Hôtel Le Fontanelle

(a ballade supreme, in *catalectic tertiary paeonic tetrameter)

Audio Recording: https://soundcloud.com/dusty-grein/hotel

The old lawyer closed his case, and said “That’s all there is, I guess.”

“Did my uncle really die there?” He looked up and gave a sigh,

“In the lobby’s where they found him. It was probably the stress,

of the many renovations he was planning when he died.”

That was how it came to pass that it was now my turn to try

and fix up the old stone building, like it was when it was new.

So I moved to New Orleans. This city's beautiful, that's true,

but quite soon I learned more truth, about the evil that befell

many guests who chose to stay there, and the tales told by the crew

of the ghosts and apparitions at

Hôtel Le Fontanelle.

When I moved into the place, I found that it was quite a mess.

It confused me and I couldn’t understand the reasons why;

till I woke up one dark midnight, to the gentlest caress

and the faintest quiet echo, sounding like a baby’s cry.

I sat up and found my blood was running cold, my mouth was dry,

while my fists were clenched quite firmly and my lips were turning blue.

Through the pounding of my heartbeat, all that I could think to do

was to calm my labored breathing, which I did… until a bell

began ringing somewhere near, and then I found that I was glued

to my bed, here in my room within

Hôtel Le Fontanelle.

After that I knew the time had come to find a priest to bless

every room and every hall, to help those earth-bound spirits fly

off to Heaven, or to Hell, I really couldn’t care much less.

It was my place now, and I was not afraid to dig and pry

into all the secret stories there, exposing every lie.

I discovered there’d been voodoo rituals, which blasted through

the thin veil between the realms. Into this hole, the spirits flew.

The old ju-ju woman in the swamp refused to cast a spell

which would mend the rip. Instead she laughed and said that I would rue

the day I stepped o’er the threshold of

Hôtel Le Fontanelle.

The true horror of the situation only bloomed and grew

after my attempt to free them, for I really had no clue,

that this failed attempt soon meant my body too, would start to smell,

from the bed where it lay rotting. See, the cost of sin comes due,

and it must be paid with interest, to

Hôtel Le Fontanelle.

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* This little used poetic meter means each line is is built of four 4-syllable feet, with the stress on syllable #3. It is catalectic (latin: no tail) because the final syllable is omitted from each line, giving it a syllable stress rhythm of:

tap, tap, THUMP, tap, tap, tap, THUMP, tap, tap, tap, THUMP, tap, tap, tap, THUMP.