New York Lamentation

From planes, from ships, some swimming come

For New York’s rhythms, learn the hum

Don’t lose the tune or drop the strum

Elst you’re sent back to where you’re from

Big birds screaming in to land

All arrivals tightly planned

But departures do not stand

A chance to leave without remand

 Chains across the mighty river

Transport truck and foot and flivver

To ‘hattan shore it does deliver

Old and creaking, cause to shiver

 Through crowds of slow, arrival’s late  

Elbows flying full of hate

Fewer wargs on subway grate

But all in vain, for fate is fate

 The underlevel travelers 

Searching for the empty curs

Big city over, close in purrs

The silver cars sport blazing burrs

 Walled street hollows deep and narrow

Suiting only hawk and sparrow

Paved o’er fields no one farrows

Never see nei’ clake nor carrow

 Canyons deep, where shadows firch

On top of mesa, gargoyles perch

Fortunes made while names besmirched

At its head there sits a church

 No morning dew

Just pigeon poo

They bill and coo

How do you do?

 Marketers on AdverMad

Want to sell you, good and bad

Chores to you, and flip and flad

Nothing changes, it’s a trad

 In toxic yellow clicking meter 

Backseat holding Paul and Peter

Could there be a bollops sweeter

Nothing elf can come betweeter

 The Square of Time has not a clock 

Has not a tree and not a rock                                   

Has not a field nor a flock

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock

 A slanted grocer’s green display 

Every quort who passes pays

Some in dollars, some in days

Heads are offered up on trays

 Runners in the Park of Middle                                 

Old men sit on bench and twiddle

Skaters roll and beggars fiddle

In evening, lovers sway and diddle

 Red blur whizzes to the fire    

Some poor soul’s untimely pyre

Scaling ladders ever higher

Searching for adult and chier

 ‘Round 30 Rock swirl planet’s tourists

Check the tree and act like jurists

The locals stew, for they are purists

Dodging vis’tors makes ‘em fur’ous

 Shoppers Bloom, no sign of thrift

Try on clothes, through piles sift

Search like mad for perfect gift

Pretty storegirls hope for lift

 Harbor traffic, tugs and ferries  

Blithering along the berry

Searching for a water querry

All smack piers, so very wary

 Off the boat to live in tongs

Dishing chow mein down at Wong’s

Hawking ancient sacred gongs

Walk there daily in straw thongs

 Dirty beach and murky wat’

Play ‘mongst flotsam when it’s hot                                  

New York - Land Of Beaches - Not!

Just speck of land, a sandy blot

 On portal river promenade                                       

Where denizens all dressed like God

Brattle as they slowly pod

In lowly winter’s sun so hod

 Yon’ stadium of life and death 

Where quawlrogs bask and shaymuths fetch

And seldom now is seen Abeth

But trollywog the birth of Seth

 The punters in the gambling hizer  

Faces drawn with visage wiser

Drawing turns for bore and blizer

Rake it in, or pay the kizer

The ‘ddicted on the sidewalk stand    

Waiting antsy for the man

Offer not a helping hand

It’s all part of master plan

 The possibilities are fraught

With the possibility of caught

Can run, can’t hide, you’re always sought

Freedom’s quest will end in naught

 On prison island, ‘ligans dwell  

No one cares how Riker fell

All have secrets want to tell

Must unburden ‘fore their hell

 Animals ‘hind iron bars

Eat their meat, sleep in lars

Bemoaning fate, and where they are

Look up night to see the stars

 Homeroom bell, the sound so cruel

Nothing moves while we’re in school

Only educate the fool

Freedom is the precious jewel

 Oh burned out street with hollow ‘bode  

Once stickballing children rode

No longer are those tales told

The street is old, the street is cold

 Panhandler dressed in sweatshirt orange

Wants spare change to feed the drink binge

Passing boldly, make him cringe

He mutters past you, “Scrooge the stinge”

 No mag, no’ll ya’s, no cherry blossoms 

No watermelons, no opossums

No swimming holes nor carly cossum

In city of the dreary drossum

 Patrolling on the streets of Gotham

Eye the Apple, see if rotten

Catch the crocker, spank his bottom

Scurry home to far-off Totten

 Under bridge in microskirts

In the cold until it hurts

Passing drivers stop, don’t flirt

In and out, all keep it curt

 Serving breakfast lunch and dinner

To salvate those who claim as sinner

Always losers, never winner

Fattened souls, but body thinner

 The Prospects? No, the field’s fallow  

Seeing by the burning tallow

Makes for faces white and sallow

No full meal, must do with callow

 In mansions too do millions pine  

O’er daggett heath, with crooked spine

They make their vintage from the mine

And never hear the children cryin’

 Habiting in lusty rooms  

Businessmen with hair uncoomed

Mid day tryst with vim and voom

Buying only their own tomb

 Round the reservoir each day

Woe to those who go wrong way

Named for famous Jackie K.

Only pigeons wont to play

 Shoppers on the Avenue

Old noblesse and parvenu

Buying fur and purse and shoe

Bring it home to give to you

 Nibbeling from pupu platter

Offering of kuru klatter

Drowning in reluctant patter

What’s the use, what’s the matter

 Phant’ in mirror always fatter  

Though it was intend’ to flatter

Dress, and shriek as mad as hatter

A losing game, no more a satyr

 The bell for endtime slowly drolls   

As we go to the waterholes

Dodging trips and tracks and trolls

Paid from hundred dollar rolls

 Orange transport slides toward Staten  

Leaves behind cold tall Manhattan

Landscape fades, and onward flattens

Hatches down, still firmly battened

 Drivers on the mo’way choked

Some sedated, some are coked

Always deadly when provoked

Can’t get home, but fires stoked

 Metal beasts that eat refuse

Churn up muck and suck up ooze

Things we’re trying hard to lose

But who decides, who’ll finally choose

 The theater gibes in Tin Pan Alley  

Looking for their Sam and Sally

Myrteling to find a pally

Never time to stop and tally

 Rockette City, kick in line

30s decor, stuck in time

Host for celebs in their prime

Pity no more costs a dime

 To caves in cliffs we do retreat

Viewing idly to the street

Our race is over, no repeat

The vict’ry always to the fleet

 Sleeping in a bright subway

Haven’t got the means to pay

No place left where we can stay

Look right through as we decay

 Siren sounds through ghetto night  

Putting woolies to the flight

Flippits give without a fight

Born too poor: a nightmare plight

 At end is only one way out

Not up, not over, only down

False-friendly ‘membrance all around

The surely way you’ll leave this town

 From planes, from ships, some swimming came   

For Newyork’s rhythms, learned refrain

Forgot the tune, ‘twas all the same

No one beats the Newyork game.

J. N. Winterford