In Sad Hotels
Instrumentation: Voice, Piano or Soprano, Flute, Piano
Year Composed: 2005
Duration: 3 minutes, 30 seconds
Text by: Olga Cabral (text is in English)
Pages: 9
Pages: 12
Cost: Purchase: $5.00 for piano version (two copies of score); $15 for trio version (score and parts)
Play Sad Hotels, from live performance by the Chicago New Arts Trio (Carolyn Hart, soprano; Misook Kim, piano; Jennie Brown, flute).
In Sad Hotels
Olga Cabral
In sad hotels there are no assignations
only time looking at his watch
and pensioners sitting day after day
in the dark plush chairs.
The mirrors are all clouded over.
The uniforms have been gnawed by mice.
The bellhop is a junkie. The gilt cage elevator
is a retired opera diva
unpredictable in its trills and runs.
Antimacassars float on the ceilings.
Hair wreaths are hung on peeling memories.
Tiny women in wrinkles and faded hats
fold their gloved hands and wait
for the communication of a cough or a sigh,
their entire conversation for the day.
Slumped in their chairs, men old and solitary
stare at the boring rerun of their lives.
The passer by outside in the sunlight
quickens his step, shaken by a scene
in purgatory: the twilight of sad hotels
and faces the color of crumpled moths.
