Editor’s Post “New York City, May, 2023”

Ayesha F. Hamid is a poet and creative nonfiction writer published in Blue Bonnet ReviewPhilly Flash InfernoSheepshead 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.

Editor’s Post: City Escape

The suburbs aren’t the place
for those searching to find somewhere,
someplace where everything isn’t the same.
Yes here, everything’s mundane, even rainbows dull,
sun burns golden but then subdues and
Spiritus Mundi’s disappeared.

Voices which won’t synchronize
are silenced by blusters of conversation
surrounding incomes, cars, and houses
where every sentence uttered is an
unwelcomed show of dominance
in which the unwilling are forcibly invited.

What if the conversations could instead,
while walking down Prospect Park or gazing
up at stone buildings or metropolitan blocks,
revolve around one’s innermost thoughts,
scars, or saving the world-at-large?

profile-1

Ayesha F. Hamid is a poet and creative nonfiction writer published in Blue Bonnet ReviewPhilly Flash InfernoSheepshead 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.

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.

Editor’s Post: “Center City, Philadelphia, 4/16/2018”

profile-1

Ayesha F. Hamid is a poet and creative nonfiction writer published in Blue Bonnet ReviewPhilly Flash InfernoSheepshead 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.

Editor’s Post: Enchantment

Constantinople calls, sitting between continents
crossroads of civilizations, a city of starlit
streets and blue domes, gargantuan in size,
alien steel floating in sky.

Istanbul mornings fill with light as cold
air from water wafts in. The beauty
of buildings every color bright,
surrounds with red, yellow, and green.

Shivering under covers, city dwellers
wait to hear adhan, the call to prayer the steadfast won’t miss. 
At break of day, Istanbul’s sun hits eyes from behind
buildings, off water, until bright rays
become locked in mind.

Nightmares dissolve as night falls
and frees you from memories of disenchanted days.

profile-1

Ayesha F. Hamid is a poet and creative nonfiction writer published in Blue Bonnet ReviewPhilly Flash InfernoSheepshead 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.

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.

Editor’s Post: “Walking the City”

Walking through a city is a transformative act. Contemplation, movement, and observation come together in a wonderful whole, so that walking in a city proves to be a transcendent experience. During this pursuit, we seek greater insight into events in our lives and our minds. We can simultaneously be alone but connected to the multitude of humanity surrounding us, which puts us in tune with a larger consciousness. In this way, walking the city can be one of the most contemplative state in which we find ourselves.

Continue reading Editor’s Post: “Walking the City”

Editor’s Post: “Coney Island Cats”

In front of freezing beach air, NATHAN’S glows neon, pink, and green while other lights from the central-subway depot glimmer phosphorescent. In this cold, what could be better than a steaming cup of tea? I remember that doughnut place outside the station like it’s a revelation, but you say that tea would be a distraction, and it’s impossible to get driving lessons from anyone, so instead of tea, we circle the boardwalk, learning to turn, how to brake, and accelerate.

Continue reading Editor’s Post: “Coney Island Cats”

Editor’s Post: “Finding Magic in the City”

Even on an uneventful trip to New York City, I’ve always had one moment, at least one, that was magical. Take my last trip to New York. After a relentless winter with little sunlight, I thought that a trip to the city, on a relatively sunny day, would be a welcome change. Hopeful for a fun-filled trip, I woke up at six a.m. and prepared myself for an eight o’clock bus ride. As I drove to Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, the sun was already bright, heating the city and melting snow. After boarding the bus, I fell asleep immediately, so the ride to New York seemed to happen in a matter of minutes. I woke up as the bus entered Manhattan.

Continue reading Editor’s Post: “Finding Magic in the City”

Editor’s Post: “New York City”

Ayesha F. Hamid is a poet and creative nonfiction writer published in Blue Bonnet ReviewPhilly Flash InfernoSheepshead 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.

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.”

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.

profile-1

Ayesha F. Hamid is a poet and creative nonfiction writer published in Blue Bonnet ReviewPhilly Flash InfernoSheepshead 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.