THE CITY KEY

“The Sweet Land of Del Sur” by Spencer Shaak

THE SWEET LAND OF DEL SUR

They could make a song out of me
stretch my torso like whole notes
like Coronado’s sunset.

They could dot my eyes
like floating staccatos
or fighter planes hovering
over clay cliffs.

Turn my stiff lips
into sounds of slurs
in the sweet land of Del Sur
where tequila pours
more than rain.

Lovely lady by the sea
make a song out of me
drown my soul in your endless
rifts and crests.

Transform me into your unsung feature
your hidden notes
and cast my lines in your long-lost boat,
the boat beyond Coronado’s sunset
where fighter planes hover,
where tequila pours like rain
to forget past lovers.

Capture

Spencer Shaak is an MFA graduate in creative writing from Rosemont College in Rosemont, Pennsylvania.

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 this poem.

Four Poems by Christopher Mulrooney

entertainments

a quiet row succinctly handled
at the siphon stand down the street
and for something awfully sweet
hot cross buns faintly warmed over
and these are the oases after all
amongst the desert dwellers’ cubbyhole

fortress

well the gangbanging requires a mighty big area
to work with beams and lath and plaster
by the carload brought in special
and to cover all the noise the loudest décor
you have ever seen erected in Christendom

stalwarts
sure clean the house
drive the devil out at door
then quiet as a mouse
watch him come back evermore
sevenfold the dirty louse

pray you mater
what rubbish you luggage
the roundabout gits
not an ounce of leverage
to move a stone a pebble
and the world lies there

Christopher Mulrooney is the author of toy balloons (Another New Calligraphy), alarm (Shirt Pocket Press), supergrooviness (Lost Angelene), and Buson orders leggings (Dink Press).

“Rome and Tropea” by Erica Utti

Erica Utti is a student of the arts. Her photography has also appeared in Reflections Magazine.

Rome

Tropea

Erica Utti is a student of the arts. Her photography has also appeared in Reflections Magazine.

“Prose in the City” by Pietra Dunmore

My MFA nonfiction workshop was held in a small room, surrounded by bookcases with hardcovers and their yellowing pages. We sat around an oval, oak table listening to an older man with a sparse beard and black turtleneck. Among those plush chairs sat archetypes of stereotypical writers with their bushy beards, thick glasses, and self-proclaimed alcoholism. One of those writers was the man I fell in love with.

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Editor’s Post: “The City’s Wild Promise.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that “the city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time. In its first wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world.” Fitzgerald describes something that I’ve always felt when arriving in a city; the word that comes closest to explaining this feeling is hope.

Continue reading Editor’s Post: “The City’s Wild Promise.”

“Philadelphia” by Anthony Natale

Anthony Natale has been interested in photography, nature, and the city from an early age. His work focuses on living systems…life in the outdoors, as well as in the city. As a native of Southern New Jersey, he grew up surrounded by the NJ Pinelands, which inspired his artistic focus on living, vibrant communities. Now a resident of Philadelphia, he is often found wandering the city with his camera, capturing the intersection of nature and urban life. He works to instill a sense of wonder and respect in others about their environment, attempting to build memory through photography of the ever changing dynamic world around us.

“The Utti Family in Rome and Tropea” by Erica Utti

Erica Utti is a student of the arts. Her photography has also appeared in Reflections Magazine.

“Philadelphia” by Alice Shan

Alice Shan is a Philadelphia-based artist with an MA in Counseling Psychology. While not working in the nonprofit field, Alice enjoys reading, writing, and photography.

“Philly Phlebotomy” by Elaine Paliatsas-Haughey

In 1989, the old building of St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children is a faceless, beige, concrete slab, blended in among industrial-flat structures in a North Philly ghetto. Though a wide city street divides the building from its chain-link, fenced-in parking lot, the road seems narrow, probably because of my age; at thirteen, all I know is that I’m traveling down this street to have blood work drawn and that there’s no turning back.

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“Euphoria” by Pietra Dunmore

One afternoon I was passing the time at the Macy’s on thirteenth and Market. I walked in through the large columns and leisurely strolled the white marble floors, passing by the large glass display cases and cosmetics counters when I smelled it. The scent made my cheeks flush with warm blood. I detected a spicy mixture of ginger pepper, black basil, and amber that I knew intimately. My inner thighs tingled. Immediately, I turned around looking for him – my giant, my Bear – but he wasn’t there. I picked up the square glass bottle, holding it to my nose and closing my eyes.

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