{"id":3569,"date":"2015-02-23T20:33:23","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T20:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/?p=3569"},"modified":"2015-04-20T22:54:16","modified_gmt":"2015-04-20T22:54:16","slug":"adobe-motel-a-poem-by-mitchel-krockmalnik-grabois","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/adobe-motel-a-poem-by-mitchel-krockmalnik-grabois\/","title":{"rendered":"Adobe Motel. A Poem by Mitchel Krockmalnik Grabois"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\n 
\nEach room number
\nin this adobe motel
\nhas a symbol
\nOur room number
\n107
\nhas a yellow quarter-moon beside it
\nand some black stars
\n 
\n 
\nNext door
\nthe number106
\nis pierced by lightning bolts
\n 
\n 
\nMy wife and I spend a quiet night
\nsnuggling
\nand watching evangelical TV for its comedic value
\nIt is far funnier than Comedy Central
\nMany of the jokes are stale
\nbut not as stale as Leno and Letterman
\n 
\n 
\nwhile the neighbors in
\n106
\nscream at each other
\nas if there was never anything in the world that they hated more
\nthan each other
\n 
\n 
\nThe next night they begin again
\nMy wife and I look at each other
\n 
\n 
\nWithout saying anything
\nwe nod in agreement
\n 
\n 
\nI knock on their door
\nat first quietly
\nthen more vehemently
\nas if I were a cop
\nand had the right
\n 
\n 
\nThe husband comes to the door
\nwearing a wife-beater
\na tattoo of a marijuana leaf on his left shoulder
\nWho the fuck are you?<\/em> he asks
\nI motion with my head. I\u2019m next door,<\/em> I say
\nTV too loud for ya,<\/em> he asks, in a threatening voice
\nI can hear perfectly well\u2014there\u2019s no TV, only him and his wife
\nI hear her grumbling
\nas if angry at their being interrupted
\n 
\n 
\nMy wife and I,<\/em> I say,
\nwere wondering if you\u2019d like to change rooms<\/em>
\nHe looks at me, suspicious. Do you have a fridge,<\/em> he asks
\nA little one. A hotel fridge<\/em>
\nDoes it work?<\/em>
\nYeah.<\/em>
\nI know because my wife had put some cuties\u2014little tangerines\u2014in there to keep cool
\nOurs is broke,<\/em> he says, I hate warm beer<\/em>
\nSo we switch rooms
\n 
\n 
\nAs soon as we get in, my wife and I
\nfeel our tempers rise
\nIt\u2019s not a Stephen King thing
\na cursed car, a cursed hotel
\nwe\u2019re just ready to let go
\nto get in the spirit of
\nAmerica
\nthe intersection of madness and violence
\n 
\n 
\nThe previous couple
\nhad left an old metal cowbell on the bed
\nI\u2019m thinking, a cowbell?
\nas my wife picks it up and hurls it at me
\nI don\u2019t know if she\u2019s trying to hit me
\nor is just performing a symbolic act
\nbut in any case I duck
\nand it misses
\nand smashes into the wall
\nthe wall our room shares with 107
\nour former room
\nWe hear the couple stop making love
\nThey\u2019re noisy fuckers and when they suddenly stop
\nI hear the Sounds of Silence
\nas Paul Simon put it
\n 
\n 
\nI was trained in the Israeli martial art Krav Maga
\nthe deadliest fighting form ever invented
\nThe last time I used it was when I was in the Israeli army
\nwhen I was eighteen though twenty
\nI killed two Palestinians
\n 
\n 
\nWhen I got out of the army I decided not to immigrate to Israel after all
\neven though I had been so enthusiastic after the 1967 War
\nwhich occurred when I was still in high school
\n 
\n 
\nFacing my wife, her hands free of cowbells or other weapons
\nI feel the old Krav Maga training churning through my muscles
\n 
\n 
\nMy wife looks around for something else to throw
\nShe decides on the TV but it\u2019s bolted to the table
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n <\/strong>
\n\"Mitchell<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMitchell Krockmalnik Grabois\u2019 poems and fictions have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He is a regular contributor to The Prague Revue<\/em>, and has been thrice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His novel, Two-Headed Dog<\/em>, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for 99 cents from Kindle<\/a> and Nook<\/a> or as a Print Edition <\/a>
\n <\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nrobin@artvilla.com<\/a>
\nPoetryLifeTimes<\/a>
\nPoetry Life & Times<\/a><\/strong>
\neditor@artvilla.com<\/a>
\nwww.artvilla.com<\/a>
\nArtvilla.com<\/a><\/strong>
\n <\/p>\n

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    Each room number in this adobe motel has a symbol Our room number 107 has a yellow quarter-moon beside it and some black stars     Next door the number106 is pierced by lightning bolts     My wife and I spend a quiet night snuggling and watching evangelical TV for its comedic … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567,43],"tags":[18,136,3],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3569"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3888,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569\/revisions\/3888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}