[Cally Conan-Davies]

in the Archibald McLeish room toilet


A pot
for when
you mean
to pee.

[Quincy Lehr]

Commode

(after Basho)

Tension and release.
Squatting like the "Thinking Man"...
A big, brown, baby!

[Marion Shore]

Here Aristotle
peed at full throttle.

Here Cotton Mather, harsh Puritan judge,
made fudge.

[Martin Elster]

THE ROBERT W. SERVICE ROOM

Now Sam McGee from Tennessee,
stayed in this hotel once
soon after thawing and withdrawing
from those Arctic hunts

for gold. Now bound for warmer ground,
he found this place as nice
as a bath of bubbles -- now no more troubles
to plague him, but the price.

Since he had no gold or a billfold
containing cash, they said,
"You have to go back to the snow."
But he lay in bed instead,

and wouldn't leave, for he couldn't believe
they'd roust him like a cur.
They let him stay one night and day
and gave him a new fur

anorak and sled. Although he pled
with the management to stay,
they hollered, "Git!" So he had to split.
He trudged back to the gray

and the Northern Lights and the old queer sights
and froze to death once more.
Now the room of Service might make you nervous
if you hear a ghostly snore,

which most folks hear when they put their ear
against the room's locked door.
Yet the staff will swear there's no one there --
it's the breakers on the shore.

Martin Elster



[This message has been edited by Martin Elster (edited December 13, 2007).]

[Roger Slater]

Here Edna St. Vincent Millay
used the bidet.

[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited December 15, 2007).]

[Janet Kenny]

basta poetasters.

Back to the theme.

[Janet Kenny]

The Chekov Room

Chekov waited here for something more
than what he found behind the hotel door.
Life unfulfilled, he hung “Do Not Disturb”
outside and waited for the final verb.
It came with bells and whistles, Dostoevsky
and all his friends arrived drunk on a jetski.


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited December 15, 2007).]

[Marion Shore]

The Leigh Hunt Room

Shelly licked me when we met,
jumping from the bed she sat on,
Muse, you flirt, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that on.

Say my rhyme and meter's bad,
Say no contest judge has picked me,
Say my sonnets suck, but add
Shelly licked me.

[Michael Cantor]

Sign in the Sylvia Beach Hotel Lobby

Don't be dense.
The name makes sense
if you know
Shakespeare & Co.


The Marion Shore Room

Part Petrarch and Laura,
part doody and poo.
Oh, how I adore a
bemused pot au feu.



[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited December 17, 2007).]

[Marion Shore]

The Daphne du Maurier Room

I dreamt I went to Manderley,
and wandered like a ghost.
But then I woke and realized
that Manderley was toast.

So then we came to this hotel
and felt not quite so blue.
They have a creepy housekeeper,
a stormy ocean view.

If you want tea and crumpets
you only have to ring.
This place might not be Manderley,
but it's the next best thing.