THE CITY KEY

“Watercolor: Umbrella with Girl” by Jeff Burt

August rain,
her umbrella taut
as a puffed cheek,
a gust and she’s dragged
like a rag doll.
Soon, rain absent,
slack as an accordion,
she twirls it
like a baton
as if orchestrating weather.
In softened soil
at Gault Street Park,
she turns the umbrella
into a walking stick
poking holes
by the sidewalk
some will believe
have been made
by tunneling creatures.

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Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California. He has digital chapbook available from Red Wolf Editions, Little Popple River and Other Poems, and a chapbook from Red Bird Chapbooks, A Filament Drawn so Thin.

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“The Moon in Palermo” by Jane Rankin-Reid

In the early mornings, the sound of horse’s clip-clopping on the cobbled Billiemi marble of Palermo’s streets feels timeless. My experience of these echoic memories from across the ages is as strong as the sensory reflections certain aromas evoke. Later in the day, horses harnessed to ornate open carriages stand as their drivers idle, smoking and gossiping on Via Vittorio Emanuele, waiting for tourist fares. The odor of horses is ever present in Palermo’s ancient inner-city streets. It sometimes feels as if nothing has changed in the last one hundred years. Horses feel as if they’re part of the city’s sense of overlaying loss. Their contemporary presence lends an air of surreality to Palermo’s undercurrent of historic madness.

Last year while visiting on an extended sojourn, I often spent a part of my mornings lying beneath the Greek-Italian artist Jannis Kounellis’ Untitled series of nineteen old-fashioned wardrobes and cupboards. These unexpected objects are hung by steel wires from the ceiling on the first floor of the Palazzo Riso, home to Palermo’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Kounellis’ menacing flotilla of gravity defying objects loom overhead like a flock of heavy wooden birds. My experience of lying on the cool polished terrazzo floor beneath these airborne old cupboards, some with doors open dangling carelessly, is an intimate ‘suspension of disbelief’. This momentary flight of logic and rationality is an experience created by sheer daring, both mine and the artist’s. It is an artwork that invariably sent me out on my day’s journey exploring Palermo in a state of boundless wonderment. The installation opened my sensory pores to the potencies of the many myths and superstitions I frequently came across in the City of Happiness. It became one of my most favourite rituals, an inventive reverence of the flight of human creative imagination.

I kept running into the moon during those hot early July days. That morning, it was the fourth time we’d met in the last week. First, on Monday when it was being assembled on the pavement outside Giardino dei Giusta (Garden of the Righteous). There was something essentially convincing about its arced, white-painted slatted timber form rearing upwards in its rawest state. Workers crawled over its emerging shape with nails held between pursed lips, hammers dangling from worn leather tool belts. The next day though, it had not moved, the moon seemed to have become more secure in its identity. An indigo blue ‘sky’ of felt had been attached to its base. A day later, in a park closer to my home, the moon’s incarnation as a float for the upcoming Santa Rosalia festival parade was almost complete. White fluffy cotton ‘cloud’ pads were being stapled onto its nether regions. Santa Rosalia, dressed in pastel green robes, her long blonde hair rippling in pasty curls, had been erected to look as if she was astride it.

Two Poems by James Conroy

EVERY CITY IS MY HOME

Someone says my name
in another place as if they know me.
Every bus, every train is a homecoming.
I see my father in a stranger’s eyes
and my mother on a billboard.

Every city is my home,
mountains and prairies in the yard.
I tend to things the way this river
spreads itself in high-water season.
My clothes fit every occasion.

Every city is my home
though I am always going;
horns and sirens late at night
and a newspaper in the morning.

NO ONE SAYS…

“Correct me if I’m wrong,”
and means it.

‘L train rumbles by;
rumbling because it never
wants answers
to questions it hasn’t asked.

If I cross another bridge
will the river feel diminished?
The river heeds my concern
so we remain friends.
It will still freeze next month.

I pass an old building in demolition
and think it was a school, once.
Might have been.
I taste the chalk.

J. Conroy. heashot.3

James Conroy is a writer and editor living in Chicago. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in BLUE UNICORN, THE CAFÉ REVIEW, XANADU, THE ICONOCLAST, FREEFALL, SPEAKEASY, and the THE GROVE REVIEW among numerous other distinguished journals. He has also published a collection and eight novels.

“City Lights of Calcutta” by Camellia Paul

Camellia Paul has a Masters in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, India with specialisation in Canadian literature and translation studies. She currently works as a Senior Instructional Designer in a multinational ed-tech and professional services company. Prior to this, she has worked in print media and publishing houses of international repute, and been part of various academic translation projects. Her works of translation and fiction have been published by The Antonym. Her poetry and art have appeared in magazines and anthologies, as well as online journals like Livewire, The Fabulist, The Passionfruit Review, Setu, Troublemaker Firestarter, among others. She also has published photographs in The Telegraph, Kolkata and Setu. She has designed academic book covers and posters for international conferences, published by educational and research institutes, such as Sahitya Akademi, Jadavpur University, and Ashoka University. Currently, she is also learning Arabic. As an independent practitioner of the visual arts and photography, she has extensively worked on the interface of narratives from the everyday in a pandemic world across rural and urban spaces. Apart from being passionate about art, owls, and gardening, Camellia loves reading, listening to music, and exploring cultures. Camellia’s on Instagram handle: cammeowl. https://www.instagram.com/cammeowl/

Three Poems by Michael J. LaFrancis

The Goal Rush

Grand Central Station next stop.
Exit to the right of the train.
Watch the gap between the car and the platform please.

Thousands climb the stairs and converge
as they pass the golden clock tower,
that perches above the ticket counter.

The pounding of their leather heels
against the tile floor
sounds like a stampede

toward a set of stairs, these down,
to the Red Line 1, 2, 3
to the right side for Uptown, left for Downtown.

As the next train arrives the brakes are screeching,
the number or letter and destination is flashing
in red colored lights. The door opens, some get out.

Those who have been waiting push forward
trying to make sure they get all the way in,
before the door closes in front of them.

Some look forward, some look out
for the white letters and numbers
painted on black placards

This is 14th Street, Union Square.
The next stop is Brooklyn Bridge, City Hall.
Transfer is available to the 4, 5, J, and Z trains,

At the end of the day or week,
they will reverse this migration
to arrive home again.

I am in awe how many millions of people
can get where they want to go,
with a few simple signs for direction.

What Will Become of Me?

While so many of you
were under lockdown,
my clock at Grand Central was still

on duty directing traffic;
my trains and buses were delivering
those working to keep you alive.

I see you looking beyond your masks
into each other’s eyes, perhaps seeing
a cocktail of emotions for the first time

shaken and stirred are your stories
loss with longing,
like those that have been told before.

We will need to open our hearts
wider and deeper for me to be THE City
in your American dream.

The Dream

Your eyes are blue like the ocean,
observed the customs agent
at Beijing International.

“They are my mom’s eyes.”

A Chinese photographer
was taking pictures of me
in a tan fedora, brown felt boots,
snapping photos on my phone.

Cream-colored condos climb
out of the ground, like hollyhocks,
as bankers and investors play poker,
matching and raising tall buildings.

Cars crowd the throughways,
like ants on a hill. Tail lights,
street lights, and lanterns, all red,
decorate large cities, not scooters or bikes.

Our official tour guide,
a dark-haired woman, 30ish,
tells us everyone wants cash,
credit, cars and condos.

Permits are issued for alternate days of the week
that allow us to drive and run air conditioning,
guns and knives are not allowed in public,
police carry wooden clubs and walkie talkies.

China Dream was written in calligraphy
on a sign posted on a green construction wall.
“What is China Dream?”

We want harmony with our spirit,
in our relationships, meaningful work,
health and prosperity now, in the afterlife.

Michael

Michael J. LaFrancis is a trusted advisor and advocate for individuals, groups and organizations aligning purpose, capabilities and ideals. Writing poetry is a contemplative practice providing him with insight and inspiration for living a life imagined. He and his partner Sharon are co-authors of their autobiography.

“River City, Downtown” by Elliott Martin

The power of a river
cannot be contested by man,
whether by warship under sail,
or steam, harnessed for grain,
dammed for energy and commerce,
or forgotten and neglected.

In winter, the sun shines on the river
from over the bridge to the west,
and the mirror-glass-still water is broken only by its rocks.
On a summer eve, those rocks break white caps
as the force of nature rushes past, and a man in a kayak
journeys through downtown, a block away.

In wartime, these waters rushed past a foundry,
where hundreds of young women gave their lives making bullets,
and armies and navies battled for control of the capital city.

And the water rushes farther,
to where there was no Virginia,
to when Powhatan was understood by all,
the power of a river is in the life of its green algae,
and herons, and sturgeons as they pass,
struggling upstream to spawn where they were born.

Richard

Elliott Martin is a graduate student, writer, historian, musician, and poet living in Richmond, Virginia. His writing has appeared in The Copperfield Review, Artemis Journal, JerryJazzMusician.com, and elsewhere. Originally from Southwest Virginia, he has lived in Richmond since 2019.

Two Poems by Bradford Middleton

FELL IN LOVE AGAIN, GOD-DAMN IT!

I started looking again, looking
for somewhere new to lay my
head at night & write all day but
as I look out my door at this old
Brighton I think maybe tomorrow
I’ll start looking for a job in London
as the weekend past I went to see
& god-damn it I feel in love all over
again…

BRIXTON AIN’T ABOUT BASEBALL CAPS IT’S MORE A STATE OF MIND

On social media I see it a lot, white privileged
Guys rocking BRIXTON branded baseball caps
& each one I’m sure is so convinced of his own
Cool that I know none would have been able to
Live down that road like I did all those years ago
Above the Ethiopian restaurant & live to tell
The tale of the madness of those times with the
One woman I’ve ever really loved…

Bradford

Bradford Middleton lives in Brighton on the UK’s south-coast. Recent poems have featured in the Good Press’ The Paper, Dear Booze and the Mad Swirl. His most recent book The Whiskey Stings Good Tonight… came out last year from the Alien Buddha Press. He tweets occasionally @bradfordmiddle5.

“Memories, Like Leaves” by Tohm Bakelas

On the edge of town lies another town,
and beyond that, another. You lean
against a wood fence, watching invisible
wind move across untamed fields of
green that have begun to brown. It is
November and cold. Things are living
and dying. You think back, eleven or
more years ago, when, for twenty-eight
days, your punk band toured across the
country in a run-down green ’98 Chevy
conversion van that was purchased for
$1200 and came with two seats in the
front, a cigarette burned couch in the
back, no seatbelts, and a suicide knob.
You think about the long drives before
the shows, passing through towns and
cities with names you can’t remember,
across highways you can’t recall,
through states that you never stopped in,
and places that never knew you were
there. Long days of endless driving to
play fifteen minute sets in crowded
basements, dark bars, beige living rooms,
moldy garages, anywhere with electricity.
And when the tour ended, and the van
broke down, you had it towed to outside
your house to serve as a reminder of the
feats you accomplished and the memories
made. But tonight, eleven or more years
later, leaning against this wood fence,
you think of the nights after the van died,
after the band died, after the fun died.
Those cold November nights when you
and your friends spent in the van, huddled
together under blankets and sleeping bags
for warmth, drinking Heaven Hill Whiskey
and smoking pot, like a lost tribe of
shamans, exiled to die in New Jersey.
And tonight, these memories, like leaves,
are few and far between, little to none
remain. And it is cold, so very, very cold.

Tohm

Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including “Cleaning the Gutters of Hell (Zeitgeist Press, 2023) and “The Ants Crawl in Circles” (Bone Machine, Inc., 2024).

“Missing Manhattan in the Time of Covid 19” by Rebecca M. Ross

I want to eat the crowded streets of winter,
swallowing throngs of red-cheeked revelers
and harried shoppers

I want to stuff my mouth
with trumpeting car horns in the waning afternoon sun,
tinkling sleigh bells,
brightening streetlights,
and hints of imminent snow and cold
mixed with the smoky warmth of
doughy, salt-covered pretzels

Let me gorge myself on laughing lovers holding hands;
on couples mellowed with age but not spirit;
on friends celebrating memories
in the shadows of skyscrapers
stretching towards the bleak winter sky

I want to taste the city,
lick it greedily from my lips,
hold it solidly in my mouth like a rare delicacy

I want to quell my insatiable hunger
with that one saporous bite
of anonymity and acceptance,
the essence of Manhattan
engulfing me fully in its flavor
once again

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Rebecca M. Ross hails from Brooklyn but currently lives, hikes, and teaches in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her work has been published in The Metaworker, Medical Literary Messenger, The Voices Project, the Dissent Anthology, Rat’s Ass Review, and others, with work forthcoming or published in M58, Flora Fiction, and Backchannels.

“Hungry Ghosts” by Olga Trianta-Boncogon

She stood expectantly before remembering to push a thin panel on the glass. The doors chimed and the cashiers called out welcome without breaking away from their tasks.

The convenience store was clean, full meals stocked the fridge, counters offered tea-boiled eggs, sweet potatoes, and hot dogs. Cold air quickly enveloped her and made her forget the summer heat. She wandered from aisle to aisle, wanting to buy instant noodles but too afraid to ask what the sign on the hot water machine meant. She knew how to say hot water and excuse me, but worried that her butchered delivery would confuse or insult the cashier. She stood by the water for too long, a short woman squeezed past her to fill up her cup. She jumped back and bumped into a man using the ATM. She wondered when she would become used to filling up smaller spaces, navigating aisles wide enough for one.

She bought a noodle dish for dinner and sat down at one of the few tables left. Some people bowed their heads over their tables, squeezing in a quick nap, probably fresh off work like her. Others had their eyes on their phone screens and were scrolling past social media updates at the speed of light. Someone came by her table and silently took a chair.