GUESTS OF CITY COLLEGE

 
CHITTHI  (LETTER) 
 
Eid is coming  
Accept my blessings 
My dear son 
 
Far from Asia,  
Across the globe,  
Stands America 
Where all “Become” 
Whole & Bold  
 
There you stay, 
USA, 
Leaving beloved  
Bangladesh 
 
Over here,  
Without fear  
Ershad (1) shares  
many Sandesh (2)  
 
In a few short years, 
Our revered 
Zia seized victory 
Opened the gates 
Of every place, overseas  
 
Now Chowgacha (3)  is 
A subdistrict  
1983, finally  
We have reached  
our city dreams  
 
When you come home,  
Surprised you’ll be  
Of all the beauty  
 
Happy Eid, wishing you peace 
A reply to my last letter  
Would put me at ease 
 
1  Hussain Muhammad Ershad was a Bangladeshi Army Chief and politician who served as the President of Bangladesh from 1983 to 1990, a time many consider to have been a military dictatorship. He seized power as head of the army during a bloodless coup against President Abdus Sattar on March 24, 1982  
2  Sandesh is a dessert, originating from the Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, created with milk and sugar.  
3  Chowgacha is a region named centuries ago, prior to the British colonization. It was named after the four towering landmark banyan trees. The spot surrounding the trees became a central hub to the village, lled with marketplaces. This is the rst place in Bangladesh to get its freedom during the liberation war in 1971. While Chowgacha got its victory on December 6, 1971, it received the sub-district status in 1983. 
 

Ahmed Ali, Shahittya Ratna (1909 -1991) 
Translation by Dr. Showkat Ali & Farah Ali

 
BOTH/AND 
 
If I judge you for judging me,  
am I flawed by hypocrisy? 
Should I endure your scrutiny 
So you’ll treat me more lovingly? 
 
Should I sit meekly while you speak 
of all your needs I do not meet 
if interrupting leads only 
to you getting more peeved with me? 
 
You argue that I’ll get my turn 
But I know that instead you’ll spurn 
each point I make. You’ll never learn 
that we’re both right. But still, I yearn 
 
for “both/and,” not just “either/or,” 
debates in which we don’t keep score, 
and we make sure to reassure 
that conflicts only bond us more. 
 

Emily Axelrod 
Alumna

 

A BREATH OF WIND         
 
“Not a breath of wind.” 
My mother said it like a mantra 
as if stillness were a virtue. 
“When are you coming?” 
 
I came in time to promise  
we would go home on Monday 
to sit in the garden 
and feel the breeze. 
 
Monday, we remained in hospital, 
window closed. She rattled in, out, in.  
At six o’clock she breathed out.  
Tiny sips of air danced on her lips. 
 
Even after the white linen shroud, 
I sat in the room for hours 
expecting something to happen, 
awed by the stillness. 
 
The funeral flowers died. 
The ashes sat on a shelf. 
But wasn’t there always 
a breath of wind? 
 

Yolande Brener

 
OLD WAYS 
 
To love a wound is hard enough to do, 
more trouble than walking with a crooked shoe. 
 
To heal a wound takes more out of the heart 
then does the shock that caused it from the start. 
 

Bob Burr 
Alumnus

 
 
PAVED PARADISE

(inspired by Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”)

this habitat   once protected

by stately oaks & birches

wild flowers & blueberry bushes

was sold to developers 
 

they put up signs

cleared every iota of flora & fauna

called it paradise

land for condominiums   parking lots   roadways

& shopping centers

for car clutter   loud music   smart phone chatter

& fast-food trash

for tiny potted plants

& a few sickly sticks called trees

 
a songbird with a crushed throat

lay by a discarded French fry box

I held its body   felt human torpor burn my palm 
 

Patricia Carragon

 
NIGHTINGALE VS. SKYLARK 
 
Today is just tomorrow with its clothes off.  
I slid from admiration to envy, 
disenchantment to disdain, for a poet   
I don’t know, I’ve never met, but just now 
I read his most recent poems, & thought, 
Poor bastard. Perhaps someone somewhere  
reads me & thinks the same, someone whose name 
I’ll only hear whispered beneath the knell.  
How goes it? It goes well. It went to hell, 
but yesterday is just today, naked 
under a sheet like a lover (or a corpse).  
We labor, he & I, in the obscure 
(though his obscure is more famous than mine). 
Song isn’t a tower but a dark well, 
the sinkhole of Time from which we lift up  
water once wine, now just water again, 
a freezer-burnt bucket of rhyme. Good times.  
It seems he’s switched from Seidel to Schuyler, 
& sure, why not? I stumble toward MacNeice. 
We’re searching for a bit of say-our-piece.  
We’re trying for a little day of peace.  
(Speak for yourself, he’d say if he read this.) 
No one is ever on the same page.  
Tomorrow is just today’s empty stage, 
the spotlight a body without a soul.  
Or is it a soul without a body?  
A spirit looking for an unchoked throat?  
High above, unseen, song is a jet stream, 
while I wake or sleep, nothing in between.  
Good luck, I think, even though you know  
the taste of it, even if, to you, it tastes  
like something else, warm but still sharp, 
verses versus us, the numbered shadows  
of a wish wrapped around a falling coin.  
I hope you know I wish you well enough.  
 

Gregory Crosby 
Alumnus

 
A FAMILY

In Memory of Dana Driskell

An unforgettable Friendship 
An unforgettable bond 
In the primal experience we bonded

Dana 
Roselle 
Marlon 
Albert

Where ever the table may be 
We sat for the feast 
And carried away

In conversations

Limited only to what

Imaginations

Could not conceive 
Through it all we become

A Family

Like no others 
 

Albert Dépas 
Alumnus

 
BORDERLINE INGRATES 
 
fossil enchiladas 
greet the grand splenectomy 
venting scene

after

       carting              flume scene 
       drama stitches 
 

the cradle tumescent

as its carriers launch

​

the breeding pulpit

​

at any river chart currently tiding

along the scored line 
streaming mouthwash handily 
while

bent

spleens

 

lurch belated rumination lunch

 

(food for ought)

 

feeding the hand to bite them

​

Vernon Frazer

 
THEN THE LORD ANSWERED JOB OUT OF THE TWEETSTORM 
 
So what, I did it! Afflicted you in every possible way. Just to win a bet. Now you'll understand that the sanctimonious odor of your days, your slaughter of time in pious ritual, is nothing to me. What the void at my center craves—and you must agree, it's a magnificent abyss—is absolute loyalty. No room on twitter (Sad!) for the corner- 
 
stone of creation, much less the sea with its proud waves. Can barely squeeze in the wilderness and the appetite of young lions. One unicorn. A single ostrich egg. Or leave room for the glory of the horse's nostrils. Still, my tweetstorm shows your pain's Lilliputian and cannot contend with mine. Better get tough and smart before  

it is too late! We will always have a great relationship with foreign powers like Satan! 
Domestically, you and I have entered into a private contract. Nondisclosure and no complaint. Toss the golden coin of your loyalty into the gnawing void of creation. Any loss of goods and family will be compensated for, abundantly. 
 

Philip Fried

 
TRANSCRIPTIONS 
 
Echo’s warble was passion, 
her salutation as resonant 
as your rebounding hail 
 
But your syllables, your Latinates: 
accordance of wish 
or refraction of my own yearning? 
 

Cori Gabbard 
Alumna

 
PERSPECTIVE 
   
Sunlight travels a great distance 
to greet her at her kitchen table. 
TV pops background noise. 
Cars swish along the street. 
Motorcycle somewhere. 
Garbage can scrapes the curb. 
Speck of airplane drones its way to LaGuardia. 
 
The sky is really no bigger than the head of a pin. 
The country we’re at war with? 
Small as the freckle on her right cheek. 
Even the Atlantic Ocean can be funneled to a bird bath.  
And all the saints dangle on her key chain. 
 

Nancy Haiduck  
Alumna

 
LISTEN, TONIGHT 
 
to the leaves murmuring 
in the yellow fields 
to the aches of a peasant 
the pain of an abandoned child 
look at Tiberias disguised in shadows 
the the minuscule footsteps of stars 
feel the touch of a beggar 
 
and answer me why we pretended-- 
when we measured the earth 
 
and there was no space for both of us 
 

Nathalie Handal  
Featured Guest Poet

 

MENACE OF SORDINI 
 
What do they mean, 
these teeny-weeny sordini 
 
in an edge-frayed black-and-white 
of childhood fright, silent rite,  
 
obscuring fact at which your eyes  
flinch and flail, but never quite unveil, 
 
nor spy in blissful bigger pictures 
a wreck of little necks, that you also miss 

routinely looking much too keenly 
at easy-peasy, wishy-washy in-between.  
 

Marc Jampole

 
 
WINTER: FOUR HAIKU 
 
The jaws of the cliff 
Stood square against the soft hands 
Of a first snowfall. 
 
The children do not 
Cry out nor do they plead once; 
Snow dampens the wood. 
 
We’ll wait here a while, 
Tying knots and sticking fast, 
For winter had its way. 
 
You had said one thing, 
And someone else another; 
Outside, winter waits. 
 

J. Chester Johnson

 
OUT OF THE PAST 
 
You find yourself in a deserted industrial park, 
The flues warped and twisted, ramps disengaged, 
The smoke barely dispersed. This was a place 
You once had lived, although there’s little sign of life, 
Little to identify the small streets, the avenues  
Of your past. It’s morning now, and you cough 
At the cloud blocking the sun, then look for someone. 
There she is, just past the back of a foundation, 
Wandering like you. There are benevolent details 
As you get close to them: a trickle, a rivulet 
Of clear water reflecting the dawn, a ladybug. 
The twisted pipes, the filters, gears, torn 
Conveyor belts hanging like thick rubber bands, 
The colossal sense of idleness recede. The insect 
Is something to behold. It is morning, you are 
Awakening, and the woman is walking toward you. 
 

David M. Katz 
Alumnus

 
OWL 
 

She birthed you, but she is so

unknowable.

Is that the word? Try,

nocturnal. Each night

she glides on wings silent

as a vole quivering

under snow. Perched on your

bedroom sill she watches

you dream-twitch, then spins

her head to spy the snow-

mound ripple—sugary in moonlight—

as the vole tunnels past pines.

She lifts off, silent still, and you—

daughter of hurt and squeal—

are awake. When you sigh,

your heart-shaped face

aches. Is that the word? Try,

breaks, knowing when she dies

you’ll inherit all she’s swallowed

whole yet had to leave behind. 
 

Meg Kearney 
Alumna

 
REDHEAD AND BLUE  
or, Games I Wouldn’t Play 
(after What I Wouldn't Do by Dorianne Laux) 
 
I. 
Some of us bicycled around the playground, 
our playground, at PS 221 
around the corner, three turns without 
crossing the street, away from my house. 
A crisp Fall day; school had already started 
and we crunched the leaves underfoot; this was our music 
long before we all carried transistor radios 
tuned to WMCA and the Top 20. 
Most of us were in the second grade and smart. 
No game plan in mind, no game, 
we ran around each other and hollered; 
all the kid things we’d do.  Brian had two 
D cell batteries in his hand and heaved them 
skyward as if it were the fourth of July. 
We looked skyward too as the space projectiles 
returned to earth, one docking, 
conking the roof of my head. 
We all laughed deeply, as did I. 
Brian walked around behind me 
and said, “Hey, your head is bleeding,” 
as I kept laughing, passing my hand 
around to the back of my blond buzzcut, 
pulling my palm into sight, still laughing, 
and all I saw was red until all went black. 
 
II. 
I was playing with my friends in the courtyard 
of my building in the projects when I heard a rattle, 
a shaking and my archenemy George 
came to me, specifically, with a crazed grin 
covering his ugly face.  He shook the 
spray paint can up and down, 
continually up and down 
and without a word, sprayed 
the back of my blond buzzcut, for I was 
still one year away from thinking myself a hippie- 
sprayed my head brighter-than-royal blue. 
I considered shaving it all down bald 
but thought better of it, and wore my blue patch 
proudly, a sign of surviving a war. 
Seven years later George was in battle 
and lost his head in a spray of shrapnel 
in Vietnam. 
 

Steve Koenig

 
A MORE PERFECT UNION 
 
Narrowed down to this population of two, 
we continue to believe in the wisdom 
of a census, and knock on the door of each 
of our senses.  And if – where we have to go – 
helpful words answer, knowing why we’ve come 
when even when we don’t, we listen and follow 
and laugh to discover that it is our hearts, 
counting all the ways we are represented 
 
in each other’s waking and dreaming precincts; 
sheltered here in these united states of us in masks. 
We know it’s just a sampling.  A preamble 
to what we once hoped for and joined together 
under one sail and the mercy of wind and sea. 
Now, a plague may prove us ungovernable. 
 

Richard Levine 
Alumnus

 
NOT YET BORN/       MAY, 2021 
 
(for mom/ for papa/ may,12 & may,13) 
 
it's in memories that fold 
in air, like overturned  
ocean waves, where  
my grandfather’s house,  
on jasmine street,  
 
still floats  
 
its sun porch,   
steeps in early may  
afternoon light, while mom  
ties up her hair for a saturday date 
and, nana polishes silver for sunday lunch, 
 
as the dogs wait patiently  
for papa's walk to kissena park  

this morning i see them all,  
though me, i’m not yet  
even a thought 
is this what the long sleep  
of death is like…  
 
a trinket in God’s hand 
 

ellen aug lytle

 
APRIL FOOL 
 
glimmerglass of things to come 
flipping the keys 
at speed 
 
jumbletumble to the surface 
bereft of liquid light 
time boxes     time lapses 
 
you've sailed away to the firmament 
or the underground raucous circus space 
how i wish you were here 
up in my big blue bed 
from time to out of 
time 
 

Eve Packer

 
FEAR POSTPONED, MY HOUSE IN FRENZY 
 
At the front door, through glass, fog, 
I throw kisses, wave to those who pass by. 
 
An ugly red monster lurks somewhere.  Virus, 
jelly fish, mushroom, just outside my house. 
 
In the living room, my face in the mirror—pruned  
spider plant, wild fern, trimmed hair 
 
out of place. I learn yoga— 

downward facing dog, warrior thrust, 
 
my teaching job taken away, carried off 
like a used book, a delayed tv series, 
 
cutbacks in budgets, toilet paper. 
We zoom all day around the house or by computers. 
 
Who else is looking in or out of windows, 
searching, peering—squirrel or blue jay? 
 
I practice keeping fear away, 
pound dough, cut it, let it rise for bread. 
   
Wind and snow spin into my open window, 
the dogwood tree blooms a gaudy pink. 
 

Cathy McArthur Palermo 
Alumna

 

SPEAKING IN TONGUES 
 
Once in the face of gnawing, a rave 
the corner sunsmash bugaloo of home 
the mesh bus stop: a shell of world 
disappeared, taken as mother and city   
as urdu, russian     meaning borrowed    
 
beside the b-side   the delicate horror  
of lacrimal ducts, windows    
roughed out of cahoots, a little segue 
humming vignettes in situ—     
 
and from the south a violating light  
wraps hard   doesn’t leave  
a pillow for memory     the so-called      
bedouin scraps     congregate 
re-vowelled into supple topography 
 

Jaclyn Piudik 
Alumna

 
THINK OF ALL THE MOON IS 
 
Think of all the moon is. 
The moon is a potato. 
(It has all those eyes.) 
The moon is the astronauts’ trampoline. 
It’s a thumbtack stuck in the sky. 
 
It’s a private eye 
hiding behind rooftops and 
following me down the street. 
It’s a gardenia on my dress 
as I walk in pink satin slippers 
to my first real dance. 
 
It’s a whole note. 
It’s a bare lightbulb 
burning in my studio at night. 
 
It’s what children write their first poems 
about, unless they write about snow 
on cherry blossoms. 
 
It’s the onion ring you put 
on your Liederkrantz cheese and 
mayonnaise sandwiches late at night, 
drinking beer. 
 
It’s a flashlight that shows the path 
to the top of Black Rock Mountain 
where the campers hold hands and 
move in a circle, revolving 
at the top of the world 
on the spring solstice. 
 
It’s a white goddess hunting down men 
and turning them into stags, like Actaeon. 
It’s a pingpong ball. 
A glass eye. 
My childhood wrapped in a crepe paper 
treasure ball tied with gold and silver stars 
that I unwind, finding
a tiny gold ring at the very end. 
 

Stephanie Rauschenbusch

 
EXCELSIOR 
 
Being demure, I’ve had to endure 
U Tubes, interviews and essays by women 
claiming unremitting love for you. 
There’s even a name for them, 
Cuomo-Sexuals, for God’s sake. 
You need to know that I was first 
to save my second cup of coffee  
for your daily briefings. How I wait 
to see the color of your ties, what lapel 
pin you chose and gauge how many days  
since you touched up your hair.  
And those weekend polos, OMG 
those muscular arms. I can feel them 
around me as we speak. When I was 
twelve I was certain I’d marry Paul 
McCartney. Oh, I forgave Linda, but not 
that second one who stole his money. 
He could have avoided that  
had only he met me. That’s why I’m not 
letting you go. For four years, 
I’ve starved for honest, straight shooting,  
factual directives, Andy. 
I call you Andy. I’m not looking for 
a cheap fling like those other floozies. 
I want to marry you! Note: I make a mean, 
tomato sauce. We’ll pick up Matilda 
every Sunday for family dinners  
and I’ll stop fretting about the meatball  
in the White House. We’ll ask Tony Fauci  
to give me away and Dr. Birx to be  
my matron of honor, hail her  
a fashion plate for older women.  
What do you say, my Captain, my Excelsior? 
 

Donna Reis 
Alumna

 
TO THE HEART 
 
The idea is to see the whole person, 
not a fragment of the person. 
The fragment one sees might be appealing, 
but one might be missing something: 
the heart of the person. 
The fragment includes the surface, 
but not the heart. 
By the heart, I mean the direct emotions, 
not the oblique emotions received from only a fragment. 
One wants to go directly to the heart. 
 

Thad Rutkowski

 
WIND SONG 
 
The closer you listen to the wind 
The more potent is her attraction 
You must be far from noisy streets 
Even birdsong is distraction 
 
Dried cornstalks symphonically rustle 
Wind’s subtle breathy sigh 
Pausing at dark forest edge 
Hayfield’s whispers fly 
 
When you try to describe wind song 
Invisible melody defies replication 
Foreign rhythms mysteriously echo 
Transcending any translation 
 

Ilka Scobie

 
UNEXPECTED ANGELS 
 
Expectant of Angels, 
He faces the direction of Angels 
Holding hope behind a door of longing. 
He waits in the lingering count of hours, 
     never turns, just prays and speaks no ill 
          for direction is last Hope,  
Even when doors are closed tight. 
But there is a wind in the window 
   and brighter whispers winging-in. 
The sun has pushed apart the clouds. 
Has he turned to see? 
These unexpected heralds? Angels? 
Perhaps it is rare, but a glimmer worth holding. 
Desperation has made the bones arthritic holding one position. 
But Angels from another direction? 
Can this be?! 
He turns slowly, stands and faces the                    unexpected answer to his prayers. 
So long he defended the direction of Angels,

This never came to mind,

Until today, when the light makes his bones lighter and he feels young and ready

for the days ahead.

He laughs and rubs a hand over his head. 
“And to think all this time, I expected Angels to knock at my front door!” 
 

Mason Trent

 
THE HUGGING KIT

After Maura Cristina Silva trying to comfort students in Rio de Janeiro 

Can we reach through our computer  
screens to hold someone’s hand  
gently but firmly and share  
our life force a moment?   
 
If that doesn’t work, let’s throw on 
a disposable raincoat, surgical gloves,  
and masks, and drive around  
North Carolina offering hugs 
to distance learning students 
stuck at home.  
 
Each sanitized embrace 
leaves a few traces of hope.
The hope that fades  
in young people’s lives  
when they face a future  
looking like a bleak  
wandering into the horizon. 
 

Melinda Thomsen 
Alumna

 
AS THE CROW FLIES 
 
Late afternoons when the light dies, 
Crows rise into the bare winter skies. 
At evening we can hear their raucous cries. 
 
If you could look into a crow’s black eyes, 
Would what you found make you foolish or wise? 
Would you take a crooked path and go on telling lies, 
Or finally go straight—as the crow flies? 
 

Henry Weinfield 
Alumnus

 
FLIGHT MANUAL  
for Barry Wallenstein 
 
Obey the wind when it waggles your wings. 
Blue-streak curse when you get hurt. 
Lie when the dice are more loaded than you. 
 
Live like tomorrow owes you a silver dollar. 
Love like fog hugging the river, before  
dawn’s red cap ushers in a separate agenda. 
 
Join a chorus of flame-throwers all aimed 
at the same outcome—a silver-tailed comet 
that shows up in your eyes when you stare 
 
at the ghost we’re seamlessly laying out 
to take the place of forever and its rabble horde, 
lost in the crossroads of your place or mine. 
 
Try hard to find a way to be found. 
The diamonds we cut don’t hoard any shine. 
 

Jeffrey Cyphers Wright