City College Faculty

CITY COLLEGE FACULTY

UNTITLED

Oftentimes I think to myself

I was born during the wrong generation.

To be honest, sometimes

I think I was born on the wrong planet.

An old soul, I’ve been called

Is my soul old? How old is it?

How many lifetimes have I lived through

suffering in the same ways,

learning the same lessons over and over

And over again?

When will my bag of bricks

No longer serve me?

When will they be dropped and left

for someone else to carry?

When will I cease to long for a time I didn't inhabit?

The seers and spiritual guides, shamans and wild women, oracles and witches,

the reiki healers and somatic experiencers, gurus and bodhisattvas

they all tell me that I'm living my karma—learning my lessons.

My curse, I suppose, as I do love to learn.

Jennifer Buño

Alumna

DISMANTLING THE ANIMUS

It's between war and sex

that I let out a fart.

I don't need to hide

my male—in my root.

The nerve in hostility

Jesus, Eve, —others' shadow

the woman, equal to human

final wisdom complicating this picture.

But the provider in me

practices what any Mary would

while Helen relies on allusions

of meaning—to bear—

like messenger of God

some kind of reality.

Learn to embody the duality

of humanity. In the image of God

our qualities are static.

And as erratic beings, the fools we are

like you, I reverse to the perversity

of my archetype—forming my desire

to fit perhaps or even merge with self,

activate an energy to heal, to react.

Leah Kogen Elimeliah

THE MAD MAGICIAN

Conjures experiments

from an outdated book,

performs to an empty audience

though a bunch of devoted fans

still manage

to cheer him on,

even when he makes

people disappear

and no one in the universe

could bring them back;

plus no one

bothers to say

failed show

when his assistant

dressed in black

says "Oopsie"

it may have been a mistake.

Maybe.

Pamela Laskin

Emeritus Professor

THIS POEM

This poem will not protect you

or fill a room with laughing children,

won’t build you a torso and limbs

to cradle you through the night.

This poem won't make oleanders bloom,

sprinkle the air with jasmine perfume,

won't spell out a name on the wind,

burnished skin tipped with gossamer wings.

But a finger tracing these words

might reveal you were here,

what your eyes saw, the music you played

(jolly ballads, serenades, a flight of strings),

what you sketched into fourteen lines,

the grit and odor of your days.

Daniel Shapiro

From Among the Crags of the Eyrie (Dos Madres Press, 2024)

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS

"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake,” James Joyce

Without a Name

The Chief’s name lit up the sky

and left it damaged,

but the sky stayed sky,

and the mountains too – mountains,

and the restless bodies of water

all remained indifferent

to the fabrications

of our grownup darling

who won the minds he won

by remaining a child

grown into a prankster

dressed in a scowl or a golden smile

that escapes all doubt.

At the rallies he thrills the fans;

they see and hear and feel

how he's been so unfairly hurt –

a martyr untied to any cause

or country.

Under the whine of his voice, [In]??

they embrace its grievances [his]?

take them into themselves.

When the show ends,

they carry their thrills home,

itches in need of a claw.

The Chief, Still Without a Name

is also without fabric.

Here's the question:

is this faker a phantom,

a specter spawning a spectacle

devoid of song or dance

or comedy, or is this a construction

out of deranged imaginations

in need of a catalyst to kill,

or is this a fantasy of an adolescent frog

who's been stepped on by a nightmare

from which I'm trying to awake.

Barry Wallenstein

Emeritus Professor

THE DISCARDED CHRISTMAS TREES

lie on the sidewalks of New York:

Eastside, Westside, all around the town,

like old songs or rusted automobiles

in Godard’s Weekend.

If you remember the song

or the movie, you're probably also

on the edge of worrying

about the loss of sparkle,

temporary or permanent,

or, worse, being discarded

yourself, having provided

as much magic as possible

when you were welcome,

at least, for a while.

Estha Weiner

SUN SONG

The sun in the city burns angry.

The sun on the grass wants to fly.

And it's the sun in my eyes that compels me,

to burn like the sun in the sky.

Oh, the old devil is a seeker of power.

King of the Frightened

Necromancer of the the Dead

Oh, the old devil is bent on glory

Prince of Institues

Ruler of Cults

The sun in the city is learning.

The sun on the grass wants to flee.

The sun in my heart will be churning

til the old devil is barked up a tree.

Suzanne Weyn

GIRLS IN LISBOA

We speak of dreams

how in them we never say sorry.

At the rooftop bar of Bairro Alto Hotel,

night in Lisboa is crisp as Vinho Verde

the city below us is punctuated with stars.

II.

Rua Augusta unrolls against

the breath of afternoon, walking

toward Praça do Comércio, toward

yellow, white and the blue of the Rio Tejo.

What is written is kept coded in language.

III.

In the back of a stall at Feira da Ladra,

we find vintage photos of naked women.

Their Portuguese curves, rechonchuda,

voluptuosa. Outside, the Alfama sky

is blue as a barn swallow.

The "thieves market," says the vendor,

"is named for a woman thief."

IV.

We drink espresso and don't worry

about falling down, hold hands while crossing

the streetcar tracks near Largo do Camões

marbled cobblestoned streets slip

between days.

Alyssa Yankwitt

Alumna
Originally published in Up the Staircase Quarterly