GUESTS OF CITY COLLEGE

 

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A POEM I SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN (FOR AMIRI BARAKA) 

When I saw the smile                                                                                                 
inside caustic lye                                                                                                                 
that smeared the face                                                                                                                 
a liar                                                                                                                                         
sought                                                                                                                                          
to place atop a stack of bibles;                                                                                            
When I heard bass beat rumble                                                                                       
beneath a rat-a-tat of a snare drum,                                                                                      
then, I should have sat me down. 
When I laughed at your hip-dip approach                                                                            
book-heavy bag, clutched in your hand;                                                                                
Then I should have written                                                                                                
how the sound of your words,                                                                                     
sometimes strung on ropes of twine,                                                                           
dropped stitches on bones                                                                                               
needled into lines thinned                                                                                                     
by necessity for brevity,  
Then, that is when I should have written;                                                                         
Friend, Brother, in stone.                                                                                                   
Etched in my heart and memory                                                                                      
are all those annoying, endearing, surprising elements                                               
that make up the You of Who You are/were.  
Rizzoli Bookshop has closed. Few places remain                                                                        
to wander rows of books.                                                                                            
Looking for bargains is tricky.                                                                                              
And you, oh Great Trickster, have left,                                                                          
gotten yourself out of here…                                                                                       
Well, write on Owl Eyes.                                                                                                    
Write On. 
 

  Rashidah Ismaili AbuBakr 
  Alumna 

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THREE MEDITATIONS IN THE CAR 
 
I.  
I am happy 
for all the wrong ways I went  
for all the wrong turns I took; 
they all led me to you.  
 
II. 
I drove out 
one hour to see you  
then drove another hour back 
only to find out  
the trip to you 
was a journey within. 
 
III. 
I drove far 
farther away from me 
there 
I got closer to myself. 
 

  Maryam Alikhani  

 
 
PANSIES —PENSÉES IN FRENCH 
 
On my way to visit my sister in the hospital 
I stopped at a florist to get her some pansies 
and only found orchids, nasturtiums, and roses. 
 
There’s something touching, like old remembrances 
in the pensée, that a self-absorbed orchid, a jubilant 
rose or humble nasturtium cannot bring forth. 
 
My sister cannot speak. She gasps  
at the rhythm of the IV drop, forcefully squeezing  
my hand with all she wants to say. 

I wish I’d found a handful of pensées 
to evoke from past and present— all I want to say. 
 

Nicole Andonov  
Alumna  

 
 
PARTS OF THE CITY 
 
Parts of the city are always dropping off the edge, 
along with my glasses, which makes you think 
it's difficult to see clearly. But if you are an art historian 
it's all in the frame.  In an act of faith take responsibility 
for everything--including yourself.  Something worthwhile 
will surely show up as we work out this conundrum. 
 
Because children come and go--and that's all we have 
you know--these bisexual training bras and traumas: 
birth parents here, parabolas these, one another's organs 
and paradoxes dropping in like landlords from the sky. 
 

  Dorothy Friedman August 

 
 
WHAT I KNOW OF BASEBALL 
 
Spectators gather  
in an amphitheater  
facing a field,  
where two teams convene  
in a diamond shape. 
A singer leads the crowd  
in a rousing anthem 
to glorify the nation. 
A man on one team  
throws a ball toward a man 
on the other team,  
who hits the ball with a bat, 
like an oversized magic wand. 
The hitter attempts to run 

past four sacred plates 
before his opponents 
capture the ball and throw 
it to a particular place. 
This process earns points, 
and is repeated for at least 
nine segments of time, 
as some fans chant praise, 
while others boo, 
depending on which team 
they want to support or spook. 
When fans hunger or thirst, 
funds are sacrificed 
for costly food, 
and beer is often imbibed, 
to heighten the ritual. 
After the victor is declared, 
the crowd syphons from their seats 
through a maze of ramps and stairs, 
to the clogged roads home. 
Traveling, they reflect 
on the game’s results. 
Prospective redemption 
lends purpose to those 
whose chosen team failed. 
And for worshippers 
of the winners, 
order now appears 
to exist in their world.  
 

Emily Axelrod 
Alumna  

 
 
NOT TELLING YOU 
            

when I heard about those boys, 

how they were seized from their mothers in freezing 
night, marched by the guards 
into the gasp of hell.        They must have tried 

to be brave -- in the fog, 

if that could save them, 

boys your age                       dragged from  bed              there are pictures 
of the fathers  ---      herded into the  public square 
the fathers                 with their last breath 
 
covering their sons'  eyes with still-warm hands 
so the sleepy boys               would see Death only 
from the inside. 
 
Here they come now           your friends 
learning how to show nothing. 
You would kill me if you saw me watching. 
            

Is it time to go 

into the bush to kill your first lion, 
time to step out 
on the cold surface of the moon?  How will you know 
which air is safe to breathe? 

 
-- I used to breathe you, the powder smell 
 
of your neck. 
            I’d tuck your bunny beside you: 
Hush - - -       We’d read in the lamp’s yellow circle, 
Goodnight Moon      we sang against the dark. 
Now you    have to walk    the cool walk. 
 

  Patricia Brody 
  Alumna 

 
 
THEN 
 
Your presence made me feel safe, 
when you were near my bed or on it, 
there awakening each sonnet 
in my head, and so I gave 
my love to you and tried to save 

all that I could of our short moment. 
We didn't know there'd be such a tumult, 
any of it, wave on wave: 
 
Buildings falling down but none for salvage. 
People in the dust forming a circle. 
We couldn't see hope without purpose 
wandering ahead for years through outrage. 
Changing, all changes come in a trickle. 
You returned two more times just to see us. 
 

  Robert Burr  
  Alumnus  

 
 
DARKLANDTOUCH 
(for elise buchman. july 1st 1957-june 4th 2023) 
 
he sits  in her chair.      on the pouch   where   she'd sit and watch the sun set,    
and then darkness in all seasons.       in the cold and  the warmth.     morning,  
noon and    night.    in the  days     and    nights   that became years.      he would 
touch  her  face.   she would smile  and look   up   at him.           he     sits   in her  
chair.      looking   for   her   in the dark. 
 

  Charles Butler  

 
 
TWILIGHT TIME 
(inspired by the Platters) 
 
Twilight casts spells, 
scatters 
pink, orange, red, gold  
onto short-waved blue sky. 
 
With colors in turmoil, 
it must hurry— 
announce day’s end. 
 
Quiet, 

gradual, 
not to disturb sun’s departure. 
 
Blue to deepen 
night’s shadow  
and a curtain scattered in stars, 
crowned by moon. 
 
I cast spells, 
scatter manifestations draped in 
pink, orange, red, gold   
onto short-waved blue incense. 
 
With colors in turmoil, 
I must hurry— 
announce intentions  
at day’s end. 
 
Quiet, 
gradual, 
not to disturb sun’s departure. 
 
Blue to deepen  
your shadow  
and a bed scattered in stars, 
crowned by moon. 
 

  Patricia Carragon  

 
 
IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS  
 
Sometimes it takes an old Greek Geek to plot a paradox— 
a 414 BCE drama about keeping strangers out 
or killing them if they eneter. Was it yesterday when 
a man shot five people nicely asking him to stop shooting? 
Yesterday when people watched a homeless guy die in 
a chokehold on the subway? Yesterday when people 
running for their lives can’t enter other countries?  
Are the stone-faced ones in Congress Taurians 

so barbaric they sanctify weapons over human lives? 
The rain rains down, rains down sustenance though 
even rain can’t spit out toxins and ozone that slip in.  
The roof holds. I’m not getting wet. In a rainy rain, 
I write of Taurians and Iphigenia, and her brother 
Orestes, two who each had killed for different reasons. 
Orestes comes to the island Taurus not knowing 
his sister is alive—or that she’s the one condemned 
to kill other strangers including him. And Euripides 
twists and turns the plot—each thinks the other is 
dead, and they don’t recognize each other—yet  
once their blood ties overpower—and upturn the plot.  
Unbidden love is also a curse if you have a rotten, 
angry, or viscious family, one that drives you to kill  
your mother because she killed your father.  
In the play, Athena intervenes, 
stops the killing cycle; and the Taurian king 
and whole country reform. And Taurus is really 
Crimea or Ukraine. How did Euripides know 
what is happening here? Do Iphigenia and Orestes 
safely return home? How will they outlive 
the curses their parents cast upon their lives?  
 

  Jan Garden Castro  

 
 
SILENCE & AWAY 
 
A concordance reveals that of the six words, Kees used these two the most.  
 
Sunflowers & hollyhocks in the haze 
like ladders to nowhere but themselves.  
Summer an abandoned car, the glove box 
emptied out, the wheel locked from your last touch.  
June vanishes into July’s gray thoughts.  
Thunderstorms on the corner, watching you 
drift past. They’ve something to say but not yet, 
not yet. Sadness keeps itself to itself.  
 
There’s always a bridge somewhere, even if 

you never cross it. So many places 
to jump, but not into that dull river, 
death. Not into that. In this little boat  
of days, the waves rock you until you find  
balance; ballast, & your sail: silence. A way.  
 

  Gregory Crosby 
  Alumnus   

 
 
THE CONTEMPLATION 
 
Out of none come the one 

  For NOW! 

 
In this void, that Nothingness, 
 

  within Itself, 
  by Itself, 

 

  Contemplates 
  upon Itself;  

 
realizes that tension of polarities: 
 
All within None. 
 

  Albert Dépas  

 
 
JACOB LAWRENCE’S HARLEM (1942)  

The color is brownstone, the known and Unknown walk the street, 
it’s all peat  
 

And concrete, there are carriage rides  
With Garveyites, the tight fit of Harlem  

 

A shot calls them, the rope and pulleys Pull me back to the 
Renaissance noir  
 

I smell bread from the shop, the Lindy hop Beneath the floorboards 
of the church  
 

It still hurt and worth in one dark body Jacob Lawrence, you now hang in 
the MOMA  
 

I am having a conversation with your painting There is a ladder, the clatter of the 
old subway line  
 

The water baptism of Emmett Till , until kingdom comes Jacob, the fire truck red 
of the hydrant  
 

Tired of the nostalgia, the street scent of Tyree Nichols, and Michael Brown. I 
am uptown, Jacob  
 

I am uptown. 
 

  Robert Gibbons 
  Alumnus  

 
 
HIS JAIPUR FOOT 
 
Prosthetic device first made in 1968 for Indian amputees,  
now available throughout the world         
 
The plastic prosthesis is brown as tea,  
fragrant like vanilla mixed with 
Lady Slipper petals. 
 
It reminds him of a dream 
where the sky feels full of cardamom, 
nestled lakes and searing mountains. 

He holds the molded mass in his hands each morning, 
feels the lightness of its weight and marvels 
that such a small thing, really, can hold such power. 
 
He straps it on, just beneath his knee, 
and tries to ignore the lingering sound of landmines 
exploding each morning with the crash of dawn. 
 
Replace that sound, is his daily command. 
Better, hear the dream of finger cymbals, magical chants, 
echoes of gifts from an imagined land. 
 
Jaipur – the name itself sounds like God. 
Two strong syllables, one foot then the next, 
a poetry that moves him step by fearful step, 
perhaps wobbly at first but then 
miraculously forward.  
 

  Sue Guiney 

 
 
SESTINA   
 
Red patent leather high heels click 
like castanets on cobblestone. 
Across the way a man so young 
tenders a rose as red 
as guitars galloping ahead. 
Now she’s not in any hurry. 
 
Today she’s not in a hurry, 
elbows on the café table, she clicks 
her glass to his.  The years ahead 
could skip across the sky like stones. 
She writes, “Yo también” in lipstick red, 
just because she’s young. 
 
Just because they’re young, 
they’re not in any hurry. 
Dreaming riddles, drinking red 

Sangria, body and souls click. 
In her hair the rose, in his hand a stone, 
The summer sun burns overhead. 
 
Presenting the ring with a bow of the head, 
just because she’s beautiful and young, 
he offers more than a birthstone. 
Can this moment be stopped?  Hurry. 
Wait:  The photographer clicks. 
The horizon turns hummingbird red. 
 
The city dust in the light spins red. 
Laughter, a song, touching heads. 
An embrace, a kiss, a click 
for the check.  Once you are young. 
Free from uncertainty, they hurry. 
Other lives lead to ash and stone. 
 
On her finger a ruby stone, 
the slanting sun still red. 
They want to get home in a hurry. 
The apartment is just ahead. 
Two lovers happy and young 
like the rhythm her high heels click. 
 
A street light clicks, the cobblestones 
usher the young past cafes umbrella red 
to shorter days ahead.  Hurry.  
             

  Nancy Haiduck  
  Alumna 

 
 
A RITUAL OF MORNING 
 

Occam’s razor is the principle that, all things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the right one. 

 
The saint, who remains on earth 
to eradicate pain, cuts himself 

when he shaves with Occam’s razor, 
 
and the sight of his blood makes him see  
the dead space called loneliness,  
a colorless place, neither red nor not-red. 
 
If he twists the glass in hand  
at an angle of depression 
to the built-in mirror, 
 
he can spy a hundred heads,  
a thousand arms, each speckled  
with thousands of drips  
 
from his hundreds of necks, 
and the kaleidoscopic floor  
which he stoops to touch, 
 
and it moves like loose dirt 
at a moment of enlightenment.  
 

Marc Jampole 

 
 
CANCER 
(in triple haiku) 
 
They call it cancer, 
Crab, or flesh-eater. It ate 
Dad; it tasted me. . . 
 
While Dad slept with it 
With still unanswered questions, 
Crab enjoyed last bites. 
 
So, I built memory 
And monument for hiding 
The long fear of chance. 
 

J. Chester Johnson 

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FEET 
 
I. 
“I’d walk a mile for a Camel” 
but I’d rather the camel do the walk for me. 
 
II. 
He notices pain in his right foot. 
Taking off his socks  
he spies a large waterblister 
on and beneath the bottom cuticle. 
Back home the nail falls out— 
How do nails fall out of toes? 
How do their marcos, their frames,  
stop holding their paintings? 
He remembers his youth 
painting his toenails bright colors— 
purple, lavender, Kelly green— 
red would’ve been too severe, too bold. 
To see them red, his face would redden,  
his eyes would fall out of their frames, 
his blond would turn ruddy, 
his head would bow down to look at his feet,  
his nails red and his cheeks painted with blush. 
This was the era before Emo. 
 
III. 
He tells me he has a foot fetish. 
I’ve known this for several years 
but never had the— was it curiosity,  
desire, fear?— to ask the nature of his kink. 
Clean, dirty, besocked, did size matter? 
There are questions you can no longer ask 
a friend now buried four feet below, 
low enough the wildlife don’t catch your scent 
and try to gnaw your trotters 
what Cockneys call your plates of meat.  

 

IV 
Is one foot-candle is enough light  
to see your beautiful digits 
soon to be invisible, roasting themselves  
undercover on my thigh. 
 

  Steve Koenig 

 
 
A LATE WALK 
 
Gray-blue light: 
Spring is just a number 
on the calendar as the  
weather is chilly. 
Peepers are out; hidden 
in the soft fields now 
full of their rhythmic music. 
Soon, they’ll appear on 
trails and walkways, 
moving toward streams, 
some dying on the paths. 
Our trail is under a flyway: 
lots to eat; water for geese, 
cornfields and pumpkins for 
grackles and blackbirds. 
Bird have eaten buds 
off the branches but no flowers yet.  
Light stays longer north 
of the city. Rain starts and we run 
back to the car, breathing hard.  
 

  Erik LaPrade  

 
 
AMONG THE STARS 
for Sonia and Emily 
 
As a child, I taught you to read 
the night sky, the constellations. 

Now, you ask why I can’t enjoy 
just looking up without naming 
 
stars and planets and their ancient 
fantastical mythologies.  
 
O, my love, can it be you don’t know 
how lonely it is out here 
 
among the stars, without stories 
we can show and tell and love? 
 

Richard Levine 
Alumnus 

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