In unseasonable heat and dead air
the guests stare out of the corners of their eyes. No world exists beyond
the hurricane fence. An anonymous bobo paces like a lobotomized lion who
has forgotten what jungle lies beyond. Mosaic faces in cracked windows. A
balcony spans the second floor overlooking a central compound, a
devastated courtyard, an activated minefield. Broken chunks like earth
rise like Lebanese sidewalks, but no trees grow at the Blue Motel. Through
a cracked door I see a naked man lying on an unmade bed. He must be
starving. In the adjacent bathroom another man stands with his erect penis
draped over the sink as he sings to the mirror. Both men are gray and
sport crew cuts to match the stubble on their chins. The stiff one sings
Are You Ready for Love. Oh, I'm ready for love, the other echoes, not
batting an eye or moving a muscle. Loud pounding on the walls accompanies
an angry scream: Stop singing, you animals! My twins are trying to
paint!The room, like all rooms at the Blue Motel, is a stubby
rectangle with encrusted linoleum floors. It would serve an Emile Zola
character well. 
Blank and sallow walls boast
one 4 x 4 window feathered with fractures and framed in weathered
aluminum. The prismatic effects of broken glass are the only features that
recommend the view. The new guest says concrete poets have made his shrine
more specific--spray painting his sentiments on the doors beneath the
sign. He can tell you where Van Gogh got the gun, and he knows why
Modigliani threw his shoes in the Seine, but he can't tell you if he ever
owned a gun himself or what style shoes he wore before the war in Viet
Nam. All he seems to know for sure is what his doctors tell him, and
that's not much. He has scoured the floor. What lurked in those pockmarks
made him queasy. The bathtub harbored a fleet of pubic hairs that shared
profiles with O'Gatty's Groucho nose.