories and a poem have appeared in The Greensilk Journal. Poetry publications include: The Hanging Moss Journal, the Western State Colorado University Journal and a Northern Illinois University Journal. She won an NIU faculty poetry award and is a founding member of two DeKalb writers’ groups. As a former art teacher and stringer photographer with the Associated Press, she continues to exhibit her art as well as write.

North Beach

by Thomas Piekarski

This district is a perpetual paradox,

a crossfire of wind and dry heat;

so even though I’m chilled I sweat.

Maybe the cat ate the cage, not the bird.

A truck carrying a load of crushed cars

rumbles down Columbus playing Rap

to utter distraction. I make my way

to Cafe Trieste, where hang photos

of Pavarotti, Steve Allen, Bob Dylan.

From a girl’s earring hangs a spider,

dangling on a long thread. It begins

to sing a lot like Dean Martin,

but dances like Elvis. To escape

what seems like double jeopardy

I walk past the Rome Trattoria

then down to the Stinking Rose Cafe,

famous for drowning food in garlic:

I can only guess what colors

may burst forth in a plume of glory.

The fact that the economy has tanked

can’t be blamed on the wrinkled man

zonked on a bench in Washington Square,

having killed a bottle of dago red.

This place is well known for its poets

but you would hardly know it,

Via Ferlinghetti but a nondescript alley

that backs La Spiaggia Delicatessen.

As the half blind man with cane in hand

holds up traffic, walking against red,

I consider if I should take in the Tut

exhibit at the De Young, as I have

nothing better to do than view gold.

Moreover, it wouldn’t involve work,

and like the Miles Davis music

being piped onto the street,

it would create equilibrium

and verticle leap.

Bio:Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of theCalifornia State Poetry Quarterly. His theater and restaurant reviews have been published in various newspapers, with poetry and interviews appearing in numerous national journals, among them Portland Review, Main Street Rag,Kestrel, Scarlet Literary Magazine, Cream City Review, Nimrod, Penny Ante Feud,New Plains Review, Poetry Quarterly, The Muse-an International Journal of Poetry, and Clockhouse Review. He has published a travel guide, Best Choices In Northern California, and Time Lines, a book of poems. He lives in Marina, California.