4 Poems on
Iconic Writers’ Habitats
Chateau Marmont
(1929-present)
a Gothic French princess on a hill
overlooking the Sunset Strip
a white stone beauty with
a casual toss of gray
head of slate roofing
earthquake proof, turreted
the castle still stands
almost a hundred
years of tread and wear
parties, scandals, affairs
of musicians and actors
of writers making history.
They came under cover
of darkness entered silently
through the garage, no need
for anyone to spot them
no bright-lit lobby
their shame, their value
in the critical eyes of a culture
where privacy not guaranteed
but at the castle they could
mourn, drink, create
inspired and protected
by the knowing kindly staff.
A glamorous shabby-chic
version of the Loire Valley’s
Chateau d’Amboise
opened as apartments
on the teeter edge
of the stock market crash
cheap rooms with cache.
The movie studios funded
Chateau suites for cheats
to preserve their stars’ gleam
the new owner made it safe
for Hollywood royalty
the hunchback manager
the in-house phone operator
the Garage Boys valets
and maids always silent
on the misfits, iconoclasts,
outcasts, deviants, gays
after the drunken fights
trashed rooms, broken hearts
the news had no clue.
The New York writers came
uncomfortable in LA
at home in the Chateau
Hollywood-on-the-Hudson
and they wrote scripts
Rebel without a Cause,
Sunset Boulevard,
Music Man, Ben-Hur
articles by Dominick Dunne
on the infamous O.J. trial
and so much more.
Run by eccentrics for eccentrics
the castle fell to careless hands
holding companies, banks
threatened foreclosure
the downslide of the aging belle
at the seedy top of the hill
shag rugs patched with tape
peeling paint in shreds, must
furnishings broken fixtures
shabby-genteel, a place
outside of time.
The new owner updated
an elegant conversion
with old-world charm
a historic cultural monument
where hijinks could continue:
Jim Morrison fell off the roof
a lyricist shot himself
John Belushi overdosed
the hideout hit the papers
the Chateau an open secret
of legendary, fashionable funk.
A new era, a new owner
New York nightclub magnate
full restoration upgrade
to a chic upscale loftiness
a buzzy bar scene, swanky
showbiz party exclusives
splashy bashes for the stars
their premieres and awards.
So now the old girl
looks down a long nose
from her perch on the hill
over the new Hollywood
still classic, still historic
with a modern LA brand.
The Chelsea
(1884-present)
“You’ve got a great future behind you.”
—old billboard in Times Square
New York’s most illustrious
third-rate hotel the place
Leonard Cohen made love
to an unforgiving Janis Joplin
and Thomas Wolfe wrote
You Can’t Go Home Again
and Arthur C. Clarke
2001: A Space Odyssey
Arthur Miller the play
on his iconic ex-wife
Bob Dylan the lyrics
for Blonde on Blonde
and Dylan Thomas drank
until he died young.
The largest, longest lasting
creative community
in the world designed
as a haven for artists
in the old theater district
a cooperative building
twelve stories of red brick
in Queen Anne Revival style
with wrought iron balconies
a homey atmosphere
in-room fireplaces
a rooftop terrace
a basement kitchen
with dumbwaiters
private dining rooms
and a public café.
Attracting a cross-section
of all social classes
the rent affordable
the rooms soundproofed
for musicians and writers
north-facing windows
in studios for painters
short-term or long-term
a friendly residence
an experiment in living
in harmony with others.
By 1905 the co-op failing
financially forcing subdivision
from 125 rooms to 300
smaller spaces
then bankruptcy
after the Depression
and Hungarian émigrés
purchased and protected
the hotel and the artists
for 75 more years.
The theater district gone
meant a downhill slide
a rundown neighborhood
seedy offices, tawdry bars
and gradual hotel decay
clanging heating pipes
shabby rooms, dirty rugs
with further subdivisions
to 400 dingy rooms
still popular, still housing
knowns and unknowns
long-distance truckers
pensioners, burlesque dancers
novelists, crackpots, drunks.
A miniature Ellis Island
of the odd and avant-garde
through the ’40s and ’50s
the bohemians, the beatniks
Kerouac and Ginsberg
and the drug-fueled ’60s
Christo and Warhol
Pop artists, rock bands
Jefferson Airplane, Janis
slugging Southern Comfort
Alice Cooper with a python
wrapped around his neck.
Marijuana smoke wafting
tattered halls, tattered tenants
paying overdue rent in art
displayed on lobby walls
and hiding from hustlers
pushers, hookers, pimps
holdups, gunfire, junkies
room fires, overdoses, leaps
from the roof or out windows.
A city no longer doable
for artists, the young or old
the hotel sold, closed down
the power of the creative
community forgotten
as history made way
for the fortunate few
rooftop gardens torn up
the wall art torn down
rooms gutted and enlarged
into 155 elite suites
a lobby full of new art
a lobby bar full of chic.
In the city of ashes
the city of gold, the Chelsea
on the Register of Historic Places
the icon casts a glitter sheen
for influencer appeal.
Key West
The southernmost isle
once called Cayo Hueso
the island of bones—
bones from a battle
or Indian burial ground
so there was always this
legacy of lawlessness:
pirates, wreckers, smugglers
drugs, drinking, wilderness
only reachable by boat
the glistening white sand
water jade green and aqua
where ocean and Gulf met.
Pirates hunted for booty
until the Navy arrived
built a base, a busy port
for Greek sponge divers
for Cuban cigar makers
treasure hunters seeking
shipwrecks and sunken gold
then the hotels and shops
cottage homes and bars
the Conch Republic born
of Caribbean and Cuban influx
and escapees from elsewhere
creating a rough culture.
Henry Flagler linked the chain
Palm Beach to the Keys
the East Coast Railway
and a hotel for visitors
escaping winter storms
Prohibition’s restrictions
to where liquor flowed
the Conchs smuggling in
fat boatloads of booze
after a deadly hurricane
blew down the railroad
the Overseas Highway
the route to Key West
the tropical oasis
otherworldly, exotic
a seaside sanctuary
where art could flourish.
Hemingway in residence
fishing, drinking, writing
his most significant works
he nicknamed his island
the St. Tropez of the poor
and Tennessee Williams
bought a bungalow refuge
brought gay friends to stay
in the laissez faire outpost
of the next literary star
Thomas McGuane filming
his rock ‘n’ roll novel
Ninety-Two in the Shade
his pal Jimmy Buffett
on the soundtrack
with no real music scene
in the eclectic bars where
everyone gathered, all types:
politicians and criminals
hippies and rednecks
artists and bums and
he sang for free drinks
began to write story-songs
on the laidback island life.
When “Margaritaville” hit
the charts and the tourists
flocked to the happy hours
cheeseburgers in paradise
cruise ships, mad crowds
crime, trash and trinkets
new rents and home prices
nobody could afford
so the writers left
the millionaires, developers
vacationers and wannabes
an alcohol-fueled theme park
the old island of bones
the legacy of pirates
seeking others’ treasure
blind to it themselves.
Provincetown
A finger of land at the very tip
a sandbar to mainland Mass
a salty spit of gray isolation
after the Mayflower anchored
the women washed, their men
stole Indian corn, skirmished
before moving on to Plymouth
and Portuguese whalers arrived
harpooning thick pods to sell
whale oil, bones, baleen, the cod
catch plush so they sent for family
the railroad down from Boston and
the Cape Cod School of Art
in the diverse community
of immigrants, artists, outsiders.
Ensconced in a lunar dunescape
in the old Life-Saving Station
young Eugene O’Neill penned
19 short plays, 7 long, his first
performed in a decrepit fish shed
Bound East for Cardiff giving birth
to modern American drama
Anna Christie about the fishermen
on the island: a grand place
to be alone and undisturbed.
John Dos Passos down the street
on Commercial faced the harbor and
Norman Mailer’s house where he wrote
the majority of his books in summers
and spent his final years in:
the freest town in America
that was naturally spooky off-season
a place for murderers and suicides
with cold sea air with a bottomless chill.
Painters came for the crystal purity
of the aquatic light, translucent
fleets of squid, flocks of white
gulls drafting faded scallop boats
squawking terns chasing scarlet crabs
red-faced men on creaky piers
inhaling deep the briny scent
the slap of foamy waves
against the rocky shore.
Mary Oliver wrote for decades
lush poems on the beauty
of the island she called home
the skittish skunk, rusty fox
glistening sand and scrubby pines
the endless surf, the unending call
of the foghorn’s haunting note
winters windswept and desolate
and summer’s blast of blues
sunset orange on the salt flats
soft music in the misty dawn
of inspiration and retreat.