A New York Ditty

This is a piece from the first chapter where Ruth from the fourth floor of her Columbia Heights apartments expresses her feelings about New York in A Pindaric verse

City of lights and neon signs

Sidewalk cafes haute monde designs

High street parades and Broadway shows

Tiffany’s a friend as every girl knows

Midtown’s the place for worlclass cuisine

Greenwich’s the haunt of gay libertines

Preening, strutting, glamour’re all rife

Three cheers for Fido: its a dog’s life!

 

Gotham’s the city that once went bust

“Spare us a dollar?!” “In God We Trust!”

Li’l Bo Peep turns tricks on a dime

While orphan Pip  lives a life of crime

Watching our homes are the ‘Boys in Blue’

Gangsters and hoodlums are right there too

Quiz any riddler or bat-face bloke

Life in Gotham just ain’t no joke!

 

Brooklyn, Manhattan, Bronx and Queens

 Staten’s the Isle where life’s at ease

Thousands join us in the Great Rat Race

Running to the beat of a hectic pace

Though a Babel of voices,

In True Diversity

E Pluribus Unum!,

Our Common Destiny

All raise a glass who share this fate

“This is the life in the City of the Great!

 

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

and i am one who "un-joined"

having lived in the Bronx until i was nine years old...but this poem really resonates with me...
thank you for writing it..and bringing me back to bronx, brooklyn, staten island and queens...i remember well...still remember driving by the polo grounds, and ebbets...and seeing games at Yankee stadium...we lived two miles from it...

could see the glare of the lights in the sky when the yanks had home games....and we would go up on the roof of our five story apt. and watch the speedboat races on the harlem river...

thanks again for this poem.

jacob

[Atthis Rose]

As long as I continue to inspire my readers to reach for their core. I know that I'm doing things right. So thank you Jacob for these generous words