.

New York, New York

“Give up Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten
Island too…” (with apologies to Rodgers & Hart)

How many songs about New York are in my repertoire?
I don’t think I can sing them now. The city’s history.
Give my alarm to Broadway. Coney Island, au revoir.
You’ve picked a Marxist hatemonger! A baffling mystery
Which has my friends and family despairing in alarm
As anxious as can be for me to now convey their dread.
They fear an antisemite who desires only harm
Not just to Israel but who also seems to wish Jews dead.
This is a man who calls for boycotts of the Jewish state,
Attacking Jewish students, barricading them from college.
He’s vaunted terror, praised Hamas, and spread their lying hate
Manipulating the unschooled with false, fictitious “knowledge.”
He hopes to yank New York about as left as left can go.
His goals and policies are hateful. No, it’s not his faith.
But he’s a Marxist antisemite who will cause great woe.
Nor should we want the city governed by a Stalin wraith—
A man who gladly sees Manhattan’s streets blocked by a mob,
Who wears the badge of Soros, Bernie Sanders, AOC;
Who likes the thought that New York’s wealth is there for him to rob,
And with illegals wants to grow some Leftist colony.
He hopes to turn New York into Havana and Hanoi
With just a touch of Baghdad and a large dose of Beijing.
New York, what are you thinking? Do you want to fall like Troy?
To give the city up to all the evils he will bring?
New York, you’ve volunteered to be the Democrats’ piñata—
Content to aid their goal to bash you into smithereens.
You choose a man who wants to “Globalize the Intifada?”
You’re choosing death. There is no gray. There are no in-betweens.

.

.

Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals.  He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel  Bleeding Stone.  He lives in Wimauma, Florida.

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6 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Brian, I just saw the alarming/terrifying news of the winner of the far-left democratic mayoral race and am impressed with the accuracy and timeliness of your outstanding description of what awaits not only New Yorkers, but the entire country from schools and academic institutions, to the local, city, state, and national government. I am saddened and angry.

    Reply
  2. Michael Vanyukov

    As is well known, people get the government they deserve. Unfortunately, many end up as collateral damage from that as well, for no fault of their own. “Give my alarm to Broadway. Coney Island, au revoir” – are we going the way of Europe? Beautifully put; the meter, so fitting, takes care of my usual reluctance to be too close to sordid political details in poetry. Thank you, Brian!

    Reply
  3. Adam Wasem

    “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”–H.L. Mencken. Yes, it’s sad for those with a connection to New York City, but something like this has been a long time coming–NYC is 68% minority now, 40% foreign-born; import the 3rd world, become the 3rd world. Unless Trump pulls off some miracle of mass deportation there–unlikely given the entrenched local resistance–socialism is the status quo going forward. Best bet is to get out while you still can.

    Reply
  4. Mark Stellinga

    Brian, this is still another of those ‘no way a candidate like that can win a primary, much less get elected’ catastrophes – even in NY’! We need to collectively cross our fingers that one of ‘ours’ takes shot at what he’s after come November. These political bonfires are exhilarating to light, for me, when I whip one up. Great job!

    Reply
  5. Joseph S. Salemi

    Brian, this little socialist prick Zohran Mamdani won a plurality in the Democrat primary because there were several candidates, and because the main Democratic hopeful (Andrew Cuomo) is violently hated by many otherwise moderate and conservative voters, who will never forgive him for murdering their loved ones during the Covid hysteria.

    Add to this the fact that there was a vicious campaign for Mamdani subsidized by an array of left-liberal pressure groups. The current mayor knew that he had no chance to be re-nominated by the Democrat Party after daring to cooperate with Donald Trump, so he withdrew from candidacy and is running on an independent ticket. His decision brought out all the left-wing freaks from the woodwork, and this allowed a well-financed piece of garbage like Mamdani to win.

    The man is everything you say: a pro-Hamas antisemite, a Marxist, an economic illiterate, and a crypto-terrorist (he wants the Intifada to be world-wide). He’s even dumber than AOC. The man is so dangerous and insane that even the New York Times opposed him.

    There are a lot of very stupid people in New York City, many of them in the upper echelons of academia, the chattering classes, and even our gutless and clueless churches. They go on copious crying jags if they hear the word “Gaza.” All we can hope for is that Mamdani will be beaten in the runoff, and if not, then in the general election by the thin majority of New Yorkers who don’t subscribe to leftist insanity and Jew-hate.

    Reply
  6. Cheryl A Corey

    Your gray matter was definitely firing on all cylinders for this composition! One has to wonder if, just as DNC power brokers conspired to derail Bernie Sanders, they’ll find a way to stymie this radical socialist upstart.

    Reply

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