Seaside Hotel, Off Season Poem by Sheena Blackhall

The street is a throwback to a less critical age
Poor man's playground in the between wars thirties

It is like setting foot on the set of a cowboy movie,
Hotel billboards peel and sag in rows

The hotel is wind and watertight, but ageing
Rips in the paper run along the skirting

The keys are dispensed by a clutch of gnarled fingers
Like barnacles on a crab, her flashy jewels

The jaded carpets, pressed into service by decades of trippers
The treads ingrained with stains

Lampshades, circa 1960, hold a suspicion of spiders
The off white screens hang creased, in rucked suspension

Stairs are steep and narrow, claustrophobic
A single slice of turkey shivers on a plate
Beside three ghostly potatoes

Seaside hotels, off season
Go off quicker than a three week old banana