Weekly Arts Feature: Hazel Motes
The following are excerpts from “It’s Nice, But You Wouldn’t Want To Live There”, Hazel Motes’s recently published chapbook of poems written during his five months (so far) in El Asilo. The views and opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author’s, and do not necessarily reflect those of the El Asilo Gazette.
I. May - Condolences
“Why?” “Oh, do you have family there?” “I’m so sorry.” “Where is that?” “You’re really just gonna throw your life away to go there?” “Who died?” “You’re joking, right? Isn’t that the place with the force field?” “Do you have a job lined up there?” “So when can I come visit?” “Let me know if you need anything from the outside world.” “I don’t get it.” “What about your apartment here?” “Oh, I hear California is nice this time of year.” “Is this some kind of midlife crisis thing? You’re too young for that.” “I’ve got a friend in El Asilo. It’s nice, but you wouldn’t want to live there.” “What if you want to leave?” “You know you won’t be able to leave, right?” “I don’t care how bad things are, Haze. Please don’t decide to be a hero once you get there.” “Don’t get killed, okay?” “Just remember to carry pepper spray.” “Don’t step to any supervillains.” “Don’t die.” “Don’t die.” “Don’t die.”
II. June - In Transit
three people in a monorail car - me, a man, a woman - and the other two are standing as though the train is full of commuters who will not be here for another two or four hours, at least. they carry the things in their hands like improvised weapons. his: a baseball bat, hers: a golf club. i think of countless movies in which a monorail is destroyed, or run off the rails. i wonder why the monorail in this city is still standing. the man and the woman are in street clothes. neither wears a mask. i can see pink in their cheeks, the man’s glasses fogged, the woman’s chest rising and falling as though she has just climbed a hill - and nothing more strenuous than that.
i look out the window at their reflections, superimposed on el asilo, the point lit up and twinkling, an amusement park full of tired children and overworked men in tight uniforms selling toys to be used once and never again. there is a red stain on the woman’s golf club and i wonder if it is blood or rust before i can help myself.
III. July - Stain
twelve days out from the fourth of july and the neighborhood kids are still setting off fireworks on the street at night. i can see it from my window - flashes of red and blue raining down from the force field like a meteor shower, like stardust dripping down from the sky.
somewhere across town a patient creature pays a visit, admires the stain of blood on blond hair, tries the medium of messages in scrapes and bruises instead of their usual - grid paper, blue pen.
every envelope i open lately, i do so with my heart in my throat, expecting to one day see that grid, that spidery scrawl of letters - the words “it’s me. hello, mr. motes.”
IV. August - Ectoplasm
I am a ghost, and no, not in the metaphorical sense that a poet might use to describe some great void inside them, some lack of closure, some displacement between the place in which he was raised and the place in which he now finds himself. I am a real ghost, I explain to my editor over the phone, in the voice of my possessed housemate. Calling in sick has gotten more complicated since the move.
(HAZEL MOTES is a recent transplant to El Asilo, an aspiring poet, and the Gazette’s newest staff member. In his downtime, he enjoys a good murder mystery and the occasional Virginia Slim.)
