paper office

37th street and 8th avenue, shining glass doors and a small elevator, the marbly walls like inside an egg, bright, and up in the box with the guy on the phone and into the dingy blue hallway, misspellings on papers indicating a business, something with trend in the name, a small baseballbat bottleopener keyring for the thin-doored bathroom, purple soap and white soap both, cooler in there. Paper house itself was quite warm, in between buildings, but meeting Ed and he removed his black pleather shiny satinlined coat from the rolling chair and gestured I sit down. The mashup of Mary and people bowed across a plaza in prayer, a quote about how if we humans knew what eternity actually was then we'd change every part of our lives. The gentle darkhaired about my age guy in a black tshirt, balding on his crown, looking at his phone, looking at his computer. The stained handsmudges on the printer. Dust on the floor below the window, the old yellowed panasonic airconditioner, the dirty windows, seemingly soot-covered by thousands of midtown years.

new orleans

the universe is trying to tell me

the universe is telling, urging me

that here, it only gets bad before it gets worse

that these brainjolts are the spark

because, come on now I'm an engine

  so

let's hotbox the cadillac

let's mildly check that sunset from a cornereye

let's put those rugs we found in the upper upper cabin bedroom

  on the 200 yr floors in our new apartment

let's ride the goddam streetcar

admire the great muddy

crack exoskeletons in the dingy dim dreamed-of divebar

curtains of smoke drifting lazily

we'll sit around, sit about

we'll sit all over the place

fantasize about the escaping from city life

eating sandwiches on pontoons

we'll meet fat new bugs

and that rich-weather

the I'm-holding-you-now weather

let's choke on humidity

on coffee by the emptying

let's fishtail around the festival goers

and get wealthy on bourbon

let's get tall

taller than whatever buildings

and we'll crush the catacombs & crypts

slaughter the sarcophagi 

mush the mausolea

turn bones to dirt to under our fingernails to our mouths in our gullets

& reproduce it all through our skin

respirating 

and then we'll watch a jazz band

  and we'll make fun of the saxophone

and we'll hear some blues on the street

  and look wildly about, calling out names

and maybe we'll drown

or blow away

or 

or

or

maybe 

  maybe we'll really like it there