Lost Motels

On the relegated highways

that tollways and freeways blast
past, some derelict motels still stand--
an American genre.

They're bearded with weeds,
pastel paint blistered,
neon nullified. Oh, how

the salesmen, adulterers,
truckers, con-artists, and loners
lighting out for territories
used to roar in, driving finned
cars, smoking unfiltered cigarettes,
sweat-lines running down shirts
covering their reptilian spines.

The world then was full of
Kodachrome sunshine, cash,
radios, and righteousness. Night clerks
sat in back room like sentries,
sneaking shots of bourbon.

What happened to all those
atlas-thick registers filled
with names in cursive, to all
that red lipstick, all those hats
and wing-tipped shoes?

A jutting metal sign squeals
and rusts. Rats' toenails
click on buckled linoleum.
Presidents Truman and
Eisenhower recline in graves,
and ignored two-lane highways
slumber like cold snakes.

hans ostrom 2023

Dramatic Noise

/
/
/
/

Dramatic Noise

in the next motel
room, someone's
talking, with volume,
on a telephone.

words get stripped
of their wordness
as they pass through
stuccoed sheet rock.

so what i
hear sounds like
the intense language
of a huge insect

that is related
to a small
electric drill.
it's fascinating.

there's drama
in this noise.
hearing the words
would diminish

that. the noise can
be an argument
about anything.
i'm sad when

the sound stops
and the walls
of the room
i am in begin

to advance on
me, flashing their badges
of splendid, cheap
mass-produced art.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom