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ISSN 2703-7312

Article Category: Poetry

On the Basis of Blueberries by Kayla Spencer

I fell in love with the cashier at Trader Joe’sOn an unreasonably quiet October Sunday morningAs he scanned my blueberries and almondsAnd told me that I’d made some good choicesAnd that I’d love themAnd that he’d double-bag them for me just in caseBecause he might’ve known that seeing my $4.99 box of blueberriesScattered and rolling about the parking lotWould break me entirelyAnd that I wouldn’t have been the first to mourn my produceIf tragedy struck the brown paper handleCarrying the sliver of joy I’d just purchasedAnd that he’d gone through the trouble of protecting.… Read More “On the Basis of Blueberries by Kayla Spencer”

In Love with a Birder by Danielle Evennou

belted kingfisherhooded mergansermysterious song sparrow the quickness with which you remove your glassesperch binoculars on the bridge of your nosealways in search of indigo buntingyellow-throated warblergreat blue heron but ignite forCanadian geeseprotective mockingbirds spotting a little egretin the stillness of pond scumred-tailed hawk on the freeway the way you accept my mixed-upnomenclature tufted wood duckcat-dog bird, barn sink and swallowblue moon jay, red-bellied gulllaughing nuthatch

The Whisper of Echoes and the Crackle of Ash by Alves Dos Santos

The sun leans upon the horizon, casting ever finer shadows,reminding us that even the mighty sun bows to realityAnd we walk the line of that same memory, hollowed within,through fleeting fragments of a life as lived as it was lost,victims of a world that held us close, then scattered us like cold frost Yes, once we were submerged in hoursthat whispered like echoes, crackled like ashes,each pulse a heartbeat, each breath a precipice,and altogether, they formed vast, fiery days, branded raw and full upon our souls It’s not fair, they say, to keep such a retinue of silent ghosts,even if we still feel them clinging to our skinLove, they teach us, should heal, or at least mend, yet here we are, sensing the end of this thread that has no further to stretch   And still, I remain, like fire beneath the ice,a breath away from the life we gathered, where you touched far deeper than skin,to pain beneath bone, to the ether’s essence, the distant shore Am I bound to shadows, steeped in light and chill?A… Read More “The Whisper of Echoes and the Crackle of Ash by Alves Dos Santos”

Three poems by Brad Vogel

Orange orange ferry gulls rise quieter than buoys I feel deep hum we play the song of all immigrants all lovers crossing dance with this blue mother mantis ⁃ we love her but she just might kill us all but such is our tremulous luck to even care to be so privileged here on anchorage side where only scraps of statue-firing light hit barge sides to enjoy the thrill of anxiety to savor imagined disaster, the Joker’s card not played yet here in gloamy security-cammed espanoled is she crying or does she just look like that photo in process I cross my legs for warmth   towering logs with no kindling no tindrous bits does not a city make   I am no match for New York and yet this box, this fire-colored book keeps us dry somehow across February across wide harbor     Bed of My Past I sit in the bed of my past Warm comforter of memories wrapped Around my defenseless thighs And I struggle silently Big book in hand Last light on For a future As the new boys Bring back baggy bottoms And I wonder have I missed my intended cycle Of life And am I now a dead Satellite orbiting Smiling, wise-talking The earringed boy Looking all around Like a tarsier trapped Beautiful wide-eyed Rare And excusing himself For no reason And I know Eating the barnyard grit With my feed Chicken that I am The man I once Excused myself from De-trapped from Just a decade, Nay Four years ago And as much as I knew I’d be me This way Soon I Barred the empathy from Flowing full and free Through Permeatata And walked from Mine own self To come   Shine on You crazy Balding Diamond   Jet night Walnut brick He gazes Intrigued But wary   And I begin to steel Not glances But my whole self For a near certain Non-followup To the penned note This moment now Being entirely Stolen Between us A brief dance Rubato   But then I have never known How to say I’m Head over heels In love How the structures Even loosening In my own time Have never lent themselves To full declamation Full I-want-to-disrobe-and-explore-you Come what may Masculinity being Fickle in its Glass wall pickle Always threatening Even through louche eyes To cut you   I adjust the pillow Pull the blanket in closer Yawn and swallow Note the knots in my back Feel the field of aches and wounds Inflammate records Of other hesitations, fails And confoundments And there are tears around The edges of my eyes   I do not even know if I will live But I sure, goodness do I know I have loved I have given love Like a greeter handing out Coupons To a cold deaf Occasionally teasing Pitying Friend-ful crowd   I No We Have to die now I guess And I know I shouldn’t talk loose   Cast lines then And I will try my best To doggie paddle To shore     Opening the Trunk Green-Wood Cemetery, 5.2.20   Rays nuzzle glacial ranks Grass on grass Green through the mask Ricochet beams bounce Back up blades Quivering air For the first few feet For woodchucks and violets For mockingbird wings For seedpods and dirt clods And optimistic things   I am glad my sight Goes dizzy At the base of elms From whence it springs The warmth of new season I leaf out Through my granite seat Root out in full Set sap running Thank LaFarge’s Architect For a perch To drink in ⁃ What color are my chlorophyll That take in peace That process rays of calm Into content imagination?… Read More “Three poems by Brad Vogel”

Dog Run by Jennifer Kearns

One thing about loss is the wayEveryone wants to tell you about theirsIt is like your first time entering the dog runAll the fellow owners say hello Early on your loss stays close by your sideThen it tears loose and joins the invisible pack

Water Years by Elizabeth Gunn

  upturned sterns, rust-rotted barrels, fishery-bred   trout still swimming in circles though freed   into Lake Mead – down the way we toss popcorn   to wide-mouthed carp, their mossy-green skin flipping   and slipping over surface tension alongside the floating   dock mercifully pitching here and there in the searing desert   night-break – as if we could breathe and be   twin-like with the tiniest bend of light, nourishing sea creatures   who cannot fully know the sea nor the raw taste of rain nor see   why spawning begins in autumn – and we cannot altogether   know love because it is born of suffering amid astonishing   chaos – yet here we all are – recognizing our way in this bestirring   and splendorous place where love tugs at shared boundlessness  

A SOJOURN WITH DEADLY SWANS by Lonna Blodgett

there is no firein the lavender skies of Februaryit is as if all that existswith warmth, light and desirehas fled to the future it is here that the white swans muse and ponderslowly stirring in hapless meanderingsthrough a stoic sluggish pondit is herethat I find myself coming to belong nestled in the cold casket of a wind-still winterwhere spring does not reveal its flowery facefor the air is soiled, stagnant and sourwhere gray gives my soul a vapid and sullen vacuity the canvas imbues a mossy greento the artist’s stroke of incessant grayits somber drizzling mistskeep falling on my weary palllingering here I have imprisoned hopesomewhere in the dire fog this catatonia speaks tones of wretched gloom that paralyze with foreboding dullness exhuming imparting ghosts that loom and beckonto follow with unfeeling discovery I tread bent and worn in this stagnant wastelandseeking a sojourn with deathly swansascribing to a touchstone of insensible beautyenvisioned through a joyless malaise I am empirically lost in the deathlike shroudmasked in the nakedness of my thoughtsdrawn to a rampart of impenetrable apathyhiding myselfin the miasma of passionless pain

WHITE WALL by Neal Donahue

White Wall It was a moment to remember, the wave of green water rising above as it hit the rock shelf, spray lifted over my head, a constellation of foam bits suspended briefly, then falling in a sheet of spume, white stars against the bluest sky, epiphany, before the water rushing forward thigh deep nearly knocked me over.… Read More “WHITE WALL by Neal Donahue”

IN THE REACH OF THE SUN by Lauren Childs

What is time but an infinite roar of everything after And everything before I read the first life enabled to form On the planet was teeming in the sea I believe our love was burning with it Swimming with the fish and flailing in the waves Then it was covered in dirt Clawing for the reach of the stars It grew through a rock And it caught itself on a branch A caterpillar begging for wings It flew to to the west And landed by the Pacific The gold drip of this sun Melting onto the sands, The shadows of the diamonds that held Themselves in the sky I think I did understand to love you Even before the manifestation of the moon In some sort of light I knew it was you

MILK by Stan Sanvel Rubin

What is the conspiracy that leads farmers   to put VR goggles on cows   to encourage them to produce more milk   by picturing lush green meadow while they’re stuffed into stalls   and how does this simulation relate to the cartoon   your own life has become?… Read More “MILK by Stan Sanvel Rubin”

DIRT by Nadia Farjami

Dirt my great-uncle drenches the headlines in honey; he watches syllables slur together and become illegible under a sunny ooze   my great-uncle doesn’t know that i wake up early to read the paper before him, that i let scalding sentences slide down my spine, that i coax crinkled commas into my ears   my great-uncle holds a skinned rabbit in one hand and a riffle in the other   when i beg him to dispose of the danger in his palms, he says i’m just a child   he says that forbidden words stumble out of my mouth, words about a world without weapons   he says he’ll destroy the dirt dancing on my tongue   he feeds me detergent for dinner   he doesn’t know that dreams can’t be disinfected  

LEAVING DAD AT HOSPICE by Cindy Patrick

the airplane engine started up as powerful as forgiveness upward immersion into blue layers baby, light, cornflower Pacific in ultramarine below white plumes pause with deliberation before dissolving balloons, blooms, bangles of clean cream-capped mountains clouds and white boats pervade the beds of blues the same dimension as my headspace awakening as a white lotus soaring at an even pace with my false bravado he said to enjoy the flight home you too I thought holding his white, blue-veined hand I am resolved to enjoy temporary clouds, transitioning sky eternal beauty in doing what I was told

TOM C.’S WOMAN by Scott Hayworth

Here where all the traffic meets angry the droning noise demanding my attention pounds & manners must be spun out to the rim, cursed ferocious & dodging the bites of dogs beaten frayed & closest to the phone leery betrayed & under the hood of my car overdrawn forbidden & snowed in for the winter unannounced unrewarded unremarked in my own back yard breathing & rising, breathing & falling dreaming in the time when my sleep should be & sleeping in my dreams, I am.… Read More “TOM C.’S WOMAN by Scott Hayworth”

(FREE VERSE) LETTER FROM A WARY TRAVELER by Brad Buchanan

i for private reasons I will take this journey much more seriously than is strictly necessary armed with a double dose of vaccine I am still convinced of a fatal weakness in my auto-immune defenses the sleek sublimity of an airplane seems like the ideal implement to penetrate my porous borders and this is the coward’s conviction that I have set a course to conquer with an eye to posterity never mind that I’m fleeing failure and shunning sadness on the way the second chance that I hope to discover may or may not be granted me and I will live in regret forever no matter how far the plane takes me ii already there is the first ill omen my driver distracted by the malfunctioning GPS but the stern rebuke I formulate mentally works like a charm to remind me there’s nothing wrong that some magical thinking can’t turn into reassurance the casual annunciation of a new bureaucratic challenge is just old fashioned security in a puzzlingly convenient form and the first refusal is hardly final even a stubborn app will change its mind given different data and the proper passport this is the benefit claimed in doubt by doubt itself to travel again as a Canadian affords me a secretly pleasing guilt as I see there are new pale flags to decode even at my right elbow while I wolf my food with atypical speed and the yearning glare of a handy soldier to meet or avoid [ctd over] I wonder who notices I’m double-masking one worn two years ago made waves and though I am slight and compact on the plane I am man-spreading arm-rests, neutral zones, are mine so I am a teenager splaying once again albeit in pain iii finally the unlikeliness of airborne flight takes pride of place and I understand that this is no banal occurrence we are risking something by our very absence from the earth’s surface population we have ascended beyond the imaginings of kings and emperors while getting a tissue from my back pocket seems to be something of a production so how far should I say we have really come?… Read More “(FREE VERSE) LETTER FROM A WARY TRAVELER by Brad Buchanan”

CHOICE by Sarah Wyman

Capitulation East or victory West my uterus may come to rest splayed and flattened on a surface smooth as a petri dish where dreams of conception slide into an oblivion of laws on my body or yours, under the gun for resisting the artificial implantation of a monster’s rotting seed.… Read More “CHOICE by Sarah Wyman”

JUST A THOUGHT by Kevin James

the thought that thinks itself reductionist nightmare beyond looking glasses & semiotic classes curator of worlds & stars sunny days, moonlit nights orbital phase changes univocal Master of the Uni-verse   momentary vision on a mission come hither or not it’s all the same shimmering membranes of space-time portals passive footnote to shoals of phosphorescent corals artifactual realms coding variant energies into virtual synergies   overflowing abundance seeking its own substance correlation without causality lacking lineage & parentage gifting a given without giving default for the vaulted Real my own, my own surreal epiphenomenon no matter how beloved short lived or acquired my own

WHEN I FIND OUT WHAT THAT MEANS, I’LL LET YOU KNOW by W. C. Perry

that our forest is inseverable, fabric and boring   Autumn arms threadbare clothing eager to be cut with scissors modeled by a swan   her job prospects are booming, humanity is cosmetic, mascara will not cling to feathers   she is an artist in the gravest sense: velvet roundtrips over the cemetery gate sans filigree   commonly known as: without decorum   a yearling in my own practices, an apple head of blood shivers from my thumb, my needle, I was only trying out embroidery on myself, fingers a lace web pattern   and when I don’t feel confident in every scrap of work, I produce worthless, leafy doodads   our coin jars repurposed from espresso tins insufficient our rent goes down and I’m fine, hungover in the garden patch.… Read More “WHEN I FIND OUT WHAT THAT MEANS, I’LL LET YOU KNOW by W. C. Perry”

MY DIVORCE IS A DEAD BUG TRAPPED IN THE LIGHT FIXTURE IN MY SHOWER by Shyla Shehan

Video footage from December 2008 captured an exchange of I love yous  which proves that I was good at pretending in front of the camera.   By 2009 I was abandoned in Vegas without a phone, ID, or money at a club we waited for hours to get into which you got kicked out of for threatening a bartender another patron me.   I wandered out drunk walked the strip wandered back in to loiter about the nickel slots in search of change.… Read More “MY DIVORCE IS A DEAD BUG TRAPPED IN THE LIGHT FIXTURE IN MY SHOWER by Shyla Shehan”

THE LAST WINTER OF THE GHOST ROAD by Lonna Blodget

The death winter came and was deepWith white on the purple mountainThe Tiwahe’, the Standing Rock PeopleBegged for warm fires from Iktinie the Sun SpiritOur mouths were hungry and bodies were weak  Iya’ the Snow Monster had taken us farther to the southTo follow Capa the Beaver SpiritA long journey into early winter’s nightFor there was much labor to keep warm in our Thipi’Our mouths were hungry and bodies were weak  When Iwoblu the Winter Storm whispered his cold storyTo the Aicita, the Ghost MessengerShe tricked Mathohota the Grizzly Spirit with her wailingTo haunt the sky with growling windsOur mouths were hungry and bodies were weak  The Wahupakoza escaped on icy feathersStirring the winds with their flight of fearsAnd within the SunOthi’ earth dens, the wolves Sungmanitu’Howled with their starvationOur mouths were hungry and bodies were weak  The stone figured buffalo, Wankan Tanka’s, blood was cursedWith ice and their coats were bitten with HeyumkaMothers were caged in the hard frost, while their calves fell and diedOur mouths were hungry and bodies were weak  Gleska Wowayazan, the spotted sickness, harvested our soulsWe were prisoners of Wichat A’ the sickness that takes allOur boldest warriors, Zuya Whichsa’ were taken from usTo follow the Wanagi’, the spirits of departed human beingsFar to the Milky Way to stand before Hihankara’ the judge of soulsOur mouths were hungry and bodies were weak  We mourned and chanted for the loss of our children Wasigla’!And… Read More “THE LAST WINTER OF THE GHOST ROAD by Lonna Blodget”

EMOTIONAL SOLUTION by Jennifer Dotson

I’m stapling anger by its ear to the corkboard but it refuses to stay put I’m thumbtacking fear and nailing jealousy but they wriggle and writhe on the wall Duct tape works well on shame and regret but even extreme stickiness won’t fix them in place I’m running out of supplies to keep my emotions in check Hope and love better get here soon  

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS by Joan Penn

not always a serene serendipitous flow at times startling surprising saturated with submerged highs and lows sensation of sailing and sinking shipwrecked stranded exposed   as mind’s eye is flooded with images of existence’s many what-ifs as if arising on a tidal river current reversing flowing backward unsettling sediment of buried history refuting revision it is what it was time and tide have not altered it   the joys the sorrows the passions the regrets the successes the failures life’s trash and life’s treasure unconsciously salvaged manifesting as sensory seeing hearing tasting touching feeling a recognition of self comprised of   former selves swimming swimming swimming in a stream of consciousness somehow surviving startling and surprising

HOW TO CARPE DIEM by Jennifer Dotson

How to Carpe Diem or scarper tedium put on your walking shoes let your feet carry you where they will follow sunshine follow rainbows enjoy the steady rhythm of planting one foot in front of the other take a break take a breath just go

I STAND by Joe Volpe

I stand (a flower dripping rain off petals to roots   as we hang the man who built the gallows, and   I bite my fist to save my tongue) an emotional   amputee, sifting the sky for someone to rely on or at least someone to blame stopped   in the middle of the street, brain tangled like cold sheets gazing like a gravestone feeling gloriously temporary.… Read More “I STAND by Joe Volpe”

I KEEP ASKING MY LITTLE BLACK DRESS WHY SHE IS CRYING UNTIL SHE SLAPS ME by Andi Kaufman Horowitz

i.  it’s happy hour friday night time for small talk   i lace up combat boots  zip my slight self into a lycra  knockoff   doesn’t matter which one as long as i shimmer   ii.   later in the back  of everyone-knows- my-name bar my dress           seams screaming   black buttons       between breastbones burst blacker   wish they were less                         breakable   sees you   iii.   on cue i join you grab a shoulder              the one not offered   espy erasers on ends of chopsticks  eating sushi    words spill  from cheap plastic cups  splintering between us   forgetting we are no longer we   i ask if erasing me was as easy  as swallowing the shrimp roll  no one erased you—  we stopped writing you  in ink  couldn’t be certain who was going to show up    sad mandy   manic mandy   as if i had any more choice  than sunset has a choice  not to slam the door  on daylight    iv.   i wait for you to digest   mix saltwater in my martini  so i can wash down  voyeuristic views knowing more than my shrink    your eyes jump  across the teetering cocktail table   pluck paper from some soggy fortune cookie dripping mayo clinic wisdom,             stop existing like this             stop gratifying sadness .… Read More “I KEEP ASKING MY LITTLE BLACK DRESS WHY SHE IS CRYING UNTIL SHE SLAPS ME by Andi Kaufman Horowitz”

DISCURSIVE YOUTH by Brian Jacobs

reechoed in my urine soaked sheets   as I thought the lights blinking red and blue flying outside my window shade   were UFO’s for in the 1970’s   that was a thing on TV and in movies   greys probed in the third kind   and where the neighboring Humdinger   dive bar pilots drank from the nearby base   next to the Stop n Go where I stole   Butterfingers cinnamon sticks and candied cigarettes   nuclear weapons aimed red east rest on seal’d beaches

tourniquet/truncate by Lori Dofman

the stomach hungers for a body to swallow   tourniquet halve, plum and core me   a pine tree above your rib an acorn in your foot   i made a home in a red velvet mouth, though sucking stained your lips cream and me, cherry   truncate cut and crate me   i was a stack of starving bones, white with no marrow   but now i boil in your blood

Poetry by R. A. Lucas

The Excuse: an Email   Still not certain how my schedule will unfold   I am confronted by a roiling combination of previous promises weather events   miscellaneous omens now conspire to leave me dealing in a world of 18% grey.… Read More “Poetry by R. A. Lucas”

APPLE A DAY STORE by Gerard Sarnat

‘Steada perusing for the next latest greatest killer application to count my pulse or blood oxygen level now we are looking for that newfangled savior app which waved in front of folks registers if they have coronavirus.

LEAVETAKING, A GUIDE by Ellen Ritterberg

When, thrust out of, rousted from billowy somnolence, while nuzzled, nosed into by heat-seeking missile while asleep, their protestations, imprecations ignored, and   all demurrals having failed, some women do what they feel they must do and give in.   The giant enters.   Once goaded, Compliant, docile bulls, they remain silent except for maybe a snort or two which may just be breathing.… Read More “LEAVETAKING, A GUIDE by Ellen Ritterberg”

THIS SPRING by Raymond Byrnes

A dear but distant friend sent me the link to a camera on the Platte that captures, live, during sunset,   upwards of 100,000 cranes returning from far fields to roost midstream on sandbar sanctuaries.   Countless chains of gliding shadows cross a red bandana sky, swing  back, hover, drop, safe in numbers.   How astonishing to see so many birds becoming islands in a river while I, far removed, anticipate a virus flocking in.   Last April, I saw songbird silhouettes fly across a bright midnight moon, counted shad on underwater video   heard the first redwing trill from branches high above a parkland pond.… Read More “THIS SPRING by Raymond Byrnes”

WHEN THE CROW PIXILATES ON THE IMAGE by Ellen Ritterberg

When the crow pixilates the bricks of the building no longer look bricks or even brick-like or some approximation thereof they look like velvet or is it velveteen wish I knew Wish I could create a word for every word that autocorrects creates for me opportunity for self-exploration or if not that then clarification of what I might mean counterintuitive though it might be autocorrection qua thought howsoever non-original it may not be The writing of it, the simultaneity of it, the whole hog full engagement thereof in the writing that is if you dig if you follow me that forces me to formulate the meaning of trees not the oxygenation or other life forms and humans the gaseous cycle or however that CO2 oxygen exchange tap dance works, the oxygen just out there for the taking or was or used to be with emphasis on the past and if not, what function might the term urban blight serve except to remind we are oxygen deprived clean air as dodo bird air as unwonted speck in the eye particulate matter perpetual glacial calving magma stewing.… Read More “WHEN THE CROW PIXILATES ON THE IMAGE by Ellen Ritterberg”

LIGHT by B. S. Roberts

I watch the stars                as they swell below, a motion                ineffable as time casting my corporal form                in foam – with a burst                my immaterial shell fountains                                  stealing [freeing]                 my transfluent thoughts                                    whisking them away I see you in celestial light your curvatures mimic           the crescent moon tantalizing glimpses            of all that you are body and soul            [beautiful]

OUR CAT by James B. Nicola

Molasses pours down like an asp from his divan his eyes as wise as the ancient kingdom then trickles northward like the Nile, past zebras, lions, giraffes and bears (Ben’s stuffed dolls, whom he rules as well) and through a misted torrid-zone jungle (Edie’s clippings, ferns and potted palms) to the sliding glass wall of his palace; spies cousins wild and other aliens hopping through, flying round, over the rushes (exotic grass, the latest in landscaping).… Read More “OUR CAT by James B. Nicola”

TWILIGHT OF BEOWOLF by Linette Marie Allen

When               you tell me no,                   you are beautiful when               you show me yes—               the x pinks of                     your pain,                    I part                  your                 home like                  crab,                suck the secrets                    blind like choice                         meat meant               for hoar- smoke coming home in the rain.                                 … Read More “TWILIGHT OF BEOWOLF by Linette Marie Allen”

Pandora av Mette Norrie

Det er sommer og indeni den ligger en anden sommer: en sommer der fortsætter den korte sommer der blev kort fordi noget usommerligt afskar den fra at være sommer, fra at være en årstid, fra overhovedet at være en tid, men nu er det sommer: den anden sommer, den fortsatte bevægelse; en æske åbnes og sekunderne får en chance til.… Read More “Pandora av Mette Norrie”

Diversion by Joel Scarfe

After a day spent attempting to impress those good-looking girls who were not impressed I would retreat into the company of boys and drink, and on one such night, sitting on a friend’s bed blowing smoke at giant moths driven mad with the light, I gulped down a pint of cognac, and by the fourth or fifth time that I fell off my bike in the dark, I truly believed that I had, at last, grasped the meaning of the word sublimation.

Commute by Joel Scarfe

Early enough to hear the light whispering like a lover to the dawn I cross the street, evading Messalina’s grip, and find the pavement is already sick with pigeons, going at each other over scraps of bread scattered at the feet of Christ (possibly) who looks as though he hasn’t slept since all that Gethsemane business.… Read More “Commute by Joel Scarfe”

Look Up Curtis! by Joshua Plack

This strip of Friday night nowhere pulses for our baby blue Saturn CD skipping the third-measure bump, jump, falsetto cracks and we taste it in our jaws riding white and talking that shit like we run the pool hall with one leg like Kirby limping and shucking on smooth southpaw licks, watching VHS tapes from the backs of magazines with Grier and Roundtree and playing like we black cause we don’t know what that means just yet and now the lights are falling in Flatbush and all of us and Brooklyn are paralyzed.… Read More “Look Up Curtis! by Joshua Plack”

GCITY

… Read More “GCITY”