Hotel New York

 

Late at night, and the shadows are silent.
The crowds of the day have fled the city streets
and the sidewalks are oddly empty,
like a ghost town in the middle of Manhattan.

You walk in the hotel, out of the evening cool,
across an elegant lobby, a place so cinematic
you expect Bogart to walk out of the bar
as you walk in.

There are people here, strangers, travelers
who, for tonight at least, have come here
for drinks and conversation, perhaps sex
or dreams of sex. A few sit alone,

sad, or fearful, or worse, staring into the wall
of bottles, staring into their own emptiness,
nothing better to do with their time
than let it drip away, one amber drop at a time.

You order coffee, content to gaze over the room,
a watcher tonight, content here at the end of your day
to imagine stories about each person in the room,
stories odd and bazaar and likely

less strange than the truth, certainly less evocative.
And it is here you say your nightly prayer, here
in the bar, surrounded by your fellow sinners,
more comfortable with them

than in the pews of your own church, for here
sin is worn on their sleeve, not in pride. No
not that. But in honesty, as an invitation
to sit, and for a while, drink deeply

in each other’s frailty, hope, passion,
and pain.

 

About this poem

As I often do, I pulled this poem out of a picture, instead of the other way around. The hotel is in Manhattan, right around the corner from Madison Square Garden.

Tom