The Bosporus Star

Is poetry political?

THE CAFÉ OWNER
by Nathalia Blanca Perozo

A salt and pepper haired man takes
twelve deep drags of a menthol cigarette.
he cranes his arm up then down
directing melodies and tuning waves.

Gliding up the plastic frames
of my glasses, I make his legs
a kaleidoscope of tiny hairs
and veins for my amusement.

He is Apache how he leans aging
in plain view, after half a carafe
of wine I ride the lines of his frown
to somewhere more comfortable.

The raid of daylight turns
him into a healer,
chaperone of the scabs
my eyes are barking.

TWO NEW YORK HOTELS
By Nathalia Blanca Perozo

A banker, a drunk, and a playwright
were my escorts for the night. The playwright
carried the most fame, and thus had our prime
ears tucked into his pocket. This warranted revenge,
I stuck a bone into his side.

In the kitchen an Englishman was cooking French.
Parmesan ice cream and scallions the size of coins
were served by waiters instructing us to love like our tails fly.
Uninspired, we finished our meals in eleven bites
and ordered cocktails named after motorbikes.

After the lights were dimmed, elderly

CLINT EASTWOOD'S GIRL- A Salvation Dream
by Nathalia Blanca Perozo

I imagine jumping out my window
and cut holes into my knit sweater
to enable an off the shoulder smile
where Clint Eastwood would love me

under a cold, pressing harness
the feeling of a bed
strapped to a motor,
appeals to the iron slouched on his hips.

I’m a horse adorned with wire wreaths
that face in his direction,
tribes from my body
that yearn to ride his stubble.

I rub against the fabric on the walls
sensing death
as my necklace bangs against his chest,

Late in the afternoon, the trail became less steep, finally flattening out at an odd indentation formed at the commencement of several ridges just beneath the summit of Asahi.

The Cue is set on a cul-de-sac, off the Black Canyon highway, also known as I-17, not far from the intersection of 27th and Northern. A few blocks away is the Metro mall where I used to hang out after escaping from the group home. Of the kids at the mall I was the youngest which resulted in me getting nicknamed Chickadee, which I hated, so I was glad when someone shortened it to Chica, which is how I began to introduce myself.

If you pick a cat up by the scruff of the neck, it will hang there, for a moment, passively, as it once did as a kitten being transported by its mother. Before long, however, the cat, remembering it need no longer submit to such indignities, will struggle insistently, to be freed.

If you place an active baby into a plastic shopping bag and lift it by the handles, the baby will immediately curl up and become inert.

During the filming of Shōgun, the actress Yoko Shimada fell in love with the technician whose job it was to clip the microphone to the collar of her kimono.

Yesterday a man with a receding salt-and-pepper hairline, wearing wire-rimmed glasses, jeans, running shoes and button-down chambray shirt was standing outside Le Cirque on East 58th Street. He had a cellphone pressed to one ear while speaking acidly to a harried-looking young colleague standing by: “...if I hang up I lose my place in line, I have to listen to this fucking muzak all over again for another fucking fifteen fucking minutes— Hello? Hello! Finally! Please don’t put me on hold. I’ve been on hold literally for half an hour! This is Steve Jobs! Yes! This is super important.

June 23 is Võidupüha, or Victory Day, which celebrates Battle of Võnnu where the Estonians triumphed over the Germans in 1919. It has come to represent the country’s long struggle for independence over foreign hegemony. That evening also begins the twin holidays of Jaaniõhtu (St. John’s Eve) and Jaanipäev (St. John’s Day, on the 24th), a twinned holiday second only to Christmas in significance.