The world is spinning and I realize
I’m the only poet at this Bain Capital party
There is one bottle of each of the best
High end spirits, a treadmill, and an Xbox,
And only the investors plan to wake at 6 AM
Everyone is wearing gingham.
The others are waking at nine.
These interns, they who manage legions of temps,
Speak of the love of their temps, almost like friends or family:
The love of a temp is all the more sweet,
For its brevity.
These young men bravely leap over the gap of uncertainty:
I salute them!
In a matter of months they make the transition
From dealing with the awkwardness of a college-experience
Focused on business,
To the stability of les années trente.
As the only poet among these favored-sons,
Talking about art and literature to myself
I inevitably am cornered by a couple of Yale sophomores
The Yale girls ask me, “Who was the
Greatest Bohemian?”
“Charles Aznavour,” I tell them.
The arrangements, melodies,
And harmonies of color
Presented by James McNeil Whistler
Web startups and their tulip bulbs
The water on the Lower East Side
Isn’t any good
Now that I have done everything
My strongest desire is to go to Pete’s and wake up
With a wife and a little baby
She’ll love me and cradle my head
The nineteen year old Yale girls talk about the men
Who’ve bought them drinks at night clubs,
Who they may not have put out for.
“What are you doing tonight?” I ask them.
Interviews tomorrow at 9AM?
Well, what, you’re nineteen and you don’t wanna fuck?
A lot of my good friends happen to be infidels
We drink tea and converse with legs propped up
In Ottoman style and discuss our plans
To break into parties in Cannes
The subway woman opens wide the door between trains
And holds it there with her foot
Leaning forward to enjoy the remains of a cigarette
Like the archcriminal Vautrin
Fully in possession of her body
She is black and threatens the latino men who stare
“Cómo estás! Cómo estás! Motherfucker!”
She smells like stale mold in her poverty
The water is thunder storming in SoHo and Brooklyn
Will their cloudy water kill me
I’m too afraid to drink it
The guests depart to sleep
Before the morning bell,
“Tomorrow 21 Club I’ll see you there!!”
I live in mortal fear
Of repeating Brummel’s mistake
And insulting the prince regent.
Or ending in exile as Wilde:
A bonnie prince in France, flat in the back of a café,
Fattened, with pronounced blood vessels.
I prepare myself for the life of unhappiness before me
I perform ablutions
Ready for death in the gutter but certainly first
Loss of health in incarceration
I was never the celebrated court painter.
My fall has covered my steady rise
In inestimable shadow.
