May 2016
Carl Boon
tuib1974@yahoo.com
I'm a native Ohioan, but I've been living and working in Turkey for the last eight years--the first seven in Istanbul and now in Izmir. One of the reasons I write is to make sense of this culture, which, even after eight years, remains very foreign to me. I love Bob Dylan, Belgian beer, and Ohio State football. Poems of mine have recently appeared in Aberration Labyrinth, the 3288 Review, and Razor.
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New Love in La Paz


How she walks 
and how you imagine her,
with the Collected Poems
of Adela Zamudio 
under her arm. My God,
it’s never gonna rain again— 
and the trees off Plaza Murillo
shall be filled
with blossoms forever. No,
your father is not dead,
and your Lada shines
on Avenida Armentia— 
as silver as the morning
it came off the line. 
She pauses at a café,
has a plate of humintas,
then stands in line at the bank,
occasionally picking lint
from her long, green skirt.
You want to bring her home,
make her supper late,
watch the sky for rain
that will not come.
You want morning to be
arrays of birds and brunch
at the Hotel Presidente— 
the table where René Barrientos
in 1966 demanded the hills
be shot as spies.
 




Strangers in Newcastle
 
Strangers in Newcastle
exchange glances
at the Three Lions Pub.
 
She recalls the ticket
in her purse, her mother
back in Turkey hanging sheets
 
on a balcony in the dark.
He’ll recall the color
of her hair much later— 
 
or tomorrow—as his tea cools
and the Tyne clears
after last week’s rain.
 
But for now they’re strangers,
each quietly intrigued
by possibility, each holding
 
empty glasses and waiting
as the train to Gateshead
veers east at Dorsey Common.
 




A Son


Mehmet, their last-born,
wraps his small fingers
around the subway rail
just below mine. He is thirty,
but all about him is small
save the beard that buds
from his throat and his forehead
high with pimples and scars.
He places his head
on his father’s shoulder
and holds on, grinning
wildly into an ad
for baby lotion. In five years
Down’s will have taken him,
the last stop in a life
of reaching and succumbing,
wondering how it was
the other kids ran so fast
toward the girls at the fence.
©2016 Carl Boon