Monday, January 6, 2014

Month of poetry #5: Commercial service - 3 out of 5 stars

Unseen hands on housekeeping trolley
firm knocks/pause/keys/nose the door open
with buttocks and back into the room.
Four-piece queen suites disrobed of dust
under pain of white-gloved fingers from upstairs.

Midnight room service slides sideways into
strobe-lit back to back Avengers,
four women shouting at primary flashes
screening in red/white/blue/green
"What the fuck, heroes, what the fuck?"

Breakfast starts at four. Head of service
queens it over grain breads and sweet jams
props up on years of coffee and
loves every wrinkle on each croissant
and face. Avenging the title of senior.

Front desk shone chestnut colour
polished into history with years of
nasty/brutish/short wages, generations of fingers
tagging the grain into macrocosm of oils
invisible hands wearing away a tree.



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Includes suggestions by:

@ernmalleyscat: four-piece queen suites
@ReadingSheilas: 3 out of 5 stars
@JayJayCee1: shone chestnut colour
@chantarelle: what the fuck, Heroes, what the fuck?

I've always been interested in how hotels work, and the people seen and unseen who work there. Interviews with workers in these places are often amazing and mind-boggling. I even made the mistake of watching several seasons of Hotel Babylon based on this interest of mine. Admittedly, this was also because Dexter Fletcher (Spike from Press Gang) was in it. But either way, I wouldn't advise it.

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