NEW YORK IS A FAIRY-TALE

New York is a fairy tale
told by Hippodrome industrialists
Their shimmering spires,
stretching upward to an age
peppered in prosperity and myrrh,
built on the humbled backs
of hard working,
strong drinking,
God-fearing immigrants
raising their families in Hell’s Kitchen
and the Bronx.

Full of bright-eyed optimism,
gaiety and World’s fairs
destined for Empire State
and Rainbow Room elegance.
Lush pastures in Central Park,
bridged and framed
by the gilded, surveying
from their perches on Fifth
or Tavern on the Green.

New York, New York,
a fantasy no less
than Coney Island remembered,
made famous by the camera
in Moon River memoirs
and trembling ovations
off the Great White Way

New York is a fairytale
as those told by Grimm,
or the fabled tragedies of old,
with looming apocalypses,
disenchanted, lost.
Robbed baron of Lennon,
and the dust settling World Trade.
Why so deceived?
Anything is possible,
in the darkening lands of make believe.