Poetry – THE CITY KEY

Three Poems by Shontay Luna

Weekend in NOLO (sometime in twenty thirteen)

He signed up for one of those time-shares
presentation deals at the mall without my knowledge.
Under a big sign that said “Free Weekend in (insert any
city name here). Includes three-day stay at such-and-such
hotel, just fulfill attendance presentation requirement.
Of course, they tell you that afterwards. It was cool riding
down a freeway I’d never seen before, developing a new
affinity for the number “ten”. We were within walking
distance of the French Quarter with its multitude of
bric-a-brac stands and shops. Open air bars
beckoning us in and disposing massively
inebriated tourists back onto the street at 12:30 in
the afternoon. My only regret at the time was that
I considered it too early to drink. From there we
went to the seafood place recommended by a
local at the meeting where there was a bit
of a wait but the food was fantastic.
During which I got to see a bonafide, second
line parade. The happy couple strutting
behind the brass band, followed by the
attendees. Sound filled the street outside.
It was normal and slow motion both at
once.

Afterwards, we walked along the streets
whose shores kissed the edge of the
Mississippi. Picked up a card from a
coin-operated fortune teller. Can’t remember
what the fortune said, but it was good
(I believe they always are) and I kept it for
many years. And the time flew. Before I knew
it, the weekend was over. As we hit the road
toward home, I made a promise to myself to
one day, return to New Orleans. When I had
just a little more time in my pocket.

My Return to NOLO, Part Two (January 6-8th, 2023)

I made it back to NOLO, several years after my initial visit.
Hotel room absolutely lovely; with its kitchenette and extra
bed that I didn’t need. Maybe I was so excited to go, I forgot
to order a single bedroom. View was of other windows, but if
I looked to the right, I could see the Jackson Avenue traffic
bustling under a sky tinged in amber sunsets. My, how those
streets called themselves to me as I walked the nearest ones.
getting a latte and chocolate croissant a block away, staring
at both the streetcars and palm trees in absolute wonder.
When I found Canal Street, my prior recollections came to life.
Returning back to me fully in real time, I remembered. Even
though I was still heady from both the travel high and densely
erotic dreams in the early morning hours as my eyes witnessed
both a sea of stars and fleur-de-lis.

The possibilities are endless for I am “home” in a place
I wasn’t born in, but my people were. Albeit two and a half
hours away. And somehow, the city knows it as I feel its
embrace around me.

This trip a complete contrast to the one before. Yet,
it doesn’t phase me at all. Because there’s something
different here about the Sun and sky; the vibe so
distinct. Maybe it calls to me because it’s the land
of my mother’s people, the land of my Great –
Grandparents. Maybe it just wants me, period.
I don’t know why it feels like this – I’m just glad
that it does.

Back to the palm trees – yes, the palm trees. Being from
Chicago, I find them fascinating. I stare at them
helplessly upon my outings, in awe of the varying
heights and the unrelenting casualness they
embody.

Return to NOLO, Part Three

Travelling completes the soul. That’s the only way
I can explain it. I once had a co-worker that had
several tattoos. Every time I’d see her, she’d show
me her newest tat while excitedly talking about the
next one she’d get. I’ve realized how she felt about
tattoos, I feel about travel. As I sit here in the
airport terminal, all I can think about is where my
next trip will take me. The thought leaving me
excited, breathless and grateful as this last trip
was years in the making and sorely needed.

As it was winter, I didn’t smell magnolia in the
breezes, but I felt the ragtime rumble itself
through me in an off street by the French Market. I
traipsed on cobblestone streets among buildings
brocaded in metal flowers and secrets.

Canal Street crept quietly into my memories,
with its broad width and sun setting horizon.
The ancient souvenir shop I frequented
the first time still standing on the corner.
The large white sign with black letters, an
antique in the digital age. Now flooded by
several CBD shops that, of course, weren’t
there in years past.

I forgot to return to Duke’s for the seafood,
but I did go to Cafe Du Monde and
The Court of the Two Sisters Buffet.
Flavors staying with me long after
delicacies were consumed. As the titles
ingrained themselves in my memory –
Red Beans, Shrimp Etouffee, Gumbo,
Jambalaya. And I’m left with two
certainties: New Orleans calls me like
no other city ever has and I will definitely
return.

Chicagoan Shontay Luna is a poet, blogger and fanfiction author. Her work first appeared in Anthology and Capper’s and her most recent appearances include The Crucible, Press II Press and Blue Lake Review. Her newest book is ‘The Goddess Journal – a tool for unlocking the Goddess within every Woman.’

“Alphabet City” by John Repp

I’d walked the length of Murray Avenue many times
& strode up or down Forbes disdaining bus exhaust & rain,
stopping on the public course’s first tee to marvel at the lights,
an industrial tang suffusing the Pittsburgh air then, Flagstaff Hill behind
or just ahead, depending, but this was the far-downtown bedlam
of Manhattan, where I couldn’t help thinking myself
one of Whitman’s roughs while seventeen times a block
being revealed as a permanent rube. My new wife motored

down the sidewalk when one existed & zoomed faster
when all we had was asphalt or plywood-roofed scaffolding.
The noise obliterated metaphor. To keep pace, I imagined myself
Frank O’Hara & patted my pocket notebook. She yelled when I stopped
to answer the first few nut jobs ranting at my helicopter & gold bullion.
At the red light, she said, “You’ll never get anywhere like that.”

John Repp is a writer, folk photographer, and digital collagist living in Erie, Pennsylvania. His most recent collection of poetry is Never Far from the Egg Harbor Ice House, published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. Scads more information about Repp, his work, and his interests/obsessions can be found on his website: http://www.johnreppwriter.com

“Under a Verdigris Streetlamp” by Sara Backer

Please note: Poetry is compressed to fit smart phone screens. If you are reading this poem on a phone screen, please turn your screen sideways to make sure that you are seeing correct line breaks for the poem.

Paris Street; Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte

“Like real weather atomized”—Ciaran Carson

Caillebotte’s pale clouds fight to hold back
the sun, rain pooling between worn cobblestones, a shimmering
veneer, flatiron buildings nosing into a five-point intersection.
When I went to Paris, neon lit a dark sky. Cobblestones now paved.
Wheezing buses blocked my view. Caillebotte’s streets have no cars.
Pedestrians space themselves, walking in all directions, holding identical
umbrellas, large and curved, the color of sealskin. The closest couple
turn their placid eyes to look at something beyond the edge
of the canvas. The man wears a top hat and bow tie. His wife
wears diamond earrings and a fur-collared coat. She holds his arm
that carries their umbrella high. Brick walls, muted ochre, could be gold
with a bit more optimism, sluiced in the mesh-like rain.
My December was chilled by drizzle, no coffee or brandy capable
of even transient warmth, and I, who cherished solitude, wished
I had someone to joke about conformity or bourgeoisie. I rode
the warm subways so often I memorized metro maps.
At Gare Saint-Lazare, a couple asked me how to get to Opera.
I understood their question, told them in French how to get there.
My sudden competence thrilled me! The husband frowned
and murmured, elle n’est pas francais. They asked a young man
the same question and he repeated my answer. Suddenly sick
of rain and trains and tiny cheese sandwiches,
that evening I left for Italy.

Sara Backer’s first book of poetry, Such Luck, follows two chapbooks: Scavenger Hunt, and Bicycle Lotus, which won the Turtle Island Chapbook Award. Recent publications include Lake Effect, Slant, CutBank Online, Poetry Northwest, Poetry Ireland, and Kenyon Review. She lives in New Hampshire and is currently writing novels.

Three Poems by Ed Meek

Soundtrack of the City

The soundtrack of the city
can keep you up nights
or hum in the background
a discordant tune of wheels turning
and gears interlocking, trucks
unloading, planes taking off
and coming down.
The bass thumping in a passing
smoke-filled car. A Harley roaring
down the street. Sirens wailing
of rescues and D.O.A.
daytimes the volume
jumps to life with the birds
who serenade leaf blowers, lawn mowers,
horns, the ebb and flow
of traffic, the heavy breathing buses
the scraping skateboards,
barking dogs. The disembodied voices
of neighbors you’ll never know.

The Reserved Section

I’d wandered into the reserved section by mistake
but the performance had begun
and it was too late to escape
to the seats for the general public
my inexpensive ticket already paid for.
It was as if I had pulled back the curtain
and entered the first-class cabin–
been admitted to the club
and seated at the head table.
The champagne was vintage.
The caviar Russian.
The lights dimmed.
I was just behind
a Guggenheim and a Rockefeller.
They didn’t seem to see me.
I was invisible as I often am.
For once it was an advantage.
I glanced down the row at two
black women who smiled and nodded.

Hostages to Heat

In Brooklyn when the temp hits 90
the heat invades our claustrophobic co-op.
Outside, the cement sends the heat
up through our bodies in waves.
We float in our sweat like seals in the shallows.
I used to love the feel of sweat
blanketing my body
running in the mid-day sun
and playing pick-up basketball on black tar.
Now we dread summer days when
an orange disk occupies a hazy sky,
Particles of ash coat our lungs
and the sunlight sears our eyes.

Ed Meek is the author of four books of poetry and a collection of short stories. He has had work in The Sun, The Paris Review, Plume, The North American Review, The Boston Globe. He writes book reviews for The Arts Fuse. He is a contributing editor for The Rivanna Review. He teaches creative writing at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. He lives in Great Barrington with his wife Elizabeth and their labradoodle Mookie. His most recent book is High Tide.

“Temp Job” by James B. Nicola

Walk down Fifth Avenue for lunch hour when
you have a temp job in the Forties or
the Fifties; next day, do the walk again
and I’ll bet you a hundred to one you’re
not going to see any of the same
faces. I did this for about a year
when suddenly I thought I heard my name,
or something similar (I’m still not sure).

I turned and shook a total stranger’s hand.
He squeezed, I think, my upper elbow too
as if some mutual past permitted such
a thing. The passing gesture, so unplanned,
impressed me. I could not say where he knew
me from, but I shall not forget that touch.

James B. Nicola, a returning contributor, is the author of eight collections of poetry, the latest three being Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense, Turns & Twists, and Natural Tendencies. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Actor’s Guide to Live Performance won a Choice magazine award.

“To Khulood al-Zaidi, Women’s Rights Activist” by Suzanne Morris

“Just to have the freedom to go wherever I wanted,
and to not think something bad might happen to me.”

I try to step outside
freedom’s airy shelter

and look in through
the open windows of my day:

how I stroll from house
to road, unafraid,

and, heart unflinching,
open the box to withdraw
the mail, then

wave at a friendly honk
from a passing car.

Nothing worthy of note
along the way.

Or so it seems,
until I think of her:

how, alone that time in Amman
she heeded a warning

and boarded a plane
for San Francisco

then rode the bus for hours
just because she could,

rode and rode
all over San Francisco,
just because she could

maybe her thoughts
drifting to Fern, who

might be there too,
had she survived

the short ride from Baghdad.

Imagine how,
by habit of mind,
she might have

lowered her eyes
from a stranger’s gaze

then, stepping out,
surveyed
the sloping street

for any suspicious sign;

how she might have
smiled to herself then, that

being free and being safe would
take some getting used to

at least for as long
as she was here

how she might already
have known that

Duty would call her home.

I think of her as I sit down
on my porch of an evening,
to read a book

how heedlessly I surrender
to a world of make-believe,

how easy it is to take
this small freedom
for granted.

The breeze picks up
and I look around,

suddenly alert.

I bring my fingers
to my cheeks,

trying to imagine myself
inside her skin:

the breeze upon her face
as she waits for the bus

in San Francisco.

Suzanne Morris is a novelist with eight published works, and a poet. Her poems have appeared in several recent anthologies, and in online poetry journals including The New Verse News, The Texas Poetry Assignment, Stone Poetry Quarterly and The Courtship of Winds. She resides in Cherokee County, Texas.

Two Poems by Shontay Luna

Chicago (in the early ‘90s)

I. North Side – A Yuppie and Generation X
potluck constantly battling each other as they
sit between streeted throngs of decapitating
movie theaters, army surplus and fetish shops.
A full day’s shopping on Belmont from the Red
Line; two blocks from west to east you can get
a burger, tattoo, condoms, and a doughnut in all
in one swing. Baseball’s most disillusioned fans
in their red and blue regalia, herd themselves
bleary eyed with Pabst in hand four blocks
north of the urban jungle.

II. South Side – Baseball’s flip side, slightly more
civilized but still hungry~ Chinatown a world by itself
within another windy one. Walking down it’s on avenue
encompassing; like passing through an avenue of
time. Bronzeville used to be a glistening as it sounded;
the ensuing decades dulling it’s former polish. Former
middle class turned buppieville Chatham reigns further
south while Hyde Park gives off Greenwich Village
vibes while providing a landscape for a generation x
stomping ground to the east.

III. West Side – Mexico’s a Little Village and a modernized
time travel trip upon the twenty and the 6. Helplessly dotted with
year – round molasses ass traffic before disappearing into
the realms of Cicero and Berwyn. Beyond that, the Spindle
and the mall. Commercialism a beer belly in a too-tight shirt.
Northeast of that, urban poverty simmers and reeks while
suburban spectators cheer for the Bulls.

IV. East Side – Waltzes with Indiana’s frontier, hugging the
farthest curve of Lake Michigan. Beaches of rocky shores
and outlines of warehouses that billow smoke in the not too
far distance. Ten miles south of downtown, it once was an
area of factories: its hardworking streets lined with rows of
homeowners who worked at any of the five steel mills in
the area. Offering anything along Commercial Avenue
so as not be bothered with making the lengthy trip downtown.
For a taste of aged cornucopia, come to my home, Chicago.

Typical Chicago Weather

The gentle
branches
flutter in
the early
Autumn
breezes
traveling
in July.
Weaving
through
pavé glass
vases
embellished
in color
crepe squares,
jumbled into
pixelated
rainbows.

“Sailing to Sanctuary” by LindaAnn LoSchiavo

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“Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Emma Lazarus, 1883

What made them leave their native lands by boat?

Some heard fierce military thunder, saw
A blood moon rise in new duplicitous
Skies gone gunmetal gray, ruth camouflaged.

Some farmers ached from death’s cruel carpet ride,
Drought, famine, floods, the disintegration
Of dreams, all gone, one at a time.

Some faced more personal oppression: skin
Tone, birthright’s claims denied, religious foes,
Recognizing that falsehoods were designed
To dominate. Truth’s weapons were inert.

Some knew their powerlessness to outgrow
A humble past or lifelong poverty.

Approaching Ellis Island, side by side,
Examining our Lady Liberty,
Dropping an arm’s warm anchor happily
Around each other’s neck, they sense change
Is close along with assimilation — —
The circularity of homeland’s quest.

LindaAnn LoSchiavo: Native New Yorker. Elgin Award winner. Nominated for The Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Ippy, Firecracker, etc. Member: BFS, HWA, SFPA, Dramatists Guild. Recent titles: “Vampire Ventures,” “Apprenticed to the Night,” “Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems.”

https://VampireVenturesPoems.com
LindaAnn Literary: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHm1NZIlTZybLTFA44wwdfg

“Cairo at Dusk” by Fred Tudiver

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The loudspeaker calling to sunset Maghrib prayer
carries through the sluice
of cardamom Cairo air
into the waterless, sandy dusk
filled with cars that speak their resolve.

I pray our ’82 Lada Zhiguli taxi
will make it to the hotel in Gezira,
memories of the last taxi ride break down
in Tahrir Square still fresh.

I can taste that pizza chased with iced karkadé tea
in Maison Thomas Pizza, under the flyover near the Marriott,
where the restaurant servers could not stop
touching Burt’s 3-year-old daughter’s blonde hair,
a shade they had never seen before.

After, we walk over to the hotel
and sip cold limones in the verdant garden bar
at the back.
Filled with stories.

Here’s the thing:
This poem is filled with vaporous nostalgia for
a Peace Corps style of working and living,
long forgotten by most.
Yet, perhaps this was my favorite life.

Fred Tudiver holds a BSc from McGill University, and an MD from Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is a new poet and likes to explore the human condition and the natural world. He has published in Black Moon magazine, Tennessee Voices Anthology, and the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Two Poems by Richard Collins

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UNCLE HARLAN

I always loved when Uncle Harlan came to visit
Not often but when he did I didn’t miss it

He was what I didn’t know existed
Something our women called sophisticated

Back again from Europe he treated us
To a slideshow: Madrid, London, Paris

He wasn’t an uncle really of course
But some distant cousin, third or fourth

Handsome Uncle Harlan had style and taste
All the women whispered it was such a waste

That he was a (quote/unquote) Confirmed Bachelor
Which meant in those days he either played the women

Or played the woman to other men. I didn’t care
He was tall and angular, long neck and slick black hair

Peppered his speech with French and Spanish phrases
Failed to teach me not tongues but how to tie my shoes

I tie them still with clumsy loops like cowboy lassoes
That elicit laughter, so I switched to loafers like his

Soft Italian leather like skin to touch
Buffed to perfection, that is: not too much

He didn’t want to be tied down. Convention kills
He confided. His European souvenirs were personal

Secrets to be savored, not shared as public art
But hidden in the hollow camera of the heart

To this kid, it was no one’s business what he did
He’d been to Paris, London and Madrid.

SACRED CITIES AND PROFANE

Tlachihualtepetl

From the Garden of Edinburgh
Back to the city of brotherly love

A taxi stuck in snow in Swansea
Never reaches London, much less Copenhagen

A train breaks down at Saint Pancras Station
Canceled pilgrimage to Canterbury

A blushing romance in Bath
A surrender, a seduction, a velvet rejection

Legs remembered and streets forgotten
Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, the Hague.

***

A plane lands clumsy as an Albatross
On a hijacked Grecian runway

For a honeymoon in Cretan caves
Pink and black Santorini sand

Worship in the bay of Kythera
Deep bows to terraced Sifnos vines

Tours and detours of Istanbul
Drowned nudes in underground cisterns

Selçuk’s Cavern of the Seven Sleepers
The sickness not quite unto Ephesus

Then back to mathematical Samos
And the legends of long-legged Lesbos

That was one life; this is another
In no particular order.

***

Driven to city after profane city
Touching down in Sofia, Timișoara

Far from naked rocks in the sea
Corinth and Thessaloniki

To Budapest and Bucharest
Cities asleep without rest

This is one life; that was another
Mixed like a cocktail with bitters and ice.

***

What about the car wreck on River Road
What about the pool cue sold

And what about the train wreck on the way from Trieste
To Belgrade, the engineer spatchcocked on a flatcar

On the very day that protesters in Tiananmen Square
Faced down tanks, next morning headlines in Athens told us.

***

Fact is, I died long before that in the City of Angels’
Valley of Slow Death, ascended in a Delta jet

Looked out over the panorama of my youth
Dry sands of Cucamonga to muddy waters of Pacoima

From the islands of Balboa to the beaches of Laguna
A trip to Venice for the price of a pawned guitar

Stolen kisses, kitsch and country music cliches
Marriages and mockeries and blood-soaked clouds

Tumbled down at last dead drunk and lost
In the haze of Ciudad de México, then Puebla

Long before the more fortunate infidelities of the fall
Resurrection an empty promise, or threat.

Richard Collins has lived in Eugene and Baton Rouge, Bucharest and Timisoara, Los Angeles and London, Swansea and now in Sewanee, Tennessee. His recent work has appeared in The Plenitudes, Willows Wept, and Marrow. A memoir, In Search of the Hermaphrodite, is out from Tough Poets Press (2024).