Strauss’s four last songs
qualifies my residency
at Joe Chamberlain Hotel, Birmingham.
The rooms being familiar,
I bathe, prepare myself.
Down the corridor
towards the exit,
wind instruments
sound from other places.
It is Vivaldi-
impossible
I thought to get
an organ in there.
(The suite at the end
of my floor
has a
personal visit
from Fauré.)
I have a vision:
I am Prometheus
suspended
over London,
given insights
to the Thames-
lazy, morose,
near to
breaking point.
This grandeur is interrupted
by the noise next door.
Sinking into my bed with
gin as my protection,
I realised
how I got started
was with you-
bright, confident,
promised to Jacob.
I became
other people
instead-
saw them grow,
nourished by
my laughter
(‘I conquered
a few
at the stroke
of midnight
when the porter
fell drunk’).
At the sound
of the alarm,
the television at my feet
records…
that we must
all face
death ‘like
Don Juan’-
trapped
in a
Midlands
hotel,
unable
to pay
the bill
as September
finishes
and lifts arrive
to carry us down
beneath.
