Thirteen Reviews of the New Babylon Inn
for
Nicholas Lehmann
I
“The
world’s eighth worst hotel?
I
vote it Number One!
I’ve
known better in the back-blocks of China.
I
was offered heroin at the entrance.
The
narrow stairs shake when you tread on them.
I
couldn’t get my door to lock
and
the sheets have holes and strange stains.
Read
the reviews before you book.”
II
“The
manager yelled at me
when
I asked where’s the free internet.”
III
“Don’t
be deluded by the photos and location.
My
room was like a horror film,
dank,
the tiniest I’ve ever seen.
I
could hardly wrestle my suitcases through the door.
To
sit on the toilet I had to twist my legs around
or
have one foot in the shower.”
IV
“Their
free American breakfast!
A
small piece of white bread, a droplet of jam
and
microscopic package of cottage cheese.”
V
“No
cold water. Both taps had hot water!
And
a power point in the shower cubicle.
See
the photo I’ve posted.”
VI
“Six
panels were missing in the ceiling –
something
to look at when you’re lying in bed.”
VII
“My
wife woke up thinking I was tickling her feet.
I
felt a tickle too,
and
switched on the light.
Two
beady eyes of a small rodent!
Grabbing
bits of our pizza
he
vanished through a hole in the wall.”
VIII
“I
complained about mice eating our chocolate.
‘What
do you expect?’ the man at front desk said,
‘Mice
like chocolate.’ ”
IX
“Extra
friendly staff
found
my lost passport under the bed.
They
attend you like a princess aus
Deutschland. Five stars.”
X
“My
secretary
will
never book for me again.
My
secretary isn’t going to be my secretary. ”
XI
“I
didn’t expect pre-warmed bed linen,
residues
of bodily fluids
sandwich
wrappings and cigarette ash.
A
hooker and her john
pulling
their clothes on
hurried
out the door
as
we checked into our room.”
XII
“Just
out of college
we
were sucked in by the price and location,
and
were review-skeptics.
OMG,
they were right!”
XIII
Dreams
are explained.
81/2th
Avenue has five lanes
of
bumper to bumper, humid traffic.
The
beautiful grid
of
this flat, granite island,
its
horizontals and verticals of space,
are
a psychic phenomenon.
I
step out from my air conditioned limousine
with
tinted windows,
and
recognize the facade from the photos:
a
fire escape zigzags down the front,
the
New Babylon Inn
is
backed by a tangerine sunset.
A
young price-conscious family with luggage
is
staring from the sidewalk.
I
walk up and open the glass door
with
precision.
They
pick up their things and follow.
Management
greets me
and
my credit card
like
a friend back from the dead.
Here
is another poem from The Best Australian Poems 2012 edited by John Tranter. It
is not that I am not reading anything else at the moment (I am enjoying Radar
by Nathan Curnow and Kevin Brophy and hope to get permission to put up some of
their work soon) but I did find so much to like in this year’s Best Of.
Geoffrey Lehmann has published seven collections of poetry and a Selected
Poems and Collected Poems. He has
edited two anthologies of Australian comic verse and co-edited (with Robert
Gray) several anthologies of Australian poetry, the most recent being Australian
Poetry Since 1788. He has been a member of the Literature Board of
the Australia Council and continues to write as a literary reviewer for The
Australian newspaper. His poems are widely published, most recently
in The New Yorker.
