Philadelphia Stories: Publishing Local Writers & Artists
Solitude is crowded this morning
A carpet of rust colored pine needles
Blanketed a path to the water, a still canvas
Fish painted circles from below while birds
Waited their turn at karaoke
The dragonfly said, you were wrong
You’re not alone
Dominica Ciccariello lives in Bucks County after moving around the country many times. She is new to poetry and is finding her voice.
I cannot stop the world from burning
But I can add extra bittersweet chocolate
to the flourless chocolate cake, dressed with strawberries,
topped with coconut whipped cream.
I cannot replace the mounting loss of plumage,
of song, of calls.
But each morning we can enjoy the songs of the sparrows
as they squabble over breadcrumbs in the backyard.
I have no red button to stop the accelerating melting
of Greenland’s ice sheet into the ocean
I can pull my pants over my belly button,
slide my glasses down to the tip of my nose,
walk with a slow shuffle into your studio
mumbling my nonsense Danish, just to make you laugh.
We can decide what can happen for us in the moment.
I can take your blouses from the dryer, iron them—
better than the Dry Cleaner—place them on hangers
put them in your closet.
Charles Carr, a native Philadelphian, was educated at LaSalle and Bryn Mawr College and holds a Masters in American History. In 2007, Charles was The Mad Poets Review’s First Prize Winner for his poem “Waiting To Come North.” Charles has two published books of poems, paradise, pennsylvania and Haitian Mudpies And Other Poems. Charles’ poems have been published in various print and on-line local and national poetry journals. He is host of Philly Loves Poetry a live monthly broadcast on PhillyCAM. Charles has also hosted a Moonstone Poetry series at Fergie’s, and Charles has been the host of Philly Loves Poetry for six years.
imperially ours, not rendered impossible by a poet’s word.
And yet, there is something to be said for the impossible break
in the river. For the rock-strewn crossing that fades halfway, as if to say
there is no need for an end. For the way stones shoulder
the age of sentinel cliffs, and sap slows the progression of ants.
We spoke about it each morning, sliding down hillsides in too smooth
soles. Poems make of memory, history and I am keeping Wissahickon
for us. Besides, the woods are not metaphorically
beautiful—they burn in crimsons and ochres and reject
asylum to fantasy. And still you are
insisting on the poem, as if we haven’t thought
to make love by the Devil’s Pool, as if our roots
don’t share soil with the ferns.
Joyce Hida loves the city of Philadelphia, war literature, the Albanian language, and late-night comedy. She was a previous Best of the Net nominee for her work in Empty House Press, and has been published or is forthcoming in Kissing Dynamite, South Florida Poetry Journal, TYPO Magazine, and others. Joyce is currently based in NYC.
She built a nest from shreds,
sliver of straw from far away,
feather from a crow she never met,
crumpled cigarette pack cellophane,
a partial note someone wrote,
green grass, brown leaves, red yarn,
gray fur from an anonymous cat
to create a nest on my window ledge.
I’m like that scavenger robin
who flew away in a wink of movement.
I’ve gathered one wrinkled watercolor
from I can’t remember where,
a piano stool from the side of the road,
a rickety rocker where I secretly sit
to admire my counterpart’s artwork.
Kathleen Shaw was born in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, grew up in Philadelphia, and now lives in Schwenksville. Her poetry has been published in Philadelphia Stories, Schuylkill Valley Journal and various online poetry journals.
Just off Valley Forge Trail, a casino rises. Weather resistant and waterproof. Abundance and opulence atop acres of historical plots. Promiscuous promises of prizes and dry spaces. I enter—seeking refuge from a cold rain. My pockets are heavy of coin and hopes for change. The allure of games of chance and, perhaps, artificial sweeteners enhance the experience. All patrons are dutifully checked. ID please, the guard says. While his senses appear dulled, mine fully engage. I consume the ambience. Soldiers in all corners. Clocks remain on a perpetual pause. Landlines disconnect. Cunningness on LED-lit displays. Cells turn off. Slots ping on. Souls in rubber soles shuffle. Like Washington, a Sheraton once called this lot home. As I wander the carpeted floors (Berber with patterns of rectangular firs), I think of bar and bat mitzvahs of decades past. Post sanctuary parties housed in suburban hotels turned arcades. Pre-teens in Lycra and lace dresses at the buffet. Pomp and circumstance. Pay to play charades. Bright lights. Grand gestures. Trades on replay. High-heeled black patent shoes swapped for low-rise cotton socks. No coins needed.
Now grown, unfamiliar faces in familiar clothes feed machines and fuel memories. Rows of fruit-bearing slots smile. Heavily glossed lips and scantily clad hips pull levers, across multiple levels, in the grand hall. Games of war replicate a mere stone’s throw (aka diesel engine and Wawa-fueled hop, skip, and jump—no pun intended) from Revolutionary War quarters (both shiny metal and Washington gray). Dealers dazzle in smart black-tie attire. Cashiers exchange chips for currency. Like gravy on Thanksgiving, stakeholders seek to smooth lumps and avoid unexpected truth dumps. False stories on full LED-lit display. Bravado and brakes on delay. Some slots promise apples—in both bushels and barrels. Others taunt lemons with powers by the dozen. Truth be told, it’s a losing game. Washington chopped the tree. Cherries dropped at his feet. Casino floor plots share similarities. Mt. Vernon a shade (and shadow) of Valley Forge. Both battlegrounds. I wonder what Washington might say if I told him of what would come—the freeway, towers, and artificial flowers. The casino living on luck and a prayer. Poinsettias and pomodoro timers planted and plucked. A place where dusk blends with dawn. Silence in most corners. Charlie Chaplin as much a Founding Father as the Washington brigade.
I hear the casino is expanding. The surrounding area making gains in ways Washington might relate. King of Prussia on steroids. A modern-day encampment. Rooks and guards stand ready, eager to stake a claim in this allegedly impressive feat. Players in a game of smiles and nods (give and take). We’re a democracy, Washington whispers. As big-boxes and bandstands bounce corner shops and convictions, I retreat. Retrace my steps. Shoulders at rest. Past the tables – all cards on deck. Past the slots – all marks made. Through the oversized concrete lot. Up hills. To Washington’s Valley Forge encampment. A man sleeps on a bench. The log cabins cold this time of year. The sod still damp. I find a tree and sit—just beyond the cabins where souls in rubber soles wept. Stacked and stocked on wooden cots in vertical fashion. A man hikes. A biker sings. I trade seats with a white-tailed deer. Toss tokens—heads or tails. Wait for cherries to drop.
Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups. She is the 2022-2023 Montgomery County (PA) Poet Laureate.
The city is alive with boom bap.
Utterly defibrillated with a bass
even alley cats can’t ignore.
Car alarms set off several blocks away.
A welcoming of a foot pedal growing louder.
The clout is in the approach.
When this sound tornadoes down
every block, cutting around buildings
entering through a perchance open door
and slipping out the back window
like a secret lover hearing the
beep of a spouse’s car in the lot
it vibrates to the beat
in our chests, a palindrome’d
thump-tha-thump, thump-tha-thump.
Where questions like, “Why did
the poet cross the road?” and side door
sound systems respond, girls dem sugar.
A childhood crush soon after singing
if I can be your girl is the wish
but game is weakly spit
when the Escalade approaches
beating down what’s left
of ambient noise.
*italicized lines are borrowed from the 1999 dance hall hit, “Girls Dem Sugar” by Beenie Man featuring Mya
Dimitri Reyes is a Boricua multidisciplinary artist, YouTuber, and educator from Newark, New Jersey. Dimitri’s book, Every First and Fifteenth (2021) is the winner of the Digging Press 2020 Chapbook Award and his poetry journal, Shadow Work for Poets, is now available on Amazon. His forthcoming book, Papi Pichón, will be published in 2023 by Get Fresh Books. Some of his work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and you can find more of his writing in Poem-a-Day, Vinyl, Kweli, & Acentos. He is the Marketing & Communications Director at CavanKerry Press. Learn more about Dimitri by visiting his website at https://www.dimitrireyespoet.com/.
My cousin sold 2 paintings for the down payment
We were all there my mother my grandmother my aunts
Maybe we were dead
Maybe my mother was dead
I was in bed with a tall good-looking stranger who offered me a joint
We could not close the curtains
His body tasted like Christ’s
My mother and I arranged the furniture
My grandmother moved the furniture though she could hardly walk
The teacups she stacked one on the other fell 2 stories to the floor
My stranger disappeared
My uncle tried to kiss me
I could no longer use my writing desk
I tried to move out
I tried to move on
There was no sex
Maybe there will never be any sex
The man selling the apartment sent me to a Manhattan address
Paula Brancato is a NY-based, Sicilian-American writer, filmmaker and Harvard MBA. Her literary awards include The Booth Poetry Prize, Danahy Fiction Prize and Brushfire Poet Award. Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Mudfish, Bomb Magazine, The Virginia Quarterly, Ambit Magazine, Georgetown Review, Litchfield Review and Southern California Anthology. Paula taught poetry and screenwriting at USC and Stony Brook Southampton and is a graduate of Hunter College and LA Film School.
The low, washed buildings swamped in white dunes,
the afternoon courtyards laden in silence;
I walk the solid beach, wind plucking
at hair, clothes, my very soul.
I am here to contemplate,
meditate, whatever –
yet it is difficult to tear
memory from teases and taunts.
Sole seagull so high up in the stratosphere must
symbolize something—at least it would
in literature or art, but in reality,
I cannot grasp it.
Ray Greenblatt is an editor on the Schuylkill Valley Journal and teaches a “Joy of Poetry” course at Temple University-OLLI.He has written reviews for the Dylan Thomas Society, the John Updike Society and Joseph Conrad Today. His latest book of poems is Until the First Light (Parnilis Media, 2020).
At Tupperware parties
The ladies sold nothing but containers
Full of nothing
Hostesses in hose and skirts
Demo-ed the patented airtight seal
Taught housewives how to burp
Like expectant madonnas at a new mother class
The optimism of a starburst lid
Avocado Green
Burnt Orange
Harvest Gold
Cheap hydrocarbons in every kitchen
Genius commercial speech
Plastic dyed a hue named for the color of ripening wheat
Grasshopper oil pumpjacks
Fueled the Tupperware party revolution
Powered by women converted to capital
And party games
*
When I interviewed at the big Silicon Valley tech company the young woman in the break room
saw the red apples among the cornucopia of bananas, grapes, oranges, snacks and kombucha.
She said, “Damn it. There aren’t any green apples. I can’t think unless I have the green apples”
Amy Beth Sisson is struggling to emerge, toad-like, from the mud outside of Philly. Her poetry has appeared in Cleaver Magazine, The Night Heron Barks, and Ran Off With the Star Bassoon and is upcoming in The River Heron Review and The Shoutflower. She is currently an MFA student studying poetry at Rutgers Camden and a Graduate Assistant for the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice.
for their quiet cars, no raised voices, no phone calls
all devices muted or used with headphones
but how about a party car blasting Chili Peppers
passengers dancing with strangers
they sneak off with at the next stop
what of a weapons car where macho men
with shaved heads and skull tattoos
can flaunt their gun obsession disorder
while the rest of us are spared the sight
of a Glock 19 or an AK-47
or maybe a widows’ car, Kleenex at every seat
where you don’t have to explain
smeared eye shadow, mismatched socks
or the strange sounds escaping your mouth
a moan, a sigh, a sob, a shriek
and no one stares
Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.