Allen Shadow

Was It a Dream?

Was it a dream I lived in
Frank’s Chops right there

on Richmond Terrace
just below our rooms

in the Victorian mansion
across from the gypsum plant

on the Kill Van Kull
overlooking the harbor

the Lady Liberty and
the whole of the city

strung out like pearls in a fog


Nights returning in the small hours
from pushing the Checker

down Second up Eighth
sitting in the vast

waiting room for the ferry
a dream all its own

with the mad roaming the only
home they knew—a refuge

from the cruel cold of
an uncaring city that felt

in December like a mountain
pass in the Rockies—

sitting catching snippets of soliloquies
Tennessee Williams would steal

waiting hoping for the Mary Murray
that old girl that was to be retired to a Jersey swamp

that old girl that floated like a Gershwin song
the magical city shimmering in her glass skin

that old girl across whose wetted floors
I could see my mother yet

dancing in a dotted dress
to the swoon of the sea

what stories in her overpainted pipes
and carved seats and what ordainment

in that insistent music in oil and grit
that called you to meet

eternity on her lower deck
where the crashed seas

would rebirth you with a
stinging kiss

Was It a Dream was short-listed for the 2023 Fish Publishing Poetry Prize, judged by Billy Collins, was a semifinalist for the Philadelphia Stories National Prize in Poetry, was long-listed for the Emily Dickinson Award for Poetry, and will be published in Oberon magazine.


I Crossed You

We crossed
block after block
on the way to school

First taking my older sister
then taking me
although it was more
me taking you, mommy

Looking, worrying
at every corner—
Tremont, Southern Boulevard,
176th Street

I’d be in Kindergarten
or first grade
worrying, wondering how
you’d make it back on your own

I imagined you waited
with others at the corners
and went with their flow
but what about when there weren’t others?

Was it the sound of the traffic, perhaps,
or sheer luck?

It was always better at home
there in the little wooden frame
house on the single Bronx street
you sitting safely beside the Admiral
mere inches from the dramas
and the quiz shows
like you were a small child

I Crossed You was short-listed for the 2024 Fish Publishing Poetry Prize


Green Black Waters

The train snakes the Harlem
the Deadman’s Curve that took eight
just beyond Columbia rock

Where pearl diver boys in BVDs
once jackknifed for Circle Line quarters
dung and condoms bobbing
in the green black waters

Can still see Cuba and Renee grinding
feverishly against the hard rip rap
mothers in high rise projects
busy with kasha and Queen for a Day

Me and Johnny buying model airplanes
at Rexall’s, tossing the planes,
taking the glue and the paper bags and
sniffing with Goody behind the Texaco

First walking crazily on the twilight gravel
then dreaming and crying, dreaming
and crying “we’re on fucking Mars”

Green Black Waters was a finalist for the 2024 Omnidawn Single Poem Broadside Prize

About the Author

Allen Shadow's poetry has appeared widely in journals such as Constellations, The I-70 Review, The Broadkill Review, BoomerLitMag, and Poetry International. Praised by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins as “engaging” and cited by Library Journal for “startling imagery,” his work has been recognized in numerous national and international competitions, including the Bridport, Bedford, Neruda, Fish Publishing, and Emily Dickinson prizes. His chapbooks include Harlem River Baby and American, I’ll Have My Way With You.

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