Hotel Freedom

“The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries out in terror before being defeated.”

— Charles Baudelaire, Le Confiteor de l’artiste

 

 

Citified offspring

of Karelian peasants,

you are like aging ice,

blackened & treacherous –

but a warm, steroid smell is about you,

intimate & familiar, like my sister’s. –

Your nervous, impatient speech

is rich with mysterious sibilants,

high & resonant, hissing like a

furious kitten.

& as you sound your cold, coherent

contempt, the dross of mundane

temptation is waiting in ambush

like a ditched malicious engine.

Pale street lamps cast shadows

about the snow slush & there’s a

reek of cold rust wafting across the

empty square, foul & electric.

I heard a door shut

& I had to go.

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Peter Bies © 2010

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