The Opening of the Citadel Hotel

When the Citadel doorway opened its jaws in October 1898 And its grand three stories loomed above the urban prairie landscape Eighty men shoulder to shoulder at the longest bar in town Guzzled beer and spirits, while the gas lamps shone around Pissing in the porcelain trough installed beneath their feet Which glowed ethereal as yellow rivers ran into the street And a piano played the first bars of Beautiful Dreamer. Men Only, yet the ladies leaned lascivious past the parlour mark And boys with crates of whisky bottles winced at the barman’s bark While drunks toppled backwards, saturated, crack’d on heartless tiles Dragged away like sides of beef by hotel staff with sated smiles Who mopped patrons’ blood into a pail of pink soup that darkened to red Drinkers filled the gaps at the bar like teeth flying into a toothless head And the whores’ heels tapped up the stairs with their Gentlemen.