Sunday, November 19, 2006

Hôtel Nouvel

I think it’s nice now

just never felt that the lobby could hold
You sleeping and me sleeping
Still in our chairs this much later
After the gondola light of downtown pullses
into the glass doors.

At ten o’clock. At 2 o’clock
The Porters’ carts
Brush by now and some are
Neatly arranged by the elevator
(burnished glow in the elevator
door,tallow,You going over/upsetting a lamp
)

I’m trying
I say now it’s no crisis

But the out-of-town couple ready to check in
for the day
They’re looking rather defiant. Happy

you say
Everything is set
Give me that key junior

He has his hand on her neck.
She’s not backing into his knee, exactly.
Not backing.
Though we couldn’t tell, very well,
from this sleepy angle,
whether they were walking,
Or waltzing

But 20 stories above
It’s Less confused
The clean sheets and the hot water
The good view
not a concern of ethics
Not many colors;sculpting
Reds and bronzes
Same in the tapestries on the walls

And on the walls
Which are just
a few feet away

3 comments:

CSOC said...

Kind of got a very New York feeling to it, maybe because I just like it there. Regarless...here’s what I would edit:

1. Check the spelling of “pulses”
2. Stick to words or numbers but not both on the same line “At ten o’clock. At 2 o’clock”
3. Revise the random capitalization of the lines in the poem.
4. Join the lonely “)” with the previous sentence.

David said...

Thanks for the feedback. I wrote most of this on my Blackberry, which does some weird things with the capitalization. I think it depends on how fast you're typing. Anyway, I was thinking I would post it as close to 'as is' as I could--without really thinking about how it looked to begin with--but I can see that yeah, a little more consistency might be good for it.

There is one thing that is not a quirk though--that 'pullses' is intentional. Was hoping to convey the sense of two words with it--both 'pulses' and 'pulls'. And maybe even poles too, consistent with the gondola thing. But that might be too cute. I have to think about that.

Thanks again for the comments. Much appreciated.

--D

CSOC said...

Hey David I see what you're trying to do with pull-ses...perhaps if you stick a hyphen in there, the clueless reader (like me), will know that the word requires closer examination.

... Again, I really liked the New York feel of the poem and I enjoyed reading it.

- DQ