David Heuser
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Click on "play" to hear In Sad Hotels. This recording is from a live performance by the Chicago New Arts Trio (Carolyn Hart, soprano; Misook Kim, piano; Jennie Brown, flute).
Instrumentation: Voice, Piano or Soprano, Flute, Piano
| For voice/piano version: Music transposed to suit any vocal range. Please specify low and high pitches Range for the piece: one octave plus a Major 3rd. |
Duration: 3 minutes, 30 seconds
Text by: Olga Cabral (text is in English)
Pages: 9
How to get it: Contact David Heuser directly
Olga Cabral
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.
From the book “Tape Found in a Bottle” 1971, Olivant Press