A vacant room sign hangs outside the door.
I watch from the lobby as potential customers take a peek and leave, underwhelmed and disappointed with what they see.

Rusted handrails on stairs.
Peeling wallpaper with mold at the edges.
Creaking chairs that barely supports any visitors.

Not that there are any.

Sometimes I think I could convince them to stay for a while.
To fill the empty room, but my mouth refuses to open.
It refuses to sell the room using eloquent, convincing words.

How am I supposed to convince them when I can't convince myself?
I wouldn't stay here if I had the choice, so why would they?

I see the same thing onlookers see.
A beaten-down, useless, sad hotel.
There's too much to fix and repair.
It's beyond the stage of renovation.

So my heart stays vacant.

the earth is curved - sure y’all knew that.  
but to get to the Northwest,
Interstate 84
ain’t le route plus directe

nope curve north to Ontario,
wave to Bex as I cross over
London and Toronto, also can’t recall
which poet from Rochester hails,
or did they shuffle off to Buffalo?

Crossing Erie, Huron, and Michigan Great Lakes all,
brings to mind
my mother’s birthplace,
Last of the Mohicans,
and the three years I did in the Cleveland Penitentiary,
where sun was illegal and baseball was a pretend play
of cowboys and Indians
but by god, it made me
the penitent fella I am today

Look skyward to Montreal,
yes, there he is, the Leo Priest,
the baffled king,
blessing this poetic meet ‘n greet trip
with a smiling unsurprising
hallelujah

Apparently some US citizens still can traverse O Canada,
even if one forgot their passports,
and are not PNG’s (Persons Not so GREAT)

over Minneapolis shed a tear for Diane,
a poet- gone-missing, and wonder if you reader come from
St. Cloud, Fargo or Duluth, Bismarck or Aberdeen,
surely they still speak poetic English there
in a twangy metering methodology  - well, message me asap

wow there really is a Saskatoon!

the pilot asks us to lean left in our seats
to help turn the plane
so we go to Portland and not to Vancouver...
me thinks he might be a touch Rockie Mountain High,
considering we are at 30 thousand something Imperial,
as he walks the main cabin with an oxygen mask and a
huuuuuge grin

see the distant Cascades
through a crack in the shuttered windows,
must be close to “the coast”
(as if, harrumph, there were but one)

ah, words in the clouds, ripe for the plucking
must be getting close to Oregon,
where poets grow on trees, woody words like ****,
and log-float poems down the Columbia to the sea

gonna drink me some poets
under the table cause this
trip I ain’t no driving and I am already
“flying” ‘n scribing and arriving
on a high tide and a good wind

My god told me
To **** those who are different.
My god told me
That genocide is efficient.
"Go into their land
And **** every living creature."
I saw it on TV just last week
In a Technicolor double feature.

My god told me
Gay people are abomination
My god told me
To hold back children’s rations.
Rip babies out of parent’s arms
Because they are terrorists
Pay no attention to the heartache
That’s just how my god’s law is.

My god told me
It matters about the color of skin
People can be born inhuman
Depending on the country you’re in.
It’s not as bad to be a dark person
If you stay in dark people lands,
But here in the good old USA they
Only deserve to be migrant hands.

My god told me
What’s sin for other people to do
Is not a sin for me to commit
The criminal things done by you.
My god told me
It’s just fine to cheat on my wife.
As long as I go to church weekly,
I will have a wonderful, godly life.

My god told me
Other people have to wrong idea
About who is god and who is not
And who will burn with the devil
In some place below, where it’s hot.
My god told me
To worship no god but him, it’s true.
Well, I worship Jesus, his misnamed son
So, I’m going to heaven, aren’t you?