"The back of the mind is a small hotel / And when the residents go on picnics / Or take buckets and spades down to the sea / The betrayals begin."
— Longley, Michael (b. 1939)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
Berkeley
Publisher
University of California Press
Date
1980
Metaphor
"The back of the mind is a small hotel / And when the residents go on picnics / Or take buckets and spades down to the sea / The betrayals begin."
Metaphor in Context
The back of the mind is a small hotel
And when the residents go on picnics
Or take buckets and spades down to the sea
The betrayals begin: each crumpled sheet
Its own story; and the dressing table
And the chest of drawers open like books,
So that no escapes the chamber-maid
Who becomes a waitress at dinner-time,
Of the night-porter's knowledgeable smile.
(p. 289)
And when the residents go on picnics
Or take buckets and spades down to the sea
The betrayals begin: each crumpled sheet
Its own story; and the dressing table
And the chest of drawers open like books,
So that no escapes the chamber-maid
Who becomes a waitress at dinner-time,
Of the night-porter's knowledgeable smile.
(p. 289)
Categories
Provenance
Browsing in Google Books
Citation
Ed. Anthony Bradley, Contemporary Irish Poetry: An Anthology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). <Link to Google Books>
Date of Entry
06/02/2011
