Ode to Old Amsterdam

City of canals and coffeeshops and cobblestone
Smartshops and smut
Museum amusement
Fried food vended
The Leidseplein that never sleeps
Towering Dutchmen on two wheels
British weekenders and
Obnoxious Americans

City of practicality and patience
Colonial triumphs and contemporary trials
Tiny little houses with tiny little windows
Cats and dogs, whores and patrons
Pigeons trained to swarm at the drop of a frite
Covered in mayo

City of dreams and nightmares
The lost, the found, the still waiting
Water, water, water
Untroubled under trams and bridges
People, people, people
Undulating like the brushstrokes of a van Gogh
Or the faces of a Munch
Rembrandt nobles still live in castles

City of memories and songs and celebration
And life and death and dams
And damns and curses and blessings

Old Amsterdam was once new
But now a mother, a grandmother
Watching all her children and laughing