Tony Visits Hotel Splendide

After a week with my arms

around very little-- 

nothing really to talk about

after my pet spider quit being a spider,

I had a will to splurge--

moved into the Hotel Splendide.

 

The drinks at the lounge bar

need neither mixer nor chaser,

tipping back and getting the glad-eye.

Conversation too goes down like rain

with faces moving in, personal

in the middle of time off at the Hotel Splendide.

 

Speaking with a person named Randy,

I remembered how ill I'd felt one time

running to meet another Randy,

falling down on my way.

The current Randy is my feel-better mate

lately met and smiling at the Hotel Splendide.

 

Another character, call him Joe,

told me about his wife of some 30 years

and how his travels divided him,

sometimes quartered him--but he

never lost his memory,

stopping off at the Hotel Splendide.

 

They say if you stay a week

and no one dies at the Hotel Splendide

and the topic itself never comes up,

chances are you'll stay longer

and lose your watchfulness, 

your bitterness.

 

Myself, I scan the daily papers now,

study first the box scores

then the obituaries.

There's the need to know

who's won and lost 

off the grounds of Hotel Splendide.

 

Who wouldn't give up false love

or the dream of being that way loved,

for needed facts that can't be fudged?

Hotel Splendide, come by on a whim,

gave me armfuls and respite--

-- not cold truths; I'm on my way home.