Ode to an Office Crush
by Hezekiah Allen Taylor
I.
0 joyous sexy one, thou breath of clean air in this foul, stale environment,
Thou, from whose lips could utter forth such sarcasm, could call forth
irony,
Could drive, like ghosts from a voodoo priestess, all thoughts
Of others' stupidity, both deep and shallow, both deed and rhetoric,
This place stricken by the pestilence of the multitudes: grandiose
Self-importance. Thou art different, art less pure, art more gray.
Wing me to the dark and heavenly bed of mutual illusion
Where seeds of office politics lie cold and low
And dead as a doornail within the matte-gray cubicle.
Thine perfect imperfections give heat to this mausoleum.
I know thou not so well, only from glimpses
At the vending machine or across the board room table
But you live for me in hues of fantasy (and I love
That you smell of CK1 and coffee).
Wild Co-worker, who art moving offices,
Come sit by me and make my day.
II.
Thou on whose ass I gaze the entire day,
Loosen your cinched tie, the clouds of repression
Which choke your delicious dry tone. Shed it.
Shake the last bastions of propriety
from the straight-laced tones of our dry e-mails.
Angels of stress and management, hear me.
Find his black and heartless void
And rain down a little sexual harassment
On this poor, pitiful workplace stalker.
III.
Thou who didst waken me from endless meetings
To fantasies about skinny dipping in the blue Mediterranean,
Look between the dry and somber lines
of my last memo to find the call of wet, aching dreams.
Beside me you pass out contracts
And doodle happy faces above the bolded statement:
WHY AM I HERE?
I understand your office plight, your desires
To sleep in biers of ancient prominence.
Turn to me and see it on my face.
Thy voice suddenly rumbles and I'm fearful
Until I realize it's your turn to present the monthly revenues.
IV.
If I were a calculator thou might use;
If I were a swift computer you could type with;
A pen to pulse beneath your power, and share
The impulse of thy newest cost-control concept,
I might insinuate myself, trumpet my prophecy!
***
Scandalously based on "Ode to the West Wind"
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), the full text of which can be found
at http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=1589.
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