Ode to the City

Rock solid

With a heart of glass and limbs of steel

A mosaic of human complexities

A promised land, a magical kingdom

A hive of activity, a network of new horizons

The mother of all inventions,

A vacuum, a pool of destitution

A road to nowhere, a dead-end destination

Your heartbeat - unmissable

Your pace of life - quick and fast

Your attraction - magnetic

You are everyone, everything

You make dizzy, you are risqué

You weave dreams right from the edge

Make the impossible feasible

You create fashion trends,

Dollar signs all around

Inhabit the rise and fall of celebs

Launch fads by the conveyor-belt

Turn them into fast-moving consumer goods

You manufacture beauty and happiness

You are capitalism personified, you decide

Free trade, free will, free spirit, freemason

You enthuse, you inspire, you move, you consume

You fathom your own rules, you lead, you plead

You control, you happen, you are at the heart

Of where things happen - good and bad

You are an art form, a social movement

Grace and reason, a lifestyle, a prayer

Ever-changing, ever-marvelling

Never asleep, never doubting

You press on, push on, move forward

You are life and turn lives upside-down

You are the nerve centre, the focus, the obsession

Hope, faith, past, present and future

All rolled into one big human reason

To surpass oneself, to vanquish fears

Aim for tomorrow today and never mourn yesterday

To grow bigger, stronger, to rise higher

To elevate your spirit and your soul

Scrape the sky with your intentions and your goals

You are ambitious and a success story

Demanding of yourself and never content

You are proud, you are rich and a pauper too

You run, you jump and boogie

Whizz down to the sound of time and money

You have fun, kid yourself, you kid us

Take the long way home, break hearts, go bust

You are one last call, one last-ditch attempt

For you are one big illusion too

And a lesson to those ready to question you.

by © Nathalie Hachet 2010

Photographic references (from top page down):

• Robert Doisneau, Issy-les-Moulineaux, La Ceinture Verte (Parisian green belt), 1949
• Rockefeller Center under construction, New York City, 1932, by Hamilton M. Wright for Aerial Explorations, Inc., N.Y., 1932, from the New York World-Telegram Collection at the U.S. Library of Congress, via Wikipedia and Flickr 
• L.S. Lowry, Great Ancoats Street, Manchester, 1930