"The Old Hotel at the End of Night," a dystopian narrative poem about America

THE OLD HOTEL AT THE END OF NIGHT, by BJ Omanson.  (Monongahela Books, 2020).  20 pages.  $7.50.

 "A man is driving through the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, in what used to be the Old Republic, the old America, and he breaks down and begins walking--- through a night that never ends, in a nation that is not quite gone."     

". . . a true American artifact, and a rare example of allegorical vision."         -- Dave Mason, former Poet Laureate of Colorado.

 Excerpt:

I emptied my glass and was starting to pour

a second when I happened to notice

another old gent in a long gray beard

sitting alone with a half-empty bottle

in a far-off shadowy nook of the room

and he nodded me over.  I picked up my glass

     and dragged myself slowly across the floor

     and he kicked out a chair for me to sit.

     “The name’s Walt,” he said, and I told him mine.

     “And what brings you out to this god-forsaken

     hotel at this time of night,” he asked.

     “You’re a good way from home, by the looks of you.”

     I told him I really had no idea

     how I’d come to this place.  I had made a wrong turn

     somewhere back in Missouri, I thought,

     and then my old Buick had thrown a rod

     and I’d just been walking along ever since

     for what seemed like a decade or more until

     I came to this crossroads.  “And doesn’t this night

     ever end?” I asked him.  Old Walt leaned back,

     extended his long legs and shoved his fists

     deep in his pockets.  “It’s always the same

     old story,” he said.  “They make a wrong turn

     at a junction back in Missouri, as if

     Missouri was even a place anymore.

And their Chevy or Buick always breaks down

for there aren’t any Chevies or Buicks out here,

I can tell you that,”  and I heard a soft chuckle

from the gentleman at the end of the bar.

I started to feel a peculiar unease,

the likes of which I had never known.

“And the night?” I asked him, “when does it end?”

He looked out the window a good long while

before he responded.  “The night is what came

when the Old Republic finally died---

and now there’s only the night and myself

and Bob over there always plunkin’ away

on the upright piano and Henry down there

at the end of the bar, who never says much

at all anymore, who just stands and stares

out the window from time to time, although

there’s nothin’ to see out there but the night.

So there’s only the three of us now, and whoever 

blows in off the highway."  A thousand questions 

     occurred to me then, but just as quickly

     I knew the one answer to all of them

     and so I said nothing.  I noticed a blank

     sheet of paper upon the table beside

     a black fountain pen, and I wondered if Walt

     had been writing a note or perhaps a letter

     or maybe even a poem, but I knew

     there was always something that it was better

     to leave alone, and so I kept mum.

     Walt was wearing a long baggy coat,

     gray-striped trousers, a gray slouch-hat,

     and his shaggy mane and his beard were gray

     and even his eyes, if I recollect,

     and he seemed as remote and as out of time

     as everything else in that strange hotel,

     and somehow I knew I would never again

     behold a sunrise or hear a cock crow

     or a mourning dove call its plaintive call,

     for the Old Republic had fallen at last

    and somewhere old ghosts were gathering

    for a final hurrah, but I wouldn’t be there.