New Poetry by Doug Holder

Hotel Chelsea: New York City : Jan 2010


Down the hall

I was a ghost

spectral passes

to the head

rootless as

the spartan corner room

the steam announcing itself

with calculating clicks.

I was far from

what owned me

in a home for transience

a protective scab

over my head...

I am only passing through.


Every creak of a door

every unexpected wisp of musty air

someone was here
there
now
before.

A shallow sleep

I was interrupted

by a man

his torso

bleeding into the dark

his face a polished white

looking at my window

to the "hell with you"

honks of cabs

and the pleads

of the city lights below--

he nodded to me

"Yes," I said, "I know."

- Doug Holder 2011

Doug Holder's work has been in Manifold( UK), Poetry Kit ( UK), Fine Line, Poesy, Endicott Review and others. I teach writing at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston and Endicott College in Beverly, Mass.