A poem, or a rant of sorts from the other night. It’s a bunch of scrambled thoughts about New York City that I tried to unify with a theme. It’s mostly a list of titles and monikers I give to the place.
City of Dreamers
City of idealists and the idealized
Where visions of perfection
distort reality
City of Monsters
Of Exchange
Dutch City, Trade Ciy
City of Mutation
City for the Young and Unsatisfied
Aged City, Immature City
Of the not fully-formed
City of Change
Of Poverty
Of the Rich and the Destitude
City of Stratification
Of Humiliation
Of Hope and Defeat
Of Effort and Escape
Global City
City of Refugees
Epicurean City
Ecumenopolis
Bacchanal City
Bohemian City
Irresponsible City
City of No Consequence
Where Action is not Judged
Nor Being
City of Outlaws
Metaphysical and Ethical
City of Tribes
Of Separation
Of Isolation
Of Convergence
–Financial City
Where nothing is sacred
but the Exchange
City of Change
City of Dirt
City of Dreamers
Of Prisoners
Of Dreamers
And the original poem, which is partially engraved on a stone bench in my favorite park: the Palisades; the strip of rocks and trees and trails that quietly observes from North Jersey the glass and concrete and steal across the river:
City of ships!
(O the black ships! O the fierce ships!
O the beautiful, sharp, bow’d steam-ships and sail-ships!)
City of the world! (For all races are here;
All the lands of the earth make contributions here);
City of the sea! City of hurried and glittering tides!
City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede,
Whirling in and out, with eddies and foam!
City of wharves and stores! City of tall façades of marble and iron!
Proud and passionate city! mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!
Spring up, O city! Not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, warlike!
Fear not! Submit to no models but your own, O city!
Behold me! incarnate me, as I have incarnated you!
I. have rejected nothing you offer’d me–whom you adopted, I have adopted;
Good or bad, I never question you–I love all–I do not condemn anything;
I chant and celebrate all that is yours–yet peace no more;
In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine;
War, red war, is my song through your streets, O city!
(Walt Whitman)
Arctaco 
