36 responses to “Wasting in a Hotel Lobby”

1. I like the title, Björn, and the link to the Eagles, and love the idea of ghostly guests stuck in time in a hotel lobby. These lines are so evocative:

   ‘our present shrivels
   as future withers’

   and

   ‘’…we slowly spoil
   into translucency’.

   • I think that Hopper might actually painted ghosts for us to see.

     • I can see that too.

2. love the alliteration here. Also love this:

   specks of dust
   settling
   turning into grey
   whatever once
   was bright.

   • Thank you… somehow I imagined dust to be part of the painting.

     • It was dust for Hopper when he painted it. Imagine how dusty it is now 😉

3. The title is such a poignant one, Bjorn! I love the idea of time passing by with color imagery “turning into grey whatever once was bright” and “reason grows in gravity.”

   A fantastic response to the mini-prompt! 💙💙

   • Thank you… a symbolic ghost tale maybe

4. I like how you froze the hotel visitors so that everything feels stuck in the waiting even the dust

   • I think all Hopper’s paintings seems to be about waiting…

5. Wow. Nice one. Luv all the alliteration.

   Happy you dropped by my blog.

   much♡love

   • Thank you , and you are welcome

6. Excellently written, Bjorn. A slow motion sort of spooky.

   • Yes… that is what I see.

7. We both picked up on the surreal aspect of it and wondered about the waiting.

   • I will read soon… to me there is something surreal in the mundane

     • There certainly can be.

8. So well dosed. Very hard to get that right without making it beer towards horror, but there you have it real atmosphere, like that echoed time in The Shining, and I now believe the painting is perhaps mot what it seems to be at first glance.

   • I have never seen a painting by Hopper who does not seem to have a hidden layer.

9. You get the feeling these ghosts haven’t been home in a long, long time.

   • Or maybe they are just home but keeping silent.

10. Maybe she’s reading her memoir as her younger self.

    • She is just pretending to read.

11. read it three times! may come back later for a fourth reading. ❤

    • Thank you… like the painting there are maybe layers

12. “Passing into past
    our present shrivels
    as future withers.
    … waiting …
    … wasting …
    we watch in silence”

    This is poignant, Bjorn and great alliteration too. 🙂

    • Thank you… alliteration is probably my favourite poetic device.

13. Perhaps they are already ghosts. There is very little humanity in the painting, no warmth or signs of life.

14. “We have forgotten why
    we wait
    but still for every minute
    this (t)reason
    grows in gravity.”

    Waiting for lost love to return or patiently waiting for unrequited love. Why wait? It will find you. Sadly jt is what we do.

15. “Our past shrivels as future withers”… makes me wonder how much time we waste waiting for something to happen. Good use of poetic forms. I always enjoy your poetry.

16. I like reading this without the image, as if the “we” is a bowl of fruit rotting.

    • Maybe we are rotting in a way

      • Rotting fruit or peels must get sprinkled in the garden for future flowers to glean shine from. ♡ As a metaphor, we must do that too — sprinkle ourselves on the world so that we leave ourselves behind in all the best ways.

      • I agree… a good metaphor

17. A great closing line, Bjorn. Waiting our life away!

18. You evoked that sense of wasting away so well! The opening lines are fantastic.

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