Best Poems Written by Kimberly Gheen

From Streets to Prosceniums

Navigating the sidewalk
up 9th Avenue from 34th Street.
Busses, cars and trucks clank and clatter
on their noisy way north
over the manhole covers,
ignoring lane markers.
Horns volley insults.
Bus fumes shove me aside.

Doorways have a voice of their own,
Some have not opened in decades.
Business hopes gone down.
Rays from the sun reach the shop window.
Fading the intent,
Fading the will,
Fading the future.

Trash groans by the curb.
Crushed and torn coffee cups,
Empty and sighing
Some sinister liquid drooling
from the plastic trash bag
The smell lurches out,
Shocking my composure.

The butcher shop displays
animals hanging upside down.
Dead, skinned and up for sale.
Eyes of the owner as he packs up a pound,
Unyielding, surviving, longstanding,
sad, strength.

Around the corner,
the studio rises,
inside, off the sidewalk.
A bright classroom
where breezes of learning swirl,
moral strength ascends
Passion and aspirations compel
intricate, thoughtful scenes.
“The play is the thing…”
Hope permeates interactions
and street trash is 
left far behind.

Away in time and space from that sidewalk
Thriving artists, mature now, reflect the full, 
confounded lives
of the bus driver;
of the failed businessman;
of the unyielding butcher.
From the learning room,
where a discipline was studied,
to the cosmos of the proscenium,
mortal stories are brightly revealed.

Connections and delight,
Triumph over trouble,
Catastrophe and diversion
These motley, glorious
tales are celebrated,
unveiled with magnificent scripts,
lights, costumes, music, sets
and they lift the audience
far above the mean streets.

Copyright © Kimberly Gheen | Year Posted 2026