Synkroniciti is glad to welcome back poet Peter Cashorali, who lives and works in Los Angeles and Portland. “Geese” contemplates a flock of birds flying through the sky with purpose, likening them to words. “See how letters once were birds./ Look, they still carry/ That ancient daybreak with them.” The magical wonder of Peter’s imagery is spell-binding and astute. Words and birds are imbued with transcendence and in myths they often hold the key to worlds that lie beyond our own. “Luis” remembers a co-worker who brightened the lives of those around him, not in a heroic way, but by being present and unique. “He’s gone now. That cubicle/ Is where Luis no longer is.” When we lose those who are dear to us, no matter the reason, they are not replaced. There is simply a hole where they used to be and that hole can become as dear as the person was because it contains our memories of them. Peter’s wisdom and emotional maturity shines from his simple, vulnerable verse, delicate, measured and powerful. Finally, “Snowfall on Sea” is a meditation on mutability and transience. Watching snowflakes dissolve over the sea, water changing states before his eyes: ice, air, ocean… Peter wonders “What had this/ To do/ With us?”
Read Peter’s transcendent poetry in Synkroniciti’s “Vulnerable” issue, available for pre-order here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Peter Cashorali is a queer psychotherapist, previously working in community mental health and HIV/AIDS, now in private practice in Portland and Los Angeles. Recent work appears or will appear in Dog Throat Journal, Synkroniciti, Katabatic Circus, Ekphrastic Review, 1870 Journal, Gas and Red Fern Review. Older work includes Gay Fairy Tales (Harper San Francisco, 1995) and Gay Folk and Fairy Tales (Faber and Faber, 1997).
