Lonely Motel

[Spoken text:
I have stopped the clock in the room
So the subjects won’t know what time it is
I’ve taken away their watches
The room is windowless
Great care has been taken to make the room comfortably austere
They mustn’t feel trapped.
They ought to feel at home
Like a good motel –
familiar but without personality]

It’s quiet here this motel
Uncomplicated this simple room


I love this coffee table
Artless and cheap
This lamp, this tawdry mirror here
This stain resistant rug
Survivor of a thousand insults
Soiled shoes of benighted strangers
Each a mystery to all the others
A thousand strangers shared this bed
These towels, washed and washed
This unremarkable TV
This cable of innumerable ghosts
Kabbalah to all idle faiths

I love this place
This room, this clean motel
Its towels, its wrapped soaps
The room is scented pine
My work is spread out on the bed
A hundred simple photographs
Not one a memory
Not one remarkable
And I sleep here like a baby
Like a baby here I sleep.