Writing – Page 7 – THE CITY KEY

“1952 – The Biltmore Hotel” by DC Diamondopolous

For the past year, Irene had stayed home grieving for her husband. Now, she was ready to live again, but without Robert. Her new life would begin tonight in downtown Los Angeles at one of her favorite places, the Biltmore Hotel.

The lavender tails of her Hermès scarf fluttered as she entered the limousine and slid in beside her best friend. The fragrance of Beatrice’s White Shoulders perfume gave her comfort.

Beatrice reached over and squeezed her hand. “It’s good to see you, dear. Thank you for inviting me to this important occasion.”

“It’s good to be with you too,” Irene said.

“I can’t wait to hear Yogananda speak.”

For the past seven years, Beatrice had been a patron of the Indian guru and studied yoga and meditation at his headquarters in Mount Washington.

Beatrice patted her poodle cut with the palm of her hand. “Do you think it’s too short, dear?”

“It becomes you.”

The chauffeur navigated the driveway of Irene’s South Pasadena estate. As she surveyed the grounds, the feathers in her hat swept across the roof. The jacaranda tree had dropped its winter leaves, a golden buttery hue. In two months it would bloom purple. Robert would never see that splendid display again.

“I’ve missed you, dear. The French twist is so attractive, especially with that hat. And the scarf goes beautifully with your auburn hair.”

“I feel fragile. Like I’ll break.”

Beatrice moved her matronly body next to Irene’s and put her hand on top of hers. “Of course you do.”

Irene drew strength from her friend’s closeness. They had met ten years before when they were docents at the Huntington Hartford Museum.

“You’ve been so kind. The baskets of food and flowers were lovely,” Irene said. “And the phone calls. Brief as I made them.”

“I’ve missed our afternoon teas at the Biltmore, and here we are,” Beatrice chuckled, “on our way there.” She removed her hand. “I’m glad you chose to come out for Ambassador Sen. You’ve done so much to help the people of India.”

“Helping others is what saved me from despair.”

“Bus People at the Fordham Road Station” by Amy Soricelli

There are jury duty people on the bus from the
courthouse, you can see their mustard fingers from
the hotdog truck on the corner.
They are carrying right and wrong in the spaces
between the seats and judging with their eyes open.
Some of them have wax paper between their fingers
that they study with every bite.
The Bronx air creeps through the windows passing
nameless streets: no one keeps their lips
open long enough to sound them out.

I used to take that bus in the days of cold sandwich
lunches eaten before noon, and the steady drum
of fear I played inside my head.
No one on that bus knows which seat was mine but I
left my breath on the glass.
The coded letters fell off my notebook like
wild hearts on fire.
I would rock my feet under myself and pray for
salvation from geometry.
No one held my hand, only keys, and tongues, and
torn sweaters unraveling on my back.

The old couple in the longest seats is trading
words into their ears and covering their arms with wool.
They are cold in ways we can’t discover.
They look at others one by one; their separate
eyes judging from sneakers to hats.
They think they know you from the small bags you
carry or the way you keep your hands in your laps.
They could be jury duty people too with their pointing
fingers and glazed-over eyes.

Amy

Amy Soricelli has been published in numerous publications/ anthologies including, The Westchester Review, Literati Magazine, The Muddy River Poetry Review, Rumblefish Quarterly, The Bronx Magazine, Glimpse Poetry, *That Plane is not a Star (to be released 4/2024/Dancing Girl Press, *Carmen has No Umbrella but Went for Cigarettes Anyway, Dancing Girl Press 9/2021, Sail Me Away, Dancing Girl Press, 10/2019. *Pushcart Nomination: 2021, Nominated twice; “Best of the Net” 2020, 2013, Nominated by Billy Collins for Aspen Words Emerging Writer’s Fellowship/2019

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.

“City Bus” by Ley Wire

I ride the city bus
with strangers – strange as me.
We’ve nothing to discuss,
we sit there quietly.
The wheels beneath us
purr as they roll,
they hum a melody
of Industry
and Soul.

The Homeless, the Well-Dressed
The Young, and Elderly
Hip Cats, Top Hats, and me.
We sit silently,
listen as we roll
to the humming, purring, drumming
that’s coming from below.

I ride the city bus
every single night –
there’s no need to fuss,
it gets me home alright.
The bus exhales poetry,
in its gentle sigh,
we ride in darkness,
the driver and I.

The night cries,
the bus sighs,
we sit silently.
We listen as we roll
to the humming, purring, drumming
that’s coming from below.

Ley Wire

Ley Wire is a Wisconsin native, poet, children’s book author and fan of all things quirky. When Ley is not writing she enjoys long bike rides through the country and hanging out with her eight, rambunctious kids. For updates on her upcoming projects, visit leywire.com

“Queen City” by Erin Jamieson

We lived in undulating suburbs:
one brick home to the next
away from the cacophony of
blinking city buses & factory fumes
a mundane routine of chores
& studying, preparing for a future
my mother insisted I have:
safe, confined, stable but

my trips to the city became more frequent:
first, school trips with brown sack lunches
with soggy pb&J sandwiches: Eden Park,
Underground Railroad Museum
the city was colorful, chaotic, never asleep-
both frightening & compelling

I wandered back into the city
with no intent, just a need
to escape the small brick home
I found myself back in:
living with my parents in my 20’s

I took a trolley, wandered Over the Rhine
ordered a Shawarma Wrap from Arnold’s
bought flowers from Findlay market
tossed a coin just outside Fountain Square

I returned home, pansies and violas in hand
the scent and heartbeat of the city
clinging to my clothes like a second skin

& I knew it wouldn’t be long
before I found my way back

jamieson.78 Erin Jamieson holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University of Ohio. Her writing has been published in over eighty literary magazines, and her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her debut novel, Sky of Ashes Land of Dreams, was published by Type Eighteen Books (Nov 2023). Twitter: erin_simmer

“Afterwards” by Gene Fendt

The hurt purple of evening’s clouds
has pulled its quilting between the rooves and stars,

and winter spreads its tablecloths
upon the dozen building tops within his view.

Only the table in the farthest corner
has a light,

awaiting the happy couple
whose reservation has been cancelled.

In the gathering dark the snow appears
as a prayer of the heart spoken

long before it is known by the mind,
as once they had entered each other’s lives,

as wind begins its quiet dance with snow.
The deeper dark behind him grows:

the quiet sanctuary abandoned,
he stares at the single light.

Every table is the most expensive in the house:
the one at which no one is seated;

the lit one is exorbitant,
but for it we would not be open.

Only by accident and unknowing
will both be in this city again,

though the fresh linen snow will fall
a dozen times this winter,

starched to the crisp fall at the corners
on the tables they once looked upon

with love.

Geneheadshot24

Gene Fendt is the Albertus Magnus professor of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska, Kearney. His first book of poetry, “Eternal Life and Other Poems” will be published early in 2025 by Angelico Press.

“At the Museum with Mr. B” by Gene Fendt

“There’s a duchess,” he said, “who sees the world,
and knows its tricks; has played some in her time,
but now prefers a calm and sumptuous rest,
which this portrait gives her: a clear—nor evil,
nor confessing—eye, now looking on your
newest world with ne’er surprise or wonder.
Her own flesh, once ripe with five-fold joys,
still looks plausible, as she willed, though bone,
unfeeling, is all that may remain somewhere.”

“In this farm scene something of my old world
goes on, and of its better imagos—dei,”
he added, my half-learned Latin blinking back.
“This washer-woman, bare and chapped of arm,
still seems to feel the hot work her spent days
did—arms, shoulders, back, knees, even in sleep
shaped to muscle necessities through time.
Her younger counterpart—daughter perhaps?—
the milkmaid, sylph soft, though hair is up for work,
forehead against the warm haunch, still half a-dream
against the world her mother’s face is hid
by steam of. All of life not just between them,
but in them, under them, around them. Thus art,
and artist’s work, are only to reclaim:
Nothing having never lived takes its life
from him, but something live may live again.”

So we walked down, into the modern wing.
“Now this, I must confess, is quite above
my art and understanding—these dozen stones
a-piled, and twice that many, here, laid straight
upon the floor. Many streets I walked
with her were cobbled so—Rome, London,
Florence, which we loved with each own heart—
each stone owned history too. Dante, mayhap,
stood on one when first espying Beatrice,
another caught the blood of Caesar, or
a saint. Stonecutters, for their daily wage,
had fit them well for Summer’s swell, Spring rain,
Winter’s contracting bite. We knew all this,
and lived and walked, or carriage rolled upon them;
but these, removed, no longer part of life—
though once they were…. Their history writ and pasted
on the wall here, informs us of some slave port
landings and one time sugar storage:
what means this now, dissected from the whole,
and moved for exhibition to continent
and tongue of which it has no part? They are
as meaningless as stone, unless one speak
for them. Once cobbles spoke themselves to us—
of elders, of their elders, and their work—
a city we still could wonder in, walk on,
be grateful for. And is this all displaced?”

We exited to a shade filled atrium—
Roman copies of silent dancing Muses,
a laughing satyr, three burghers of Calais.
“In your gigantomachic city, this museum
seems not to scale, all else proportioned so
Titans alone might walk and see the sun.
This to human measure, and flaws humane,
spacious as a brain, with old—or sudden—
colors, versions of the universe, and
virtue pedestalled, here and there, a moment
on an off day to behold, to wander round
and down the quick steps to the café.”

“Except a love by which spirit pulls mind
through body to another spirit likewise
reaching for that beauteous totus tuus
embrace, I wonder what this time on earth—
our only—is all for; so all my work
is hers, as she once wrote for me: Portuguese
to English, nonesuch without her.”

“That you I never met before are kindred
in that spirit I have surely hoped for;
that all might see through each to the soul, I wished,
in work, to practice seeing: truth begets,
and trues, our wonder—what we were made for.
That bubble you are bent on blowing big
the sharp world will quickly prick—or itself
explode, its heavy bottom pulling
the world weight of its surface to a plane.
Only love’s gifts last, all of these are art.

Geneheadshot24

“Under the City, 1992” by Gene Fendt

On the subway you see:
sorrowful, defeated, dazed,
a girl almost in tears,
dark hair hanging
over her face; the man
in a dirty Giants jacket
asleep at 5:15;
and in the next odd car
an ethereal beauty, turned
to see herself in the dark
glass, not yet aware
of the world, nor wanting it.

Geneheadshot24

“Welcome to Bella’s” by Michael Theroux

Outside, the crisp yellow heat is brittle and breathtaking,
and has just flattened the afternoon.
Inside, there is cool dark red wine,
piles of pasta, platters of cheese & crusty garlic bread
with little plates of olive oil and balsamic,
and fresh ripe fruit – and time.

Time enough for us to talk, leaning in close
Bella’s – as if the very canals of Venice ran by outside.
Not streets of the southern San Joaquin.
Dull car traffic seems to be replaced
by gayly painted gondola poling their quiet way along –
while we sit with elbows on a red checkered tablecloth.

Apropos for Italy to exist here in America,
to not blend in, but to stand out bright,
discrete and insular, its own three-block nation.
Whether Napoli or Cherokee, we are a Nation of Nations
exuding the heady aroma of Difference,
the essence of Diversity.

TERU-2023

Michael Theroux’s career has spanned from field botanist, environmental health specialist, green energy developer and resource recovery website editor. Now he is shifting from the scientific and technical environmental field to the creative. He spends his days writing incessantly in his home in Northern California.

City Photography by Edward Lee

Edward Lee is an artist and writer from Ireland. His paintings and photography have been exhibited widely, while his poetry, short stories, non-fiction have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen and Smiths Knoll. His poetry collections are Playing Poohsticks On Ha’Penny Bridge, The Madness Of Qwerty, A Foetal Heart and Bones Speaking With Hard Tongues.

He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Orson Carroll, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Boy.

His blog/website can be found at https://edwardmlee.wordpress.com

“The Problem of Sequencing” by Jim Stewart

Motivation: Brooklyn is a matrix of blocks
for example, on Church the cars roll slowly, and honk
to pick up rides off the street. Everyone knows a way
to get around, squeeze between. In a Hilbert space
the dimensions can be infinite. So where are you?
From Empire Ave to Eastern Parkway the hill rises
and the Messiah’s face is everywhere. The problem
is trivially solved in spacetime. But every corner
is different from the day before. In the old truck lot
piledrivers are pounding in another tower beam.
The pierogi place is a weed store. Everyone knows
a way to a place they saw five years ago, or twenty.
It’s still there, and all gone. I’ve seen people stay
right where they are and end up in a different city.

Jim Stewart

Jim Stewart has been published or has poems forthcoming in In Company, New Mexico Poets after 1970, Liminality, Rattapallax, Passengers Journal, and the Moonstone Arts Center’s Ekphrastic Poetry anthology. He co-edited and designed Saint Elizabeth Street magazine and hinenimagazine.com. He teaches programming and logic in New York.