Postcard From the Heartbreak Hotel (Brehm)
Postcard From The Heartbreak Hotel, by John Brehm (1955-)
Wish you were here instead of me.
It has a fantastic view
of the unconscious ocean,
into which a few of the guests
will no doubt fling themselves
before their day is through.
The rooms are so spacious
and so clean you’d think
you were the first person
ever to not sleep here.
The beds of course are huge,
an abyss of white sheets around you
which you may fill with your
imagination whatever way you wish.
The staff — courteous, attentive,
remorseless — anticipates your
every need and frustrates them all.
The food, as you may guess,
is a tasteless affair, some grey
monotonous gruel we make up
poems about. “Cruel,” “fool,”
“wool” (as in over your eyes)
and “autopsy” seem to be
the favorite rhyme words.
And lately the guests have
devised a new game: who
can stare out the window
longest without seeing anything.
We’ve been told the mountains
before us are astounding.
But we’ve made them disappear.
Reduced them to a blank
grey screen on which
to play out the home movies
of our despair again and again.
And when the sun sets and
darkness reaches out its arms
around the world like a man
gathering his winnings off a table,
the trees outside my window
becomes your back
receding down the hall.
All the night the neon sign
glows in self-conscious irony.
Yes, there is a vacancy.