Tag: Cities

Two Poems by Diane Grosse

Somnolent on the 1374

Floating bodiless over
a spectacle of color
crowds in harlequin regalia-
exaggerated bodies with
noses casting shadows
three feet long-
grotesque faces emit deep laughter.
The mind dances with sequined
guests as we glide on tiny smooth wheels
rolling through

a breezy meadow with
fluttering bouquets of butterflies.
Run and tumble, arms feathering
through multicolored daisies-
giggles catching in wispy fine hair

at a place of work
a familiar feel of tension-
the looming figure snatches
pages spitting from the printing mouth
waiting for approval.
Crinkles snake across
their forehead

Fordham
This is the local train to Stamford.
shift awake-

Tickets please.
force the ungluing
of eyes to produce the ticket
for a conductor
holding a slender cream baton
keeping time
gliding metal
starched white gloves
in flawless motion-
a kettle drum reverberation
lull

Days Before Winter Solstice

Shuffling office papers thirty feet up with windows
nailed shut for your safety, a barely traceable
scent of food turns a head, eyes settling past traffic lanes.
The bar’s picnic tables are un-hibernated, as are its patrons,
taking advantage of this seasonal mixup.
College gals lean forward, spilling out among themselves
(plus one); Overloaded straps about to ping.
Finger-combed hair is pulled back and
high in unison, piling to top knots –
All alike dolls.
Pitchers dribble. The girls follow,
washing down the gold.

Diane Grosse has been writing since childhood – spilling memories, desires, and fantasies onto paper. She has spent her professional life in the publishing industry, surrounded by words. After receiving a Masters in Writing, she upended her life, leaving her beloved New York for the South – and new sources of inspiration. Her first publication and award was for the poem, translated to Spanish as El Trovador, durng high school. Her writing has been published sporadically over the years in journals and newspapers. Most recently, her poetry was published at naturewriting.com, and an essay has been accepted for inclusion in a collection of works on the topic of human/animal interactions, forthcoming.

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Three Poems by Jeff Nazzaro

June Afternoon

But on a Friday afternoon,
first real scorcher of the year,
forgiving that January El Niño
aberration, they’re out

and about in the city. In a backyard
the size of an Orange County
bathtub, on the stoop, the sidewalk,
fire escape, passing a blunt

like a baton in a relay race. In the
street, old black mutt wobbling by,
a fresh-faced young mother,
husband at her side, presses an infant

into a minivan window for a final
grandma-grandpa kiss goodbye,
as a hunched old man pushes
his ice cream cart towards

Roosevelt Park, looking to cash
in on the vibe and the heat,
trading cold and sweet
for cold and hard.

Red on the Green

We’re all together here on the Green Line
this morning—Asian, black, white, brown, and all.
The man to my right sports a red knit cap.
In the bike space a man supports a pair
of boxing gloves around his neck, the laces
suspending the red leather mitts. There are
three red backpacks on shoulders, hands, and seats;
there’s a red lunchbox, too. This woman in
a tight red sweater just got off at Harbor
Freeway, maroon bag matching the torn shirt
of the large man asleep and snoring, matching
the ’68 Collegiate Tourist’s frame.
The vintage owner shifts the vintage bike
as needed, off the train and on the platform,
then back onboard. Original black grips
and pedals worn thin, worn black leather seat,
smooth-clicking 5 speed thumb shifter, brass Schwinn
nameplate screwed tight. The fenders steal the show,
polished chrome arcs reflecting LA sun.

Just Sayin’

Obviously cold and syrupy sweet,
the grown man in the Dodger cap
can’t wait to scoop it up into his mitts,
spoon it up into his mouth, having
stood in that parking lot in the shadow
of the Dollar Tree and the WIC office
and watched those strong little sun-bronzed
hands grip the blade, scrape the solid
block of ice perched on a red cart
beneath a rainbow-pie beach umbrella
to overfill a foam cup with cold shavings,
then ladle one, two, three full splashes
and a little dip, for just a skosh more,
of golden syrup into the golden setting sun
of a late afternoon, late October
in the twenty teens in the high nineties
on Washington Boulevard, downtown LA.

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Jeff Nazzaro lives in Riverside and works in West LA. He commutes three hours each way using Southern California’s wonderful public transportation system and swears he loves every minute of it. His poetry has appeared in numerous print and online journals, including Ekphrastic Review, Cholla Needles Magazine, ClockwiseCat, and Thirteen Myna Birds.

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Two Poems by John Grey

ENCHANTED EVENING

Back alleys, dye works,
factory-crawling brown river,
drunken melancholy of the bars,
loneliness of traffic jams,
flashing sign with three letters missing,
burnt-out tenements,
shuttered grocery-store,
hookers and junkies
and beggars
and homeless hunched together
underneath the overpass –
and still the stars come out.

EIGHTH AVENUE, FIVE A.M.

On a trip to the city,
I walk through
early morning
subway fog,
pass an old beggar
with an empty cap,
women, painted, formless,
against a concrete stoop,
trace the light
of late shift traffic
to its natural conclusion –
a young girl’s waking face
in a basement window,
hear distant sirens
like wolf howls
deep in the skyscraper woods,
and muffled voices –
shadows speaking
and then slowly speaking less.

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John Grey is an Australian poet and US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Stillwater Review and Big Muddy Review with work upcoming in Louisiana Review, Columbia College Literary Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review

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“Pot It’s Not” by Linda Romanowski

One of my Grandfather’s greatest pleasures and talents was his green thumb, which, because he was so tanned, I’d jokingly refer to as his “Italian Brown Thumb.” In the mid-seventies, when he came to live with us in Roxborough, my father and uncles made a small garden patch for him at the side of the house, and every inch yielded vegetables, plants, and flowers – there wasn’t a seed which wouldn’t grow for him. Grandpop’s favorites included the Italian herbs, oregano, parsley, basil, and rosemary. His summer harvest yielded far more than we and our neighbors needed, so he decided to dry the herbs and bottle them for use during winter months. He’d methodically cut the herbs, wash them gently, and then string each leaf with needle and thread in a long strand, hanging them on the clothesline, rigged up from our garage door to the end of our driveway. The herbs which dried best were oregano and basil.

Continue reading “Pot It’s Not” by Linda Romanowski

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?

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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.

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”

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

Pictures of the City by Thomas Gillaspy

Thomas Gillaspy is a northern California photographer. His photography has been featured in numerous magazines including the literary journals: Compose, Portland Review and Brooklyn Review. Further information and additional examples of his work are available at:

http://www.thomasgillaspy.com

Thomasmichaelart@yahoo.com

“Red Philadelphia Years” by Carlos Jose Perez Samano

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Years like bubbles,
leaves, or cups.

Before Market Street
just a plateau,
back in time
those old trees
that now name
our beautiful streets.

1634,
Lenape woman,
an Armewamese one,
corn, beans, squash,
three sisters,
daughters of
Kishelemukonk.

1682,
cousin of William Penn,
son of two good Quakers,
also called friends.

Can you imagine
Richard Saunders
writing in his almanac,
words to the wise,
just to become Benjamin Franklin,
our first American guy?

Coming from Haiti,
1793,
a relative of Mackandal,
speaking only Creole.

Summer 1800,
slave 24 years,
from Cuba by boat
waits in Lanzaretto a month.

In 1849
the Moyamensing prision saw
how Edgar Allan Poe
tried to kill himself.

The same year,
some boats,
some Germans came,
the 1848 revolution ended.

By 1984 a guy from South Korea,
with a name hard to pronounce,
came after rolling for years
in the South Cone,
also called South America.

Coming from a wealthy family,
he became poor,
like an Allegheny or Kensington
meth woman dancing
without mouth.
Now his name is Jimmy Pak.

We all came
from different places,
and different times,
and here we go,
the years like empty drawers,
rusty dishes,
broken and dirty dolls,
pieces of me and you.

We all know that brotherly love
is a beautiful image
but Lorraine Hotel was full of stories
that we try to forget.

L-O-V-E in red,
pictures of Philadelphia.
with or without the hashtag
#love.

Philadelphia can be,
a nest,
a red brick,
some red
and yellow
and pink,
falling leaves,
touching lightly
the surface of the river
floating smoothly
through the small waves of
the Schuylkill.

And Philadelphia is
snow when it snows,
and heat like hell
if you don’t have a fan.

Years will come,
we will be gone.

But today here we are,
sharing this
Philadelphia year.

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Carlos José Pérez Sámano is a literary fiction and nonfiction author, teacher of Creative Writing Workshops in countries like Mexico, USA, Kenya, and Cuba. He has four published books, and is the recipient of the “Best Seller” award of Ad Zurdum Publishing House. His work has been featured in more than 20 international magazines like Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review, Errr Magazine, Quinqué, Poetry in Common, Cultura Colectiva, among others. He is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in Publishing at Rosemont College. He will be published by Temple University Press in “Who Will Speak For America?” in 2018. Find him on Twitter: @carlosjoseperez
 

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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”