Pretty Paper

I am so baffled my head is spinning.  I am at my end
with wits dangling.  I am ready to be locked down
and and rolled back to ages dark and dreary with
dank as a permanent condition. 
I’m a manager of a midtown Manhattan hotel
to be sure, but never have I seen sixteen wrapped
birthday present left behind, abandoned like
so much month’s ago
Prego.
The loud party went on all evening in room 
sixteen sixteen, loud and long and intrusive,
enough for complaints
from adjoining rooms,
enough to tax me to summon assertiveness,
to advance like a madman on a tight-lipped
mission of un-mercy to the raucous din,
to knock, leaving any modicum
of manners in my back pocket
and yes, to do like Marine recruits do
on that door of the D.I.’s office,
sending vibrations seism-like
through wood extant,
through peep-hole, through that electronic card slot
that took the place of key and keyhole; yea, the valley
of meek behind, and the mountain of demand now me,
a paragon of insist
that the party-makers stop and desist in their harbor-
haw of rowdy loud and unbecoming ballyhoo.
This, though, led me to a let-down. 

Entering, I saw no one…no one.  I did see sixteen presents; 
and they were birthday presents as per the sentiments.  Yet
left here like old onions, like chipped pottery, like dying grudges
or the crumbling paint from an antique frame.  I am want for life,
yet poverty now strikes me hard across the neck as life is not; no,
no bodies abide, no humans sit or stare or idle a bit by sofa or sink,
or ‘neath the ornate clock.  This is a room of gift occupation only,
where wrapped up courtesies lure like Sirens of yore, like maws
sensual with ruby red lips and passionate breath.  There are
chinks in this reality, and I can only mourn the lost while
selfishness and curiosity tear the pretty paper.


40 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
9-6-16