CHONKERS

by Tammy Smith

Only a stellar sea lion

weighing two thousand pounds

can bark incessantly

and still gain a following.

Instagram. TikTok. Facebook.

Crowds gather

in the city by the bay

to watch Chonkers 

sprawl across K-Dock

at Pier 39,

sunbathing, grunting—

no one accusing him

of wasting his time or talent.

It isn’t fair:

a massive marine mammal

earns devotion

for taking up space,

for being louder

than his boisterous California

sea lion buddies.

When I lived in San Francisco

in my early thirties,

on the edge of poverty,

in the throes of mental illness,

no one admired

my high-pitched growls,

no one praised me

for memorizing every word

to an Otis Redding song

as I wandered

Fisherman’s Wharf,

envy smelled like
salty sea air,
regret like sourdough,
loss like fish markets—
urine.

Tammy Smith is a poet and licensed clinical social worker from New Jersey. Her work appears or is forthcoming in ONE ART, Paterson Literary Review, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The New Verse News, and elsewhere. She received honorable mention in the Journal of New Jersey 2026 Poets Prize.

IN THE MARKET

by Angie Minkin

Here we are again, 

an unseasonably warm day at the end of February

and San Francisco’s Alemany Farmer’s Market

bursts with early blueberries and babies, 

the first pink tulips and yellow ranunculus. 

A three-year-old in ruffles, her white dress tied

with a sash, smiles as she pushes her brother

in his stroller, her mama close by in case of trouble. 

I imagine markets in Iran, babies and strollers, 

mamas in hijabs buying dates and radishes. 

Little girls playing with their brothers. 

I imagine bombs and blood.

These babies.

This market. 

Here we are again.

 

                                    

A poetry reader for The MacGuffin, Angie Minkin stands on her head for inspiration. Her poems are widely published and she is honored to be named the 2025 Passager Poet. Her chapbook, Balm for the Living, was published in 2023.  She is a co-author of Season Lightly with Salt.

RED TEAM VERSUS RED TEAM

by Shannon Anthony

Sounds like your party has a civil war

or self-implosion theme. Unfriendly fire:

Your taco bar comes with razor wire.

So now briefly, you are chiefly

claiming that your camp is

against the heartland champs

because the one point of Barbie, that doll,

is to be here to cheer, not cheered at all.

And because she once spoke

and you're proudly unwoke

you're rooting for the 49ers

to kiss the ring where the sun don't shine

forgetting every bad thing you ever said

about the city that gave you Nancy.

Cognitive dissonance and decline: Go red!

Knock yourself out with your bash (nothing fancy).

I think you'd agree I've got that right.

(I'm not male, but not pregnant, and I'm white.)

If you come to (such as they are) your senses

you'll see that concussions have consequences.

You're not immune, and this isn't a kingdom.

What happens in Vegas is just a symptom,

another test we'll hear he aced. Remember

the Big Game: That happens in November.

Shannon Anthony lives in Minneapolis.

WHERE WE ARE ALL FALLEN

by Chun Yu

 

“Give it back to me!”

I dragged the mugger and his bike

To the ground in a split second

Demanding firmly the return of

The device, an extension of my life

Snatched out of my hand from behind.

I was the last in a small crowd dashing

For an early evening downtown bus

Already shutting its door, pulling

Away from two blurry figures

Clashing on a late winter street

Beaten by cold rains and littered with

Random trash and nameless shadows.

 

“What are you doing?!”

The mugger yelled at me 

In disbelief of a muggee

Fighting for what was taken

His young eyes big and wide

Incredulous in black and white

Strong hand gripping my iPhone

Between our faces so close and

Have and have not newly switched

Veins popping and blood seething

In mutual desperation.

 

“I will give it back to you!”

He even yielded for a second

Under my unwavering stare

As my mind raced for the next move

But yanked away from my grip

With a force, sudden and resolute

And fled on his bike with

His prey and prize of the day.

I leaped up and chased after him

Like a sudden superwoman

In hope to right the wrong

(No runner or athlete

I had no idea where she came from.)

As far as I could on the darkening street

Soulless, helpless, and unnegotiable

Where he was lost, a fleeing shadow

So young and fit, full of

Heartbreaking and broken promises

Where I was lost, dragging my own shadow

Slight, alone, hands and heart emptied

A knee skinned raw.

 

“Don’t do that!”

My family and friends

Shocked and worried sick

Cried out in alarm, in synchrony

On two sides of the ocean

Hearing about my fierce fight

Fraught with danger

But keeping it from my parents

Too ill and frail to be informed

Having just pulled through Covid 

In their old ages, amidst dangers

Micro and viral, macro and epic.

 

“Don’t do that!”

I told myself that too, after:

Being petite at five foot three

Size extra small in America

Where weapons are legal and lethal

Deadly and deafening…

How I never learned Kung Fu

From Grandpa, who, having survived

Wars and revolutions, only wanted

His first granddaughter to focus

On school to become a scholar

Or better, a straight minded scientist

Safe, sensible, and disentangled from

The madness and messiness of the world…

 

But there was no time

To reason, not even with myself

For the do and do not

Being attacked and in defense

Being human, ancient and new.

 

After filing the police report

I couldn’t help but point out that

The corner, where I was mugged

In our beautiful City by the Bay

Beloved by the world

And us, with aching pride

Was dimly lit, and perhaps

Could be brightened, for safety

And for the sake of us all.

 

The officer, chill and seasoned

By the cold winds and fog

Blowing and billowing

On our golden high hills and

Through our dark low alleys

Summed it up, loud and clear

Almost with a laugh:

“This is the United States.

Nowhere is safe!”

 

I cleaned the blood off

My injured knee

Brought to the dim ground

Where we are all fallen.

 

I covered it with soft gauze

Which I wish I could apply

To the open wounds

We all carry

 

And prayed for the dawn

When we wake up

To find our way

To stand up

As one.

Author’s note: My poem is based on my experience of being mugged recently for my iPhone, much like these recent victims in the news reported by ABC News: San Francisco women targeted by teens in violent cellphone robbery spree. The incident took place at a bus station in downtown San Francisco back in March. As a petite Asian woman of 5'3", I may have appeared to be an easy target based on assumptions. However, to the mugger's surprise, I managed to tackle him to the ground with his bike and engaged in a brief exchange, during which he almost returned my phone. Unfortunately, he ultimately managed to escape with it. Writing this poem has been a profound process which allows me to reflect on the stories behind the incident from all sides, find healing and peace of mind as a victim while seeking possible solutions in the city I have chosen as my home, and which I deeply love, as a first-generation immigrant, a scientist turned bilingual poet, and a community connector.

Chun Yu, Ph.D., is an award-winning bilingual (English and Chinese) poet, graphic novelist, artist, scientist, and translator. She is the author of the memoir in verse Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Simon & Schuster). She is a Library Laureate 2023 of San Francisco Public Library and an awardee of YBCA 100 (2020). Her work is taught in world culture and history classes.

43: ODE TO THE ORIGINAL HOONIGAN

by Jennifer Elise Wang

in Memory of Ken Block

 
I could smell the burning rubber
When I watched videos of you
Racing through the streets of San Fran
As if it’s the Daytona International Speedway
(Except you turn in all sorts of ways, not just left).
You could hit the dirt too,
And I think I still have sand in my hair
From when I watched you in Austin
Racing guys like yourself,
Former boarders and bikers
Who found a new thrill behind the wheel.
We joked, “With age, comes the cage,”
But you never restricted yourself.
Like the engines of your Fords, Subarus, and Audis,
You pushed your own body to the limits
On concrete, dirt, water, and snow.
Now, I think if there is a Heaven,
The angels would have a hard time
Keeping you in one spot.

Jennifer Elise Wang (she/they) is a non-binary femme in STEM from Dallas, Texas. When she's not doing neuroscience research, she enjoys writing, dancing, and learning how to skateboard and snowboard.  She has been published in The New Verse News, FERAL, Exist Otherwise, and ev0ke.

COSMOPOLITAN

by Catherine Gonick

Shirt available from TEEPUBLIC

When my father used the term for what we were

I didn’t know that cosmopolitan was code for Jew,

a proud but dirty word. I thought being rootless

was a good thing, that a cosmopolitan

was the being most at home in the world,

in cities and the wild, with people of every kind.

It was great to be an American, lucky to be born 

into my nationality, but humanity—that word

was the most important one. I breathed in

this idea from my native air, the mild sun and

comforting fogs that daily swirled about

the newly established U.N. in San Francisco,

and all who lived loyally around the Bay, beings

from multiple races and nations, religions

and tongues. Even for those excluded 

from the country club, the fraternity, good

neighborhoods and jobs, forced to stay

in ghettos, migrant fields, old cars,

beaten and imprisoned for wrong speaking, 

that lovely air was equally available and free,

a promise and a sign. From Athens to Berkeley,

the flowers of democracy seem to have asked

for kind climates in order to grow strong.

Wanted: Cosmopolitan gardener able to plant

new words, root fair practices, clean air;

not afraid to get hands dirty.

Catherine Gonick has published poetry in journals including Live Encounters, Notre Dame Review, Forge, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and in anthologies including Support Ukraine, Grabbed, and the recently published Rumors, Secrets & Lies: Poems About Pregnancy, Abortion and Choice. She works in a company that slows the rate of global warming through projects that repair and restore the climate. 

KYIV/SAN FRANCISCO

by Susan Gubernat

Tanks roll in again, wheels oiled by the slick substances

of nightmare. Across the street, thousands of miles away,

the flower stall opens this morning, spreads its wares

all the way to the curb. Yellow tulips, blue hydrangea.

The flower seller, Ukrainian, must know her business,

as she knows her politics. Once I thought she was 

Russian. I’ve eaten my mistake again and again, buying

her flowers in all seasons: poinsettia, Easter lilies—

expensive but they survive beyond the supermarket brand.

Around her shop the stores have been looted of jewels,

of toothbrushes and toilet paper, but no one has stolen

her orchids, their cat mouths yawning, or the tiny cacti 

in small clay vessels a child might hold up, beg for,

as if she could carry home a star. I don’t have words

for the shopkeeper. I want to bury my face in her shoulder

and weep or cry out. Instead, we talk about how dried

protea blooms can last. You string the fresh ones upside

down. Like bodies of tyrants, I think, in the marketplace.

Susan Gubernat's most recent book The Zoo at Night won the Prairie Schooner prize and was published by the University of Nebraska Press. She lives in San Francisco.

FULL CENTURY

by Howard Winn

In honor of Lawrence Ferlinghetti at one hundred years.

has receded into history
and the beat goes on
although by now all his disciples
have passed out of the San
Francisco air of what was
once the unfashionable district
until the boys and girls of
the computer culture in the
Silicon Valley began seeking
sophistication and superiority
leaving the famous bookstore
where world changing verse
and fiction issued forth
brightening the shop window
of that literary cradle of the hip
and the mind of the rebels who
have along with the city itself turned
on the lights of sensation and
changed the very character of culture
way beyond the aura of sophistication
that made the city at the top
of that green peninsula the center
of the new culture that swept
both state and country and the world
never to be forgotten or erased


Howard Winn's poetry has been published most recently in Evening Street Review and Adelaide Literary Journal.

SESTINA IN BROWN

by T R Poulson

UPS workers react at the scene where a gunman shot and killed multiple people including himself at a UPS facility in San Francisco, California on June 14, 2017. Several people were shot on Wednesday at a San Francisco warehouse and customer service facility operated by global parcel delivery service UPS, authorities and the company said. UPS spokeswoman Natalie Godwin told AFP the incident involved four workers at the sprawling facility, which employs 850 people. Photo credit: JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images

The Warriors were on fire
we said: those crisp plays and passes
around the curved black line, the ball and net’s
dance, again and again, those hands
lifted like a lover’s wave. The players
taunted and shoved and said they were joking.

Game four was a joke.
Overseas, nobody laughed as the fire
climbed higher, higher, disrupting play
in bedrooms and out. Things curved and passed
and fell through smoke and flames. Hands
dropped a blanket-wrapped baby through the net

of smoke, as below there were no nets
to catch him (this was not a joke).
The baby fell, and different hands,
sure as Steph Curry’s, took him from fire
to something unknown, a no-look pass,
from love to a chance to make plays

on dark courts like the one where we played
off Arlington Street, Friday nights, the net
of work behind us as the moon made its pass
above us, until dawn loomed, and our jokes
grew strange.  Here, my memory’s fire
smolders.  Years pass, and still underhanded

bosses rule us, who judge and hand
out warning letters, or play
with our numbers, even try to fire
us, though our union’s safety net
saves us.  It was only a joke,
the bantering words that slanted and passed

among us, about a coworker who could pass
for a molester in a movie.  We pictured his hands
with a gun.  It was only a joke.
My buddy used to pretend, to play
the creepy coworker, his friendship a net:
“When he brings in a Glock, he won’t open fire

on me, and I’ll hand him a list.”  Names passed
between us:  the spitfire loader, the sorter with the net
stockings at home, the player of wives.  A joke.  A joke!

T R Poulson is a UPS driver out of the Menlo Park, California, center.  She attends community classes at Stanford, and her work has appeared previously in TheNewVerse.News, as well as in Verdad, Main Channel Voices, Alehouse, Trajectory, Wildcat Review, The Meadow, The Raintown Review, J Journal, and Verdad.

THE DOG RUNS ON

by Laura McHale Holland

Alejandro Nieto was killed by police in the neighbourhood where he spent his whole life. Did he die because a few white newcomers saw him as a menacing outsider? —The Guardian, March 21, 2016. Image source: Justice for Alex Nieto.

the dog runs on
and my daughter’s friend
is gone

Alex carries a burrito
up Bernal Hill
a neighborhood jewel
his lifelong home

a husky, off leash, lunges, yips, growls
in pursuit of Alex’s food
the dog’s owner doesn’t notice, doesn’t care
he’s looking at a female jogger’s ass

Alex leaps onto a park bench
the dog lunges, yips, growls
Alex stands, fends off the fangs
the dog’s owner doesn’t notice, doesn’t care
he’s looking at a young jogger’s ass
the dog lunges, yips, growls
Alex pulls out a taser, points it at the beast
the owner notices, reins in his dog,
sees he’s facing a taser, not a gun

he trots off with his dog, calls a friend
says he wishes California were like Florida
he could stand his ground against
a brown-skinned, no good gangbanger
who dares to threaten his lovely dog
he could stand his ground against
a Latino dressed in red 49ers jacket
black 49ers cap, black pants, sunglasses
he could dispense with Alex
who is unnerved by a dog lunging
for a burrito on Bernal Hill
a neighborhood jewel
Alex’s lifelong home

Alex sits down, bites into his burrito
some passersby see a normal guy, a familiar face
others see a menace with gun tucked at his waist
one calls 911, police drive up the hill
Alex finishes his meal, stands up
a security guard with licensed taser tucked away
Alex, ready for work, ambles a familiar route
police move in
Alex ambles a familiar route, police move in
he does not know his new neighbors
ensconced in remodeled homes
believe he’s a threat, police move in
Alex does not know his neighbors, ensconced
see him as a threat, police move in

What happens next?
officers involved say they told Alex to stop
but he crouched, weapon in hand
they feared for their lives
he crouched, weapon in hand

people who loved Alex say
he would never do that
he was a role model, a youth advocate
a community volunteer
he studied criminal justice
he knew better than most
how to respond to police

an eyewitness says Alex did not
crouch, did not pull out his taser
an eyewitness says Alex did not
pull out his taser, did not crouch
an eyewitness says Alex’s hands
were in his pockets

my daughter says Alex, her friend
from Horace Mann middle school,
was a sweetheart, a peacemaker, always
a connector, a sweetheart always
in all ways

bullets blast and soar
through Alex’s lifetime home
knock the young man down
shatter his jaw and teeth
rip through leg bones
blast and shatter his lifetime
bullets pound the young man
already down without motion
bullets mangle his brain
his blood colors the ground
and the bullets stop at last
his blood pools on the ground

Alex, Buddhist, peace activist,
junior college graduate
aspiring probation officer
Alex, campaign volunteer
community event organizer
Alex deeply loved and loving deeply
breathes his last on Bernal Hill, his home
Alex, a neighborhood jewel
loving deeply and deeply loved
breathes his last on Bernal Hill
and the bullets stop at last

When San Francisco’s finest enter the home
where Alex dreamed the dreams of childhood
where he grew from beloved boy to beloved man
they do not tell his parents their son is dead
they interrogate, look for gang affiliations
they do not tell his parents their son is dead
they interrogate, look for drug connections
proof that Alex was unstable, unreliable, violent
San Francisco’s finest fail to mention that Alex is dead
until his parents demand answers
with no warrant, San Francisco’s finest steal Alex’s car
they find no drug connections, no gang affiliations
they smear Alex’s memory, look for drug connections
gang affiliations, look for dirt and find none

police brass, city brass exonerate the officers
the grieving parents seek justice, restitution in a civil trial
the dog’s owner testifies, jokes about the jogger’s ass
Alex’s grieving parents look on
the officers laugh in the hallway
the grieving parents look on
a jury clears the laughing officers
the grieving parents look on
the dog’s owner doesn’t notice, doesn’t care

the dog runs on and on
my daughter’s friend
is gone

Author’s Note: This poem is related to several police shootings being protested in San Francisco. It is specifically about Alex Nieto, who was gunned down in 2014. On May 9, people in the Justice for Alex Nieto group were among the protesters seeking the resignation of police chief Greg Suhr. Last week, after another in a spate of officer-involved killings, Suhr was asked to resign, and he did.

Author, editor and storyteller Laura McHale Holland has published the anthology Sisters Born, Sisters Found: A Diversity of Voices on Sisterhood; The Ice Cream Vendor's Song, a flash fiction collection; and Reversible Skirt, a memoir. You can sign up at her site to receive an excerpt from Resilient Ruin, her new memoir in progress.

CHAMPAGNE AND LACE

by Karen Greenbaum-Maya

Legendary stripper and Bay Area institution Carol Doda, who helped introduce topless entertainment more than 50 years ago, has died at 78. Doda died Monday in San Francisco of complications related to kidney failure, according to friend Ron Minolla. —LA Times, November 11, 2015

            --in memory of Carol Doda, 1937-2015

I think of you, Carol Dodá.
You sold Lycra cat-suit and bra
            to ladies like me
            for whom 34B
was simply inadequate. Ah.

You were out on your own at fourteen.
We speculate what might it mean
            when a girl must contrive
            so that she stays alive.
Was it solely so you’d make the scene?

You frowned as you looked at my breast.
I thought you looked somewhat depressed
            that my ribcage had sprouted
            that which you had scouted
so you’d get paid more to undress.

 Your T-shirted bosom looked chunky,
at least forty years since your spunky
            pursuit of enhancement
            for career advancement,
Lloyd’s London your insurance flunky.

Your voice recalled whiskey and gravel.
Cigarettes must have helped it unravel.
            If you smoked in your shop,
            who could ask you to stop?
I was in no position to cavil.

 The bra looked like lacy sorbet,
a lemony froth-lingerie.
            You should wear it on dates
            with your husband, who waits
conventionally out of the way.


Karen Greenbaum-Maya is a retired clinical psychologist, German Lit. major, and two-time Pushcart nominee whose poems and photos have appeared in many journals. Kattywompus Press publishes her two chapbooks Burrowing Song (2013) and Eggs Satori (2014). She still has the bra.