33rd St. blues

Frozen ground, cold noon shadows. We ramble by a massive alabaster plinth bearing the weight of a suspended human city block, a marvel of design and commerce and a thousand abodes shimmering godlike yet supplicant to the endless blue above. Skyscraper as man incarnate, sacrificial tribute, an iron will of angles looped and jutting. The smell of people. Prices on first-floor windows and above recessed doorways dark as night in the shade of 33rd Street’s dubious inference. Neal Cassady passes on horseback with a rifle. The pink of his cowboy boots explodes in alleyway sunlight, both man and horse steaming breath while the retinue slumps behind wraithlike and bejeweled in glittering sequins, none older than ten and all armed.

A madman on the corner paces barefoot orating lies that take winged form and fly up beyond the steel and glass towers to incontrovertible truths that urinate on our heads.