Poetry – Page 2 – THE CITY KEY

Three Poems by Jeffery Allen Tobin

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.

Life Through a Transom

From the transom above my grandparents’ door,
the city stretched like a secret,
half-glimpsed, half-dreamed,
a mosaic of rooftops and smokestacks,
where stories rose and vanished
in the smog-filled air.
I watched it from a distance,
my childhood framed in glass,
the world a silent play
performed on dusty streets.

Every afternoon, I climbed the stairs,
stood on tiptoe to peer through the pane,
my eyes tracing the lines of buildings
that seemed to touch the sky,
each window a portal to lives
I could never enter,
each alley a whisper
of adventures just out of reach.

The city sang a muffled symphony,
horns and shouts a muted hum
beneath my grandparents’ gentle voices,
their stories blending with the distant din,
an undercurrent of life
I could never quite hold.
I saw children playing in the park,
their laughter a faint ripple
across my glass-bound view,
their games a choreography
of innocence and escape.

I imagined myself among them,
running through the maze of streets,
feeling the pulse of the city beneath my feet,
but always, I remained
behind the transom, a spectator
to a world that moved on without me,
each day a reflection
of what I could not touch.

The city was both near and far,
a heartbeat away and a lifetime apart,
its secrets tantalizingly close,
yet always slipping through my grasp.
I grew older, my visits less frequent,
the view through the transom unchanged,
yet somehow different,
a reminder of dreams
that faded with time.

Now, I see the city in my mind,
a distant memory etched in glass,
its streets a labyrinth of longing,
its lights a constellation of loss.
The transom remains, a silent witness
to my yearning, my small rebellion
against the confines of home.
I wonder if the city remembers
the boy who watched from above,
if it holds his dreams in its concrete heart,
or if they are scattered, like leaves in the wind,
carried away by the currents of time,
lost in the endless rhythm of life.

King of the Trestle

He reigned over the trestle,
a monarch of forgotten dreams,
his kingdom stretching beneath the steel arches
where trains thundered above,
their rumble a lullaby
to the man who made the rails his throne.

Every morning, I walked to school,
passing his domain with a mixture
of curiosity and fear,
wondering about the stories etched
in the lines of his weathered face,
each wrinkle a sign
to battles fought and lost.

His eyes, clear and piercing,
held a depth that spoke of places
far beyond the bridge,
yet he chose this spot,
this concrete refuge
from a world that turned its back.
I never knew his name,
but to me, he was royalty,
a king without a crown,
whose court was the pigeons
that fluttered and cooed
like restless courtiers.

Some days, I’d see him muttering
to the ghosts of his past,
his hands gesturing to the air
as if shaping the memories
that kept him company
when the nights grew long
and the cold seeped in.

I wondered what brought him here,
what dreams derailed on the tracks
that led him to this place.
Did he once have a family,
a home filled with laughter?
Or was the trestle always his destiny,
a final stop on the journey
through a life less kind?

I never spoke to him,
fearful of crossing the invisible line
between our worlds,
but his presence left an imprint
on my young mind,
a lesson in the fragility
of human existence,
the thin veil that separates
those who have from those who don’t.

Years passed, and I left the neighborhood,
the trestle a distant memory,
its king a shadow in my thoughts.
I often wonder if he’s still there,
if the trains still sing him to sleep,
if the pigeons still gather
to hear his silent proclamations.

Sometimes, in the quiet of the night,
I imagine him sitting on his makeshift throne,
looking out over his kingdom
with a dignity that defies his plight,
a king of the trestle,
lost in the symphony of the rails,
his legacy etched in the rhythm
of wheels on steel,
a life lived on the edge,
a story untold yet profoundly known.

Milk Bottles

Grandmother’s stories poured like milk
from bottles left on doorsteps,
each tale a glass of yesterday,
frosted with the mist of memory.
I listened, enthralled by the clink
of the delivery man’s cart,
the early morning ritual
of fresh starts on silent streets.

She spoke of mornings when the city
still slumbered, when fog clung
to the corners of buildings
and the world felt softer,
as if wrapped in wool.
The bottles stood like sentinels,
gleaming in the first light,
promising nourishment
in their fragile embrace.

I imagined the sound,
the gentle thud of glass against wood,
a symphony of routine and care,
each bottle a message
from a simpler time,
a time when life was measured
by the rhythm of deliveries,
the certainty of small gestures.

Uncle Jim’s voice added a different hue,
recollections tinged with the scent of coal
and the hum of streetcars,
each memory a brushstroke
on the canvas of our family lore.
He spoke of neighbors chatting
over fences, of the milkman’s smile,
a fleeting moment of connection
in a city that never stood still.

I longed for that world,
the tangible comfort of glass and cream,
the predictable cadence of daily life,
unbroken by the chaos
that seemed to seep
into every crack of the present.
The stories were my refuge,
a window to a past
where people knew each other’s names
and the milk always arrived on time.

The tales have since faded,
their edges blurred by the march of years,
but the image of those bottles remained,
a symbol of something I could never grasp,
a time I could never touch.
I find myself yearning for that simplicity,
for the solidity of glass
and the certainty it contained,
even as I navigate a world
where everything feels transient,
where nothing seems to last.

Now, I hold these stories
like those old milk bottles,
delicate and clear,
filled with a substance
that nourishes my soul,
yet always just out of reach.
I wonder if the past ever truly leaves us,
if we are all custodians of memories
delivered from house to house,
each story a bottle waiting
to be opened, to be savored,
to remind us of the ties
that bind us to a time
when life seemed simpler,
and the milkman’s visit
was the highlight of the day.

Jeffery Allen Tobin is a political scientist and researcher based in South Florida. His poetry, short stories, and essays have been published in many journals, magazines, and websites. He has been writing for more than 30 years.

“Fickle City” by Bonnie Perkel

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Sky-high stilettos echoed on the sparkling Mica sidewalks
of 70s New York, under dim yellow streetlamps
by CBGBs and the Russian baths. Oblivious to rats
scampering nearby, each beckoning corner led to a promise
of the newly possible.

This city of dreams and sorrows held me in its smoggy dome,
as the twin towers lit the starless night and seemed forever
the north star. Reaching the pinnacle, I twirled on the rooftop
dance floor of Windows on the World, adrift under a singular sky
that held me like a cocoon, vowing that I was special. I would soar.

The guru, the venture capitalist, and the Kabbalist communed
as the 80s burst forth from the sheer curtains of fire-escaped
brick. Yoga cohabited with a cocaine-infused bar scene, technology
reached in with a steely grip, and an old infrastructure crumbled.

I clung to a tattered shawl of illusion – exposed, transformed,
even beautiful now. Defined and undefined, molded
and undone, wandering through an inferno of exploding steam,
lost loves, irredeemable vertigo. Another future called –
and it was time to go.

Still, the soul of that nascent woman haunts those fickle streets,
heels keeping step with the cacophony of horns.
Loves and losses wrapped in the jangle of wild auburn hair.
Forever wandering – in the newly possible.

After many years working in Manhattan corporate life, Bonnie Perkel changed course but kept writing. She has an M.Ed. and spent several years working at Duke University Press in North Carolina before settling in the Boston area. Over the years she has been an educator/administrator, academic advisor, and editor, and she has published in anthologies and academic/trade publications.

“My Lost City” by Diana Raab

(After “Oh My Lost City” by Pablo Neruda)

New York, the place of my birth,
still hear Streisand’s words of glory—
the city that never sleeps,
even for me as a teen
who slept under stars
with sexy boyfriends and cars.

Each Sunday visited
Rockefeller Center
where dad taught ice skating
they called him Mr. Mark—
unable to pronounce his long last name—
Marquise—invented after immigration
from some French ancestors
which is maybe why I love croissants, espresso,

chestnuts and steamy nuts from street vendors.
I left before I could drive,
but now want to revisit my roots, especially
with dad gone and the city changed faces
more times than I can count.

Queens was my place, Cunningham Park
where hippies puffed joints and concerts
permeated lively words with numbered streets
and houses in rows like soldiers, only colors
setting them apart, one hundred and seventy-third street—
oh the pink shingles dad pained when I was born
to match his pink impala—
the kid mother never wanted, but dad cherished.

She planted a cherry blossom tree
in keeping with theme,
her green thumb also holding the reins of her
favorite four-legged equine partner,
always more important than me.
She’s still there, waiting to die
but never dying to live
I only wish her well— planted
in the city I used to call my own.

Diana Raab, MFA, PhD, is a poet, memoirist, workshop leader, thought-leader and award-winning author of 14 books and editor of three anthologies. Her work has been widely published and anthologized. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net. She frequently speaks and writes on writing for healing and transformation.

Her 14th and newest book is Hummingbird: Messages from My Ancestors, A memoir with reflection and writing prompts (2024).

Raab writes for Psychology Today, The Good Men Project, Sixty and Me, Thrive Global, and is a guest writer for many others. Visit: https:/www.dianaraab.com.

Two Poems by Matt Thomas

The Art Thief

She chased me down, caught me at an intersection, ran behind the car and recorded my plate on a white shopping bag which I thought was maybe from Baked & Wired, or a card shop, card shops I thought, also use those sturdy white bags, but the image of her gray head bent over the squashed bag, paling Eisenhower Building in the background, Potomac sky, 102 in August, etc.; what is called an indelible image, fled with from the scene after she strode around the car to rap the window convinced I had wronged her and I mumbled a denial unconvinced I had not, failing our interaction the same way that I failed my SATs, turning questions of fact into philosophy and so sped away when the light turned green while she shrunk in the rearview blocking E Street looking for the damage she was certain she’d accrued, thinking I’d escaped, which I had, but not with the thing she suspected me of stealing.

Metro Dancer

Requiring an audience to be alone,
flat metal strap like a barrette
between old school sun faded orange foam
headphones, cassette player humming,
an arm stretched like a cable
to the pole with a cupped hand sliding
up, down, bending knees in time
jeans hemmed by the carpet
worn black as if multitude others
had also abandoned convention
for slick chrome, every rider vibrating
above the groaning clattering,
speeding to uncertain landing pretending
to read or sleep maintaining proper frowns eyeing
the dancer, dreaming lost recalling
hand over hand that bottled fizz of youth
scratching from tinny headphones rebuking
the speeding commute, the functions and titles
shuttling up, down, a pump jack drawing
the question from where it has settled
into seams and every rider watching
also reaching, yearning, asking
where am I going, and why?

Matt Thomas is a smallholder farmer, engineer, and poet. His recent work can be read in Pinhole Poetry, Susurrus Magazine, and elsewhere. Disappearing by the Math, a full-length collection, was published by Silver Boy in 2024. He lives with his family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Two Men Talking in Spanish” by Susan Kolon

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On Wednesdays, she sits at the bar
at the pancake cafe. It’s 9:46 a.m.,
the slice of slow between commuter
breakfast and WFH lunch. Straight ahead,

two servers talk, rolling forks
into paper napkins. What do they talk
about? Her urban regret of never learning
Spanish. Faces not flavored with any emotion

or energy from what she can see,
their hands circle time with the leisure
of untroubled effort. The TV hangs above them,
muted. Like the golden rich of polenta

pancakes set before her, a gleaming, silent
barter. She joins the men, united
in a bubbled moment of her own labor.
Careful not to disturb.

Susan Kolon works in health education and writes from Chicago. ‘I hear a song and I can parrot the lyrics in moments. Writing poems takes me infinitely longer.’ She received an M.S. from Northwestern University and a B.A. from Michigan State University, where she was first published as a creative writing student. Her work has appeared with Corporeal Lit Mag, Dulcet Literary Magazine, Gnashing Teeth Publishing and Orange Juice, a poetry journal.

“I Prefer Montreal” by Cynthia Gallaher

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I prefer Place Jacques-Cartier, where I can loll and pretend I’m Hemingway.
I prefer Parc du Mont-Royal, because the grounds were designed by the same Frederick Law Olmsted who landscaped Washington and Jackson Parks in my hometown Chicago.
I prefer Rue du St. Catherine, because the street remains lively with people day and night, as if the Internet and TV didn’t exist.
I prefer winding staircases lacing floor to floor on the outside the Montreal flats, leaving more room inside for those Catholic Canadiens with once-upon-a-time large families.
I prefer the island of Montreal, because where could you find such an urban paradise than on an island?
I prefer the St. Lawrence Seaway, the hefty, watery wonder that leads the world to Montreal’s door.
I prefer the Canadiens tolerance of my poor high-school French, entranced when I ask “Quel heure est-il? to answer “Un peu” to their “Parlez-vous francais?”
I prefer the easy road trip from eco-rustic Burlington, Vermont, to the sophisticated, continental world of Montreal.
I prefer how Chicago was once part of Quebec.
I prefer how Quebec farms look as familiar as Illinois’ but with a French twist.
I prefer to see Cirque du Soleil one day though I have listened to several of its show CDs.
I prefer to hear about Montreal’s 40-degree-below-zero winter days while surrounded by its summer flower beds and breezy fountains.
I prefer Old Montreal, a place that more North Americans who can’t afford to go to Europe can visit and get a similar vibe.
I preferred to be on Candid Camera and ended up on Just for Laughs in Montreal, which was so much more fun.
I prefer the microbrews and sorbets of Montreal.
I prefer how Montreal embraces its Native American art.
I prefer the Parisian satellite radio pumped into the Montreal hotel lobbies.
I prefer the Montreal accent, an Anglicized, flatter version that rings more familiar to my ear, with its New Yorker twist.
I prefer Montreal.

CynthiaLGallaher

Cynthia Gallaher, a Chicago-based poet, is author of four poetry collections, including Epicurean Ecstasy: More Poems About Food, Drink, Herbs and Spices, and three chapbooks, including Drenched. Her award-winning nonfiction/memoir/creativity guide is Frugal Poets’ Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren’t a Poet.One of her poems will be sent on NASA’s flight to the south pole of the moon later this decade.

“Moon Over Salt Lake City” by Jennifer Blackledge

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over the temple encrusted in
an exoskeleton of scaffolding and cranes,
over the lake bed’s lunar flats
where I mistook pickled, half-buried ducks
for driftwood and dry grass,
over my glass hotel where I scrub
white brine dust off my black suede shoes.

I walked and walked across an endless
sand and salt plain, between the lot of
parked cars and the salt-broth water,
tiny scattered people moving as
slow and distant from each other
as stars in a constellation.

I still hadn’t reached water by the time
the sun dipped to the first mountain but
I turned around anyway, anxious
to outwalk the absolute dark.
Tidal forces pull me into the car and
back toward the city,
moon over its motherboard of lights,
mountains like teeth behind it.

Weak sun, bold moon,
salt as purifier, salt as punisher.
My shoes wear a ring of white,
my hair a dry rime of silver down the middle.
The moon rises over glittering towers and salt crystals
as a low sun slides into unswimmable water.
I might be driftwood. I whisper like dry grass.
All week people have been distant as stars
and shifting like sand.
I haven’t seen the same face twice.

Jennifer Blackledge works in the automotive industry and lives just south of Detroit. She has an MFA from Brown University and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in JAMA, I-70 Review, Scientific American, The Lake, Verdad, Kestrel, Twelve Mile Review, SWWIM and elsewhere. Read more at http://www.jenniferblackledge.com.

“Walking in Chinatown” by Sarah A. Etlinger

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While walking in Chinatown, Allie says
If I had married my college boyfriend, I’d be a single mom on welfare.
We are drinking bubble tea, its sunset colors and glistening dark pearls
pressed against the cup like faces come to the window.
Jason picks up a knob of ginseng, holds it to his nose.
We palm lumps of sugared ginger,
the transparent moons of lychee candies glow against our skin.
Across the street a plant spills itself onto a cement stoop.
Above a doorway, like a brass god, a man chokes sound from his guitar, indifferent to us.
Three hours until dark. The El arrives and we enter, one by one, into our own lives.

Sarah

Sarah A. Etlinger is an English professor who lives in Milwaukee, WI.. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she is the author of 4 books; most recently, A Bright Wound (Cornerstone Press 2024). Recent work appears in Spoon River Poetry Review, Pithead Chapel, Rattle, and many others.

“Chiang Mai” by Neal Donahue

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The Muslim call to prayer
awakens us at quarter to six
in the morning, the pulsing
voice otherworldly and insistent.

We find ourselves in Chiang Mai,
a market city, prosperous and
alive, a religious mecca with
golden temples and Buddhist monks.

The air is cool and fresh,
a welcome change from Bangkok,
and we are uplifted by flowers and
the majesty of surrounding mountains.

As we make our way upward
on the winding mountain road,
the city falls away below, a busy hub
in the shadow of Suthep Doi.

At the temple, we ring the bells,
their throbbing tones rising up
toward heaven, the benevolent
spirits welcoming our prayers.

Neal

Neal Donahue majored in English at the University of Oklahoma, then served 5 years as a submarine officer. After his stint in the Navy, he taught elementary school in Massachusetts and Vermont, incorporating poetry into his curriculum. Neal has had a number of poems published in small journals.

Two Poems by Sarah Zietlow

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The View from My Balcony

The corner of Animas and Campanario
Centro Habana, Cuba

Three boys shoot marbles on the sidewalk below
the laundry their mothers strung from one crumbling balcony
to the next. Each glass orb, glistening, bounces into the street
and underneath the ‘55 Buick Special, painted Tiffany Blue
over Bondo, and parked beside mounds of trash on the corner
where old men pick through the rubbish, seeking useful things

hidden in a sea of plastic bottles and rancid food. Things
like one aluminum can, just peeking out from below
soiled diapers and molded, rotten fruit—one crushed corner
of the can gleaming in the sunlight, just visible from my balcony
above. Two blocks up the road, the Malecón heralds the blue
Atlantic beyond, where a north wind blows down the street,

bringing with it dreams of Florida and another sun-drenched street
somewhere in the south of Miami. Alicia upstairs says that things
are better there. In Florida, the sky and the water are impossibly blue—
Madres, padres, and their familias, can escape out from below
the crumbling facades here that threaten to crush them. One balcony
fell last week and took the whole building with it, just around the corner

from here. Four cubanos muertos, Alicia tells me, on that corner,
but you wouldn’t know it after the rubble was swept from the street.
¿De donde eres? the cubanos, one after another, call up to my balcony,
and after my response, shout, ¡Americana! America, after all, a thing
they’ve imagined in a daydream more than once upon a time. Below,
a woman walks past to empty her trash into the pile beside this blue

building on this blue street in this blue town, under a sky of blue
that makes everything still somehow seem gray. I wonder if this corner
is the same as any other, but then remember Miramar, just west. Below
each building there, the view is not like this. On each manicured street,
freshly-pressed suits stroll from one embassy to the next. Everything
is planted and pruned and contorted into lies that echo off each balcony

here in no-man’s land, where Yessie sells cigarillos from her balcón
for thirty-five cents a pack, and cold cervezas in cans of green and blue
for only forty more. But these little luxuries are the bigger things
that most cubanos in Centro cannot afford. On every corner
up and down Campanario, the buildings close in on the calle,
and an invisible gray fog settles more each day on everyone below.Perched high on a Habana balcony, I miss the little things:
The boy in blue shoots pebbles of plaster into the street
from the corner of the curb, and there are no marbles below.

This Side of Negril

Down here at the West End
on Hylton Avenue is where
Wen fries snapper at his roadside stand
on Sundays. Red sauce too,
poured over rice and peas
with a side of slaw on top. I’ll
wait across the way at Whoopie’s and I’ll
save you a seat at the westernmost end
of the bar. Together, we’ll share each piece
while the sun sinks (the sky wears
his Sunday best) down, journeying on to
the Caymans, Belize, then Guatemala. Stands
of palms hold hammocks, and you’ll stand
at the edge of the cliff—the edge of this isle,
while I’ll snap just a picture or two
before the green flash that comes at the end
of the day. The Canadian ex-pat, Brian, wears
another Hawaiian shirt and breaks off a piece
of his gizzada—and another piece
for the goat that stands
nudging her nose at the pocket where
the bag used to be. I’ll
call Ardie over from the other end
of the bar, and order two
more. Red Stripe for you, and a white rum too,
with fresh-squeezed orange juice and a piece
of hand-chipped ice.

Back at East End
women in shanty-town stands
sell tchotchkes arranged in tightly-packed aisles
to American tourists come to ogle there,
just steps, but a world away from their
all-inclusive hells (women that wear too
much makeup and too much money).

I’ll
take my rice and peas and the peace
of the doctor birds that flit through stands
of ackee trees down here at the West End.
Before she closes tonight, you stop for a few pieces
of bacon, two potatoes, and four eggs from Dora’s stand.
We’ll fry it all in the morning for breakfast—at the West End.

Sarah Zietlow is from a small town in northeast Ohio where she currently teaches language arts to 7th-grade students. She holds a BA in Education from the University of Akron, an MA in English from Bowling Green State University, and is currently working on an MFA in Creative writing in the Bluegrass Writers Studio at Eastern Kentucky University. Sarah’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Adanna and Merion West. In her free time, Sarah enjoys sitting by campfires with her husband while simultaneously staring at the stars and contemplating how best to sell off all she owns in an effort to find herself in some place other than Cleveland.

Zietlow