Classy Jan 01, 2007

the good

Year Nineteen Eighty

• back when wireless was only in airports and Starbucks
• back when diamonds were used in jewelry not skin care products
• Boeing 747 ran shuttles from New York to Montréal every 15 minutes
• You caught the subway from midtown Manhattan and were at the airport in 25 minutres
• no luggage
• you paid cash,
• waved your passport
• the left engine would start up as you got on the stairs
• and the right would start to turn as you got in the door
• and by the time a glass of wine was poured at your seat
• the plane was taxing down the runway
• All that is gone now

the offerings of generous general motor

• Lincoln Town Cars, with drivers
• Cadillac Deville’s, cars that need space to roam,
• and 22 foot long Buick Centuries, pedal to the floor but the four-door just creeps
• the chromed battering-rams of front end grills .
• 'hundred lane highways in both directions that stretch on forever

Characters:

• the surgeon from Lyon
• Mr. bureau chief
• Ambassador Pickering unraveled the story for me
• the well dressed chef
• the architect at his drafting table

Hallmarks

• newspapers tucked under his arm
• handhelds
• airplanes
• security cards. metropasses
• passport stamps,
• Piano black dress shoes
• 10 ½ gators
• pink Victoria secret bag porting
• blue Tiffianies parcel

Manhattan Couple

• His pink newspaper copy of the Financial Times tucked under his arm
• her heels clatter over the cobblestone zebra stripes of a pedestrian crossing

Old World

Mid Morning

• The midmorning sun cast spears of light onto the deep wood of the mahogany floors
• the room had a beige glow
• he sat at the grand piano playing by ear
• pausing only to turn the weathered beige pages of wall street journal
• his newspaper taking the place of the sheet music

the fall

• the frantic hammer of stiletto heels o’er a cobble stones plaza
• turning heads in the baroque windowed apartments above.
• Time stops as the hammer skips a beat
• a gasp punctuates the silence as the girl’s heel catches a stone and shatters
• her black dress sacrificed her porclean shin to the cold stone.
• Her knee gleams crimson in the moonlight
• she breathes hard

Jaywalker

• never doing what she's told
• there she goes
• polka-dot dress
• barefoot on the cobble stones
• jaywalking in the streets of Rome
• there she goes tropical cyclone
• looking for St. Jerome

spanish

• Smooth rhythms of a nylon string guitar
• playing sweet spanish solos with classical soul
• the shutters open to take in the sweet sounds

the bad

• highrises,
• trucker,
• highways,
• consumers,
• There's nothing funnier than pride in an utterly confident stride

High Rises

• dozens of beastly concrete rogues dressed in close tailored glass curtin walls

Truckers

• the slaves in their big-rig caskets

• so pull the car on over to give you a ride
• Damn this sleepy weather he said
• as he marched in sopping wet shoes through rain pools evaporating
• I pulled the car on over to give you a ride
• but there's nothing uglier than a man hitting his stride

The Anti Woman

• you can't sit down right 'cause your jeans are too tight
• your brittle boned miniature dog cowers in your big empty lizard skin handbag
• Daddy has tethered you to a cellular leash
• chunky plastic sunglasses inform the masses that if spoken to, you will not reply
• the big black lenses conceal a construction zone of plaster and paint
• a veil shrouding dark bags under your eyes, the swollen bumps of plucked eyebrows, and a thick scaffold of mascara