After complaining on Facebook that there was no New York City equivalent of Carl Sandburg's "Chicago," mostly to throw out the line that I thought should start it: "City of Mooks and this Fuckin' Guy," a friend told me to finish the poem.  So here's my attempt.

CITY OF MOOKS

     City of Mooks and this Fuckin' Guy
     Jaywalkers, Drivers who can't and who won't
     Lenders and Borrowers both
     Loudly, lordly, lean and hungry
     Spine of the New World

If you are wicked, I don’t care. I see what I see and I will listen 
     to everything you say, then ignore it.
If you are crooked, what else should I expect? The stop and frisk,
     the tourist trap and money pit once called Ground Zero,
     the open palm. No tip is large enough. 
If you aren’t so brutal, if not so grimy, if not so loud, 
     you’ve become deaf , City of Golden Shackles,
     graffiti art and protest crime.           
To those who sneer at you, I say, it’s only for me to sneer at.
     Sneer at your sister's small-town hair. Sneer at your unpaid uncle. 
     This one’s mine.
Show me another city where superheroes go. Show me a city 
     with so many rings. Show me a city with more parades.
Tallest of Cities and Hardest. City of Long Waters. City of Sluggers
     who know what it’s like to be slugged.

Sitting ferocious, standing to yawn and with contempt,
Turning its back but taking its eyes off you never.
     Threat and Protector,
     Screaming for you to
     Come back Get Back
     Come over here
     Get the fuck outta here
Digging at you as it digs at the sky,
Laying foundations, veins of blue water, bellies of waste
Wiring you until the heaviest hand and lightest glance will spark
Building you up, making you climb, top, tower, loom
Even the shadowed canyons reach to the sun.
Breathing with one great gathering sound
     Cars and crowing and steam released
     Grabbing that fuckin’ guy and pulling him to you
     City of Rings, First City, spine of the world.

Here's my entry for the Emily Suess writing contest using writing prompt #49, "The streetlights..."  I so wanted to do something Pixar, but I'm just too Plymptoon.

Bulbous

     The streetlights at the corner stared each other down.
Their long arms shook their bulbous fists, egged on by gusts through town.
     The north one flickered constantly. He ached to pound
the south, who buzzed how he would happily slap the north around.

     Why it had come to this they neither knew nor cared.
It probably involved the other always being there.
     When north picked up a bird and threw it with a glare,
south batted it away and with a fateful buzz declared:

     “Tonight, my friend. Tonight.” North flickered, “Finally.”
They tried to wrench their bases free, then saw they had to freeze:
     A bucket truck sped towards them, stopping in between.
Its orange flashers flashed officiously: “Utility.”

     One worker set up pylons, blocking off the roads.
Two more brought out their tools, the cables and a covered load.
     They hoisted it, installed it quickly and exposed
a single red light slowly blinking: “Fuck. You. Both.”

     The streetlights failed to see the workers pack and leave,
so angry were they at this pompous, interloping piece
     of—“Fuck. You. Both.” They shook and would have screamed
had they not seen at once it was their common enemy.

     They calmed.  They smiled. The streetlights saw they were alone,
then tore loose from the sidewalks, hopped until they stood below
     the light and beat it so hard that its cables groaned.
Its thick skin split.  It bled red wires. It kept on blinking, though:

     “Fuck. You. Both.” They stepped up their attack.
They knocked the red light from its mount. They kicked it as it smacked
     the street. And when it blinked and blinked they hammered back.
Awash in red, they worked it over till its lenses cracked. 

     Its bulb at last went out.  They crossed their arms like brothers.
South buzzed.  North flickered. That was it.  They whaled on one another.