Poetry – Page 5 – THE CITY KEY

“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

RMRossBioPic40324

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.

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.

Two Poems by Shaheen Dil

The Hudson River Park

Red sugar on my tongue,
I walk along the gray Hudson
beyond the bronze pumpkin,
serpentine steel rods mimic benches,
past the fenced-off runs for dogs,
tennis courts, skate rinks,
past Pier 40, where the Hornblower Serenity bobs in oily water,
winks, huge and beckoning,
lights poking holes in a darkening sky.

I float on anticipation—
some glimpse of the world as black lightning,
Andean street players fingering pipes,
break dancers strutting their moves,
dreadlocks flying,
drums thrumming.

I pass strangers,
joggers’ faces showing pain or grace,
spinning to the honeyed air their sweat,
as though the evening were theirs to keep,
as though this secret could be shared with fireflies, blinking.

Union Square

Everything is on offer
Saturdays at the farmer’s market:

stands with wildflower honey,
jams, baked goods,

girls with fish-net leggings,
black thongs showing,

boys with eyeliner, earrings,
jittery, alluring,

Masters teasing challengers
at stone chess tables,

a cellist with open case,
hopeful singer at hand,

a smiling farmer selling high-priced greens
to city slickers,

free-range eggs,
as if the eggs themselves could walk.

On the plaza, dancers and protesters
move in a mirrored minuet—
shadows of skyscrapers join the dance.

Shaheen Dil is a reformed academic, banker and consultant who now devotes herself to poetry. She was born in Bangladesh, and lives in Pittsburgh. Her poems have been widely published in literary journals and anthologies. Her first full-length poetry collection, Acts of Deference, was published in 2016. Her second full-length poetry collection, The Boat-maker’s Art, was published from Kelsay Books in 2024. Shaheen is a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange, the DVP/US1 Poets, and the Porch Poets. She holds an AB from Vassar College, a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University—leaving campus only when it was absolutely necessary to get a real job.

“City of Pleasant Living” by Elizabeth S. Gunn

“This is because the caress is not
a simple stroking; it is a shaping.”
– Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

drinking into familiarity –
your orange raincoat…
teaspoons tickling the side of hope –
hopeful, let us

hypothesize in our unlit corner
of Fox’s Lounge, Route One
John Prine, Patsy Cline
sugar with despair

spilling lapsed time, timing
fingertips like frippery
your braid behind a teacup
ear listening to vintage chandeliers

like a desideratum
a language, South Miami typesets
| craving | Clevelander | aesthetics |
amid our city’s deco chords

let us be here in the aquafer
of humid desire the shape
of anonymity in a sibylline song –
the slyness of fox, the sadness of so long

Elizabeth S. Gunn (www.elizabethsgunn.com) serves as the Dean of the School of Arts, Sciences, and Business at Nevada State University. She writes poetry and fiction in Henderson, Nevada, where she and her wife live with their three rescue pups in the endless Mojave Desert.

“Maastricht, 1496” by Jake Price

I never noticed architecture
until you kissed the flutes
in my cheekbones.
–
We sat on a park bench,
hands clasped together,
watching strangers and pointing out dormer noses
and bay window eye sockets.
My body turns to rubble when you smile.
I would never tell you that.
–
The arch of your spine, facade to facade,
Romanesque afternoons mixed with wine
and latticework and I exist I exist I exist.
–

We used a crumbling statue as an ashtray.

I want to marry you here and then go back to the States

and forget about you.

Jake

Jake Price is a junior at Susquehanna University pursuing a degree in Creative Writing and a minor in Art History. He was born in Texas and currently resides in McConnellsburg Pennsylvania. He spends most of his time reading his work to his cat, Raven, who has yet to give him any feedback. His poetry has been published in Philadelphia Stories, The Poet Magazine, and The Viridian Door. His short fiction has been published in Cream Scene Carnival and Querencia Press.

“Waking with the City” by Judith Rosner

How I love when Florence wakes and
we share the day’s beginning together.

I walk on stones polished by centuries of wear
as I sip my cappuccino and watch the moon

give up his seat to sun as she rises behind me
lighting buildings birthed in Middle Ages.

I check out recently shined shop windows
as street lamps blow out like birthday candles.

The Duomo, looming large, preens for me,
showing off her white and green marble stripes.

I wave as I pass, happy to see her before she is
blocked from view by tourists as they pose for pictures.

Statues lining piazzas flex their chiseled muscles
reminding me it’s time to plan my day.

Judith

Judith Rosner’s poetry appears in the literary journal HerWords, the Living Peace 2019 Art of Poetry Anthology, the Jewish Literary Journal, the Gulf Coast Poets Anthology, Harmonic Verse, and the Bards Against Hunger 10 Year Anniversary Anthology. She holds a doctorate in sociology and retired from a successful career as professor, leadership developer, and executive coach. Judy and her husband split their time between Sarasota, Florida and New York City.

“A Walk Through Town” by VA Wiswell

My favorite sweater, beautiful wool
cables burnt an olive green,
a fleet of the moment, flea
market purchase,
previously owned, I’d bet
money, by Father Time,
scratches my skin. A
living reminder, an existential
answer:
I itch; therefore, I am.

On my street, storefront lakes
of concrete and glass stretch
into infinity, I think to paddle
past, not in need or
want of anything, instead,
always in want and need of
something, I stop to peer at
the glittery trinkets napping on
their velvety pillows, bored of
the endless admiration. In the
window, a face of youth absconded
joins me. I imagine, then, a cartoony
thief sneakily stealing year after
year, their crime unnoticed by this
poor stranger until too late.

Inside my favorite house,
affluent Arabica air, infused
with stranger-to-stranger
conversation, I wander to the
counter and toss my order,
complete in two extinct words:
Black drip,
onto the barista’s counter.
Behind me, in the line of my past,
a thousand soft-skin dinosaurs
celebrate my retrogression by
stomping and laughing loudly.
With my order, molten lava
secured in a throwaway paper
cup, I stay for a beat, daring to dip
my toes into the house’s blend.
Around me, human thumbs crouch
like lions, hovering over bright
screens of prey, restless to swipe
at the first flash of light. Clutching
only my coffee, I stand out, a herring
in a field,
bright
and golden.

Later, after hours locked in my time
capsule, a windowless space
heated with historical dust, I
manage to compress thoughts
that escaped days into bite-sized
bites, ideal for storage and
effortless consumption and
guilt-free disposal.

Now, I stand lectern sturdy,
self-examined to the
bone, before a passel of
glossy, scrolling eyes,
a galaxy vast and black,
and listen to the leak of
a lifetime escaping
between us.

VA Wiswell lives outside Seattle, WA, with her human and animal family. Her work has appeared in Writing In a Woman’s Voice, The Lake, Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, 34th Parallel Magazine, Sad Girls Literary Magazine, Ignatian Literary Magazine, and OJA & L Magazine. She has poems and short stories forthcoming in Front Porch Review and Crab Creek Review. You can find her on Instagram at @vawiswell and http://www.vawiswell.com

“Standing at the Edge of the World” by Christen Lee

Dylan, Cohen, and Cash wail melodies against the night sky,
sound waves amplified by these four walls
on which your own story is written in love and loss.

There’s something about the way you find hope
without hoping,
solace without soliciting, meaning without divining.
Just being here feels like salvation.

You’re not indifferent to this life you live
with its silver carpets, holly and honeysuckle-lined streets,
peeling birch and towering oak trees.
Just look at the azure sky, brandishing jewels on this golden
November day
where, together, we walk the crystal coastline,
press our feet into cool shallows,
steady our gaze upon an ocean that stretches beyond
the gold horizon.

In your backyard, grapefruit, lime and persimmon trees
sway with last season’s sweetness.
There are a thousand names for reinvention—
beauty begetting beauty, awakening from winter’s blight.
Today, you gather fresh mustard greens, cilantro,
blend hot chilies into chutney, simmer curry on the
stovetop.

We are so much more than what we make,
more than this returning bounty,
more than these cycles of giving and dying,
more than this hillside where you lead me
to show me the glowing city.

You could have all this, you say, tiny worlds
dancing at our feet,
dust and shadow parting ways for the starlight in our eyes.
You could make another life out here, but you know,
you can’t escape the hurt.
Even what’s lost can find you. It can buoy you
or it can drown you.

Keep close the memory of all who’ve gone before you.
Press your heart against the jagged edges of your pain
and bleed a bittersweet offering.

Savor the good, the unfiltered, the unholy potion,
ripened beneath an enchanted sun.
Believe in everything that brought you here,
while trusting nothing that promises you forever.

The world withers, you say.
Everything, someday, goes away.
But even then, even at the very end,
we’ll still be standing here.
Somewhere at the edge of the world.

Christen Lee

Christen Lee is a family nurse practitioner in Cleveland, Ohio. Her writing has been featured in Rue Scribe, The Write Launch, Aurora, Humans of the World, Sad Girls Club, 2022 New Generation Beats Anthology, Wingless Dreamer, The Voices of Real 7 Compilation, Ariel Chart, The Elevation Review, and Moot Point among others.

“Above the City Tracks” by Alexander Etheridge

The train moves far below this tower room
with a sound like a slowly drawn-out gunfire,
a strangely underworld story
unfolding—a question to an answer, coming apart
inside the mind. In the landscape of God’s ceaseless
memory, human thought grows backward and turns
from snow into time. In those outer fields, forgotten prayers
are common as dustgrains, and shreds of hope
define themselves on a background of burning seeds
and jagged hail. At a certain point, joy becomes an answer
to ongoing silence, like the peace of a star as it begins
collapsing, a spellbound amnesia returning to the heart,
and leaves of grief becoming rain on the rail line.

Alexander

Alexander Etheridge has been developing his poems and translations since 1998. His poems have been featured in The Potomac Review, Museum of Americana, Ink Sac, Welter Journal, The Cafe Review, The Madrigal, Abridged Magazine, Susurrus Magazine, The Journal, Roi Faineant Press, and many others. He was the winner of the Struck Match Poetry Prize in 1999, and a finalist for the Kingdoms in the Wild Poetry Prize in 2022. He is the author of, God Said Fire, and the forthcoming, Snowfire and Home.

“Daydreams and Prayers in the City” by Alexander Etheridge

I can see what I want in people—You, stranger,
I think to myself, you with the empty gaze

are the beautiful Eden snake, and you with the sad eyes
are an apple from the one forbidden tree.

I can see in the world another world.
I can dream up apocalypse or creation

in any landscape, corner, or shadow of the city.
Why else should I go anywhere, and why else

should I look into anything? I bring with me everywhere
a few grains of nightmare and paradise, I keep them hidden

in my pockets with my pen and my crumpled paper. What now
gives me faith in anything? The barely discriminating love

of dogs, the judgelessness of dusk and dawn,
the absolute indifference of black empty galaxies,

and all that exists without a question—
Even in the punishing chill of my mind,

I can find a shred of love, a thread of
compassion—they live there without a doubt,

or need of gratitude. I pray they imprint onto me
their pure design, their ancient elegance,

even in fields of hail, or on mountains of frost—
In the ongoing cold I look for salvation. Find me,

I say, find me even now, where I’m without name
or shape, or even a memory of light.

Alexander

“Strange Flowers” by Alexander Etheridge

Strange Flowers
—after Tom Waits

In that deep uncanny
world, dark blue clouds
ride low,
raining all night—
The crowded metropolis
is long hushed.
Everyone there is

an orphan leaving behind
their opulent palaces.
They’re all out

on the stormy streets, roving
and wordless.
Black ivy

grows over empty chapels
where crows fly in
through broken stained glass,
nesting in the high
rafters. Hooded figures kneel

in flooding gutters,
with their snakes
and torn prayer books.

And flowers never seen before
grow up through
cracked concrete
in ruins of the great
city

where every sound
but the rain
is extinct.

Alexander