Paul Hostovsky

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES

I stole a bathmat
from the Royal Copenhagen Hotel

because it said Royal Copenhagen on it
and how cool is that

for stepping out of your shower onto
every day of your life in America

as a souvenir
of a few dissolute days in Denmark?

I like to snuggle the rich velvety pile
with my ten poor stubby toes

while I’m still dripping from the shower,
which is where I get all my best ideas—

then I feel a little like Soren Kierkegaard,
and a little like King Frederick,

and a little like Hans Christian Andersen
getting out of his claw-foot tub

and getting a great idea,
and standing there for a few timeless

dripping moments,
then rushing to his writing table

and spinning the yarn, still naked,
in one inspired sitting,

his trail of wet footprints disappearing
before the ink had dried.


Paul reads "The Emperor's New Clothes":



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Paul confesses: "This poem was inspired by a recent shower, which is where I get all my best ideas, and by a bathmat that I stole from the Royal Copenhagen Hotel about 40 years ago, and by a lifelong love of all things Danish."

PAUL HOSTOVSKY is the author of five books of poetry and six poetry chapbooks. His Selected Poems was published in 2014 by FutureCycle Press. He has won a Pushcart Prize and two Best of the Net awards, has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer's Almanac, and was a Featured Poet on the Georgia Poetry Circuit 2013. He works in Boston as an Interpreter for the Deaf.