What It Takes To Be A New Yorker
by Michael Doyle

It used to be that all it took was a remembrance
Of what used to be and now is turned into encumbrance
Summoning a piece of the city that used to exist
When what was before is turned into what persists
In the mind, aching like a heartbreak from before
But as you turn on the street, it exists no more

Like two twin towers arched across the skyline
And are now gone in all but a memory, like friends of mine
Now since the pandemic, the wounded cling to what's gone
Yet eager to move past this, New Yorkers wish to move on
Staring up into the skies for the last star of dawn
The heroes of tomorrow are often those left to carry on

Cynicism and forgetfulness forge the future for many
There are so few left even hopeful of having an epiphany
In a place where a collective form of amnesia clasps
Around 40,000 memories were stricken down by poisoned asps
That came without any visible sign or clear warning
Only to leave the souls of this city lost in mourning

The pandemic is not gone and it has no final end date
This leaves so many wondering what will be their fate
The battle for finding any hope is fought within self
It is carried on in whispers and no wisdom from the shelf
Will see the survivors through stripped of grief of memory
Because death itself has become the thing of living legacy

Still, as nights go on, there is warmth yet to be found
Love, dreams, and magical things still somehow abound
In this steel-girded city studded deep inside the concrete
There is a world meant to be explored and traveled by feet
All of this is shared in a city of strangers turned into family
And yet distrust has turned faith into its first casualty

The spirit of America stands lonely ill-spoken as if a homily 
As if a footnote in the textbook written in sentimentality
About a time and place where a melting pot was once believed in
And a church mouse quietly prays for belief in this once again
Waiting for a rusted ferry to sink while survivors learn to swim
Grasping for a moment's hopeful light in this world grown dim

A mind's melodic memory is accompanied by a rhythmic beat
Words suggest that somewhere out beyond the city's heat
That there is something to live and die for and it is better
Out beyond the neon lights is a God that is a respecter
Of those who live righteously and boldly speak of living virtue
Regardless of all the world has done and the Devil's own due

Abstractions pile up and the plot twists into dissatisfaction
While thinking persons and feelers blend into the contradictions
The city's lights sparkle as if a gaudy glittering necklace
New York yet remains as the New York and as if no other place
The affection that's the soul of this city still shines through
For those who love New York, no other city will ever do

(c) July 22, 2022  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved