Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SURFACE AND STRUCTURE: BONAVENTURE HOTEL, LOS ANGELES, by KAREN SWENSON



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SURFACE AND STRUCTURE: BONAVENTURE HOTEL, LOS ANGELES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Four black glass silos
Last Line: Broken from a necklace.
Subject(s): Decay; Hotels; Los Angeles; Rot; Decadence; Inns; Innskeepers; Motels; Boarding Houses


Four black glass silos
store grains of white lights
waterfalling six levels of balconies,
outlining wired leaps
of reindeer stags that arch
the lobby pool fragrant with chlorine.
Outside, elevators, black scarabs,
crawl up the shiny walls above
pale lassos of freeway lights.

Someday when the freeways crack up,
when the scarabs lie on their backs
in bowels of cable,
the silos, wind-turning
dust devils round their bobbins,
will house kite and hawk
in their honeycombs.
Lizards flickering edges of balconies
will leave in the pool
dry patterns of their vertebrae
exquisite as carved ivory
broken from a necklace.





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