Los Angeles below
Spread like a giant tablecloth crumpled at the edges
The smog filled wind gentle flew past me on the fifty fifth
floor
The roof
It only took three steps to fly like a bird
Floating like a rock
Falling I watch as the corporate world
Floor by floor circumvent me
JJ Lewinsky fawning over his secretary
Petersen playing computer solitaire
While pretending to be on a conference call
Forty sixth floor and another coffee break
I wonder what will it be like as I hit the ground
Instant or will the pain radiate
Will my image be imprinted for all eternity on the sidewalk
Has my life been fruitful
Hey! There’s Parkin-Bowles transfixed at his window
Thinking he is seeing an angel, a sign to sell some obscure
stock
Before the market closes
Fortieth floor Jenkins from legal moons me
As he photocopies his large white butt
To show some young intern in the hope of a sexual tryst
Thirty seventh and Miss Ruthie cleans her window
The daily ritual of her obsessive-compulsive behavior
She really needs to get a life
Thirty fourth young Potter in accounting
Trying to chat up Wendy Malloy
Hoping for a date to win his bet with his homies
The ground suddenly seems much closer
A bird fly’s towards me then dives towards the group of
tourists below
Twenty eight floor inside Trevor Gooding is trying to hang
himself
After another bad day of trading in foreign currency
Twenty first, strange to see an empty floor
Air conditioning ducks hang with cable of every color from
the open ceiling
Like me the thirties flew by with no significant memories
Gosh! I hope I miss that metal sculpture
Perris Agies’s David in Aluminum
The floors pass slowly now, as I look in each window
I see their faces, shocked, surprised, ginning, even
laughing
And the occasional blank face.
Only ten floor to go
And my inner self will be exposed for all the world to see
I came into this world with nothing to hide
I leave it ditto
As the ground gets closer, the fog of a bad night sleep
Surrounds me, and I awake the panic attack is over
My first day as chief executive officer begins.
