THE CITY KEY

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).

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.

“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.

Continue reading “Philly Phlebotomy” by Elaine Paliatsas-Haughey

“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.

Continue reading “Euphoria” by Pietra Dunmore

Editor’s Post – Voyager in the Eternal

The searching voyager wants perfect pastel etchings, for this city sits adorned with lavishly accented terrains, hanging antique robes decorated deliciously by human hands, created for the creation of this city by an act of God. A chorus of noise resonates from that perfectly pitched instrument, the human voice, and as the quiet is pierced, the surrounding, splendid dark, filled with dim, amber lights creates the semblance of an ascending dawn or a dreary dusk. The myriad cafes are open late and exude the aroma of something softly baking. Nighttime inhabitants of this ancient and almost secretive city walk in the dark like supernaturals in search of feasts while the voyager sinks secretly into the background, and, by doing so, escapes everyday imprisonments. A cyclone of humanity, without name, mind, or material surrounds her while the wind floats softly covering her with color, breath, and fragrance.

Ayesha F. Hamid is a poet and creative nonfiction writer published in Blue Bonnet Review, Philly Flash Inferno, Sheepshead Review, and Rathalla Review. Her full-length memoir The Borderland Between Worlds is available through Auctus Publishers at Barnes and Nobles and Amazon. Ayesha also has a full-length poetry collection called Waiting for Resurrection. She is a Poetry Editor at Ran Off With the Star Bassoon and an Assistant Poetry Editor for The Night Heron Barks. She is the Editor-in-Chief at The City Key.

Ayesha holds a Bachelor of Arts in French and A Bachelors of Science in Sociology from Chestnut Hill College, M.F.A. in Creative Writing and an M.A. in Publishing from Rosemont College. She also holds an M.A. in Sociology from Brooklyn College. Aside from writing, Ayesha also loves film, travel, and photography. You can find Ayesha on twitter @ahamidwriter

Ayesha is a lover of cities, big and small.