Late Night TV Poem by Thomas Kellar

LATENIGHT T.V.

2 AM,
Donald and Carla sleep.
They manage the Rendezvous Inn
a cockroach infested
pay by the hour no-tell motel
for a Japanese slum-lord
who lives in Hawaii,
grateful to have this gig
after their hot-tub
and jacuzzi business
died a tortured death.
(forcing them to move in the middle of the night.)

Shut-eye is normally hard to come by
this time of morning.
The Weeping Willow,
a biker bar next door closes down
forcing it’s drunken, scuffling,
engine revving clientele
out into the street.

But tonight’s not so bad,
Carla never wakes,
dreaming of dinner by candlelight
in an upscale Parisian restaurant
this dissolving into discovery
of an original and signed Declaration Of Independence
hidden in the backside of a seascape
she buys from a local flea market.
Donald sleeps soundly as well,
his dreams not nearly as complex.
He’s busy banging out Susan,
Carla’s younger and much shapelier sister
on the industrial dryer in the laundry room.
(The one next to the Coke machine.)

While motel management makes zzz’s
their tabby pisses in the litter-box
and Conan O’Brien introduces Eminem,
tonight’s musical guest,
on a TV set in the living room
that Carla meant to turn off
before going to bed.