Late Night in the Hotel, Weekend One

Late Night in the Hotel, unedited

Night 1

“Why do you think he was like that?”
Sorry?
“Holden pal, why was he like that?”
I, I don’t know.
The woman in the pink dress has tried to convince me that I’m going to be nice to her, that she needs a party, that her daughter has cancer, has brain cancer, died 8 months ago. She’s only here for a weekend from abroad, she hasn’t seen her friends for a long time, she needs this party. She lives a long way away. In Paisley. She’s a nurse, a Psychiatric nurse. She’s about 38.
Her friend wants to distract me with catcher in the rye. I’ve found her in the nude.
I knocked on the door,
Unless these unauthorised people leave the building I am going to have to ask you to vacate the room.
“Will you give me half an hour?”
I’ll give you five minutes.
“Aww son don’t be like that.”
Five minutes.
I wait five minutes.
Knock knock knock knock knock knock knock.
“What?”
I need to come in to check the room now.
“But I’m not wearing any knickers.”
I tried not to check, but she wasn’t wearing any knickers. She had a black slip on. I didn’t look again.

The Cunt is asleep on the floor on his front drooling into the carpet – I ask him to wake up “Could you wake up Sir. Could you wake up. Could you wake up mate. Could you wake up pal. Wake up. Sit up. Get up. Up. Wake up you shit. Wake up you cunt. Cunt. Cunt. Cunt.”

And then the fire alarm goes off.

The Cunt sleeps on.

Night 2

You held a knife to our eldest’s head.
That was you.
Fuck was it, it was you.
Nah nah.
It was five years ago!
That was you.
You're only free because you made me lie in court.

Polis: could it be argued that he was restraining her, rather than assaulting her?
I suppose it could.
Polis: thank you. We may need to call you at a later date.
Thank you.
Polis: have a good night.

they've to got it got through before he returns

I would not be telling the truth if I tried to suggest that people do not communicate. Certainly there are people quiet with each other, like those two young people. She with thin shoes and skinny jeans and her legs crossed and holding onto a iced fruit drink, those ones everyone mocks from Starbucks. And I a little too old for her, she wears no make up and will grow up unattractive; but right now perfect. And him picking pieces of something out of his sandwich for a thing to mention, they don’t speak, have they fallen out, are they bored with each other. Have they just broken up, are they at the beginning or at the end of something or the middle are they waiting for someone, perhaps they will kiss for something to do, or no. cynic. because there is nothing else to do but kiss. He wears a rugby shirt in blue and yellow and she wears a band logoed hooded jumper, no they just look like that, hers actually says Annie 08 and his says Fiji and he probably doesn’t play rugby though he is quite tall and his back is very long.

What about these three, a middle aged man a grey haired old woman and old man probably his parents, they are pension able. When he (the middle aged man) is there they don’t seem to say anything, nothing of any length enough to be concern of anyone. But then the man goes to the bathroom (the middle aged man) and the parents (we think) talk to each other, they discuss, they have a discussion and it looks furtive and important. Then the son (we think) returns and the father (we think) goes to the bathroom. The mother (we think) and the son (we think) have a quick argument, fast, they’ve to got it got through before he returns, perhaps she is thinking [thank god father (we think)’s piles are bad at the moment] and son (we think) is thinking [I hope father (we think)’s piles aren’t bad at the moment], or perhaps it is the other way around – piles are a very writerly way to adjust the narrative don’t you think? They seem practiced, they mirror each other’s movements closely, comfortable, managed, measured. The father (we think) and the son (we think) are never alone together and now they are all gone, jackets and mobile phones (or umbrellas) in hand and we will never know.

There were other people in the café but I have not mentioned them. And we're all just waiting for a reaction from on high.

Dusty Old Annabel Lee Is Me

I wish that I were Annabel Lee,
While I'm busily wishing that you were me -
I could be gone and without a sound
While you wait to be with dusty old me in the ground.


Might look into expanding this at some stage, but I currently feel neither the need nor the inclination.

a meeting

A stranger was approaching from the left side room -- though everyone else seemed to not notice him in a very deliberative manner. He was graceful without care, with instead a grace of purpose. He exchanged a polite 'good evening' with P in a drawl. He stood affront of them carefully leaning on an unplugged fruit machine with his legs crossed and his arse on the ledge above the cash chute.

His age was difficult even though we must know it within a year --- most likely between thirty and forty though it must be between sixteen and seventeen. He gave an impression of age and his hair seemed deliberately rifled with charcoal. His cloathing, corduroy brown, brown cord with the cords worn back to their skin tight base. They were too flared below the knees and the hems were low for P’s taste and the velvet of his jacket, with its too large lapels and cloth covered buttons a good 20 years out of fashion. L (for it was he what wore it) looked confused at the presence of P. P wished to continue to waste time by describing more of L. when L. himself asked (what is that in his hand?)

“What, is that, in y o u r hand?” He even pointed at the hand as he did it. P. hadn’t been aware, at that moment, of having anything in his hand, but it was true, there was something there. He looked at it to discover what it was, the interruption had thrown him.

- Why.

Interrupt. “Why is a different question.”

- Sorry, uueehe, it is a book on steamships. A book on steamships!

“Why do you have it?”

- I was reading it on the Metro.

“Are you sure that was wise.”

- I didn’t seem to have anything else to read.

“If you didn’t want to read it, then you shouldn’t have taken it with you.”

- I didn’t seem to have a choice; my choice was made for me.

“You had a cake and your cake was eaten for you?”

- Yes, I was placed on the Metro, I don’t know how long ago, but not the Budapest Metro, with a book on steamships and when I got here I was here.

“Remarkable! I didn’t realise people still spoke the way I am doing.”

- That is the most remarkable thing about it? By your reckoning? I could also smell WD40 throughout the whole trip, though how I could tell it from turps I don’t know.

You was wearing a dark, olive-green with egg-shell blue, shirt, undone at the wrists and tight at the neck. The collar was worn bare and dirtied yellow if it was white but it is a grass-green a cloth coloured bodey green. A loose tab sweltered and drooped behind his ear; but despite all this P knew he was in the presence of a gentleman. The easy almost drunk and oozing expression and manner of slump was ascertainedly of one who, intellectually, was used to being in the right; or fashionably incorrect. This mingling of half-stare shaffyshab and the serene flavour of grace was unmistakably musical; from what he knew of the set he was not surprised to hear the inducement from without,

“Herr L, P.. Herr P., L.. Please.”

- P reached a hand out to shake right hands; L proffered his left femininely,

“Where are you manners?”

P took the hand gently, the nails were long but the skin surrounding them was ruinous, bitten down in uneven patterns and the long nails, the whites of them, were stained to sellotape. P. felt the testing atmosphere and carefully pursed and pressed his chapped lips against the back of that cold white hand. He closed his eyes and blushed. When he opened them he could see another pair, R’s rolling and small smirks rippling across the group.

L took him to one side and began to explain things… he began with a question.

“Where have you been? We were failing to exist without you.

- I was outside.

“Without eh? And did you enjoy it?”

- Well it was a short walk, downhill,

“Short you say? Short yes, short, usually a good omen, a short walk. Downhill too. Pleasant?”

- Sorry?

“Pleasant was it P., this s h o r t walk?”

- Oh yes, as far as these things go.

“And ooeih, we have you there. How far do these things, when they do, supposing they do, what did you see, go?”

- I have certainly seen something worth seeing.

“Easy dull praise when the seeing of me is worth such a long walk. They will build a statue of me, of us perhaps, I suppose, and this will be a place of pilgrimage. Our inheritors with trim their flights and aim their wishes at us. You will write it, I can see you too devout for greatness without effort, and it would be ridiculous for a man to write his own chronicle. I never would wash my mouth with mine own praise for mine own deeds, afeart of getting a breath that stincks.”

Roisin: “But you’d eat your own shit.

L.: “touché”.

Purple (A Poem About Purple)

A poem about purple called

PURPLE

follows:

PURPLE
=====
Purple
Urple
Rple
Ple
Le
E

(was a poem about purple)

Micropsia

It was violetblack like blackjack so
he popped the beetle into his mouth,
it melted in his mouth to an acrid fluid
which burnt his tongue and he spat.
He mauled at the inside of his lips with
his tongue but no saliva would come.
And he pumped his throat for sputum,
but a cold weld had set across his tonsils.
He stepped and looked and stepped,
and into the garden he fell, onto the path.
Caught upon his hands and his elbows and
his nose was grazed against the ground,
in front of his eyes on the pavestone there were snails,
everywhere he looked there were snails
and they stretched their eyes into the distance,
He saw that they didn’t get any smaller as they receded into the distance,
and he lay prone in an amphitheatre
of ever increasing snails.
They all sat at corners.
The patch at the centre of his gaze was a corner
And the little patch of grease where his nose had touched was a corner
He could now see the millions of ever decreasing snails
that were extruding from the pores of the tip of his nose
and dropping into that patch of grease.
And he stayed there, elbows bent,
tips of toes stretched, neck straining, laughing.

deafening

Attentchunsbourtadroornowtjrone
onbildunselfwrththatsubsighds,
butslow,
pleeselaydownsyouargewtoprownedom
andtoplayluvidlebitsbesighds.

Youluvplaypilinmentupwurds
upcowntmeanttillmentsallyougot
butslow,
andpleesestaynow, youmakenewyerns
alihopeluvyuluvluvnot.

A Kafka-esque Treatise On Jam

(This is a very high-brow work of European Literature of international import.)

Jam Sam

A strange little boy here; his name was Sam,
Sam woke one morning to find his hands made of Jam.
So he licked a finger, a thumb, and was deeply disturbed
at his ten chubby digits made of gooseberry preserve.

His parents and grandparents and sister despaired,
Sam was a bad boy, he stole - stood on chairs -
from cupboards and sideboards and the very top shelf
jars of peanut butter and honey and anything else

he could get his sticky hands on,
with Sam around, like that! it was gone.
And with such jammy hands there was nowhere to hide.
But now he remembered his mother, and she hadn't lied,

You'll turn into Jam, I promise you son
of all your Jam stealing no good will come,
best stick to veg and the odd tattie scone
Jam all the day and you wont last long.

He rolled out of bed, sticky prints on the sheets,
and quietly headed for the door, his family were asleep,
but the handle slipped through his jellied nails
and Sam sat on the floor and started to wail.

He looked at his green palm with orange peel veins
and Sam promised never to eat jam again.
Then quick as a flash he was sat up in bed
a raspberry jam sandwich on the back of his head.

January Poem

Smoking through my broken face,
Left side feels like the inside feels,
Got no eyes to see you now,
Can't hear you now,
You're not here now.

Stuck inside a splintered skull,
Stuck inside a churning brain,
Got no eyes to see you now,
Can't hear you now,
You're not here now.

Wish the skin would peel away,
Leave the flesh to get its due,
Got no eyes to see you now,
Can't hear you now,
You're not here now.