macanudo hyde park

Candy apples embedded in the ugly dank brown carpet, this lavish hotel is a vast expanding red slum of intoxicated patrons, dolled prostitutes and coins on the bedsheets. Attractive lepers and storm bugs under the pillow.

Shotgun on a nightstand, my heavy revolver at my hip, another pistol near the sink, smaller caliber for concealing , the slow drip of a busted bronze faucet, a droplet of blood, spectacles askew, my overcoat and belt hanging on the doorknob. The lobby of funny hats, elegant costumes and pretty feminine accents, servers and errands, unyielding array of candles, a remote balustrade of chandeliers and electrical sparks from a camera flash.

 The spine-like staircases navigating the velvet air like charmed snakes, open and closing onyx-framed doors, an obese priest, ancient mechanical elevators cast golden with strange eyes, the magnificent ball room, a perfumed ceiling of flowers, somber slender statues and lonesome bells ringing, room 104, a silver key rolled gently in my fingers, heart softly pounding, amber mahogany cabinets locked, pill box pine-tree heaven, a flourishing plantation of cotton and florid slaves howling under the whip of torture, moon crickets singing, reflecting waters, the angry hum and rattle of a T-model, liquor barrels on the back of a bedraggled truck shift and stumble with the rocks in the dirt road. Sunrise, beauty could be love, My fancy woolen suit, vegetable tanned John Lobb's, roughly six hundred and sixty dollars in my wallet. An etched note sewn into my chest, your name, your face, your ink dissolved in tears.