BIO

Valery V. Petrovskiy is an acclaimed author from the Chuvashia region of Russia. His work has appeared in journals from around the world, and he is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a finalist to the 2012 Open Russia Literary Contest. He is the author of short story collection “Tomcat Tale” (Editura StudIS) and e-book “Into the Blue on New Year’s Eve” (Hammer and Anvil Books).
He has his poems published in Blue Lyra Review, The Missing Slate, Ivory Tower, BRICK rhetoric. Valery lives in Russia in a remote village by the Volga River.

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My Russian literature mistress
​
My Russian literature mistress never smoked I guess,
while her man, one-armed WWII veteran, drank heavily
and he would beat her cruelly after
because of her German name Elsa -
we all were aware of that at my high school -
but on the other hand, she could afford a fur coat
of authentic silver fox.
 
Besides, the Red Army vet used to recite poetry in the public baths
where Dad brought me on week-end: once on Saturday
or the other day it chanced to be Sunday, depending on schedule -
half a day it was for women, and the other half for men…
while the next day  - vice versa.
…And my current friends consider me crazy
As I can drown my sorrows in a book at any moment.

 
                                                                                To poet BozgidarPangelov 
  Some HomeMade Cherry Brandy
 
 Some wine drops drip on a pitcher’s lid
when I’m ladling out red liquor
from the pitcher’s very bottom,
and the spots look so black on its face…
 
it’s not Muscat wine but a brandy,
once made of cherry by my Granny.
then she had bowed cherry trees by her crutch in crab orchard…
after Grandma Kate passed away,
the home-made liquor still remained in a cellar,
more bitter because of the cherry stones.
currently, the heady brandy runs out little by little,
and I didn’t notice when it came to the bottom.
 
now, I’m bending down the cherry trees to the ground
for my grandson by a crane of my Granny.
the boy is four years old and tells me
that he is not a little one any more…
sometimes, he calls me Dad by mistake even,
maybe, because I don’t need a walking stick yet.
whenever I try to fold him in my arms, he draws himself back…
 
I have home-made cherry brandy out of the old cask,
drawing it daily by a long-handled scoop,
less and less the heady drink remains there at the bottom…
time comes, when it will be all over there.
what will go to my grandson after me?