Coffee

Coffee Poems

Coffee and its Complex Role in our Morbidity

For fucksake get off the fone Chris
Now now I need coffee it’s urgent.
Shit y’r worse than a girl with that.
Tell them about it later. PUT IT DOWN
And no-one will get hurt.

Fire up the machine. I want to hear
An orgy of grinding and banging,
Gurgling and hissing. Yeah, the usual,
Long double macchiato yeah. Strong as.
First of the day, my drug of choice.
Shit, I’m tired.

And a bacon sandwich too, why not?
With cheese and fried onions, toasted. Bugger
The calories, cholesterol, nitrates, whatever.
A man’s gotta die of something sudden right?

And then when I hurtle wide-eyed and horrified
Off this dark road, careering into the night
Then medicops can stand around he scene
Measuring, considering whether I braked, or not
As a coronary lurched into the lights,
At least I’ll leave a memory in greasy skidmarks
On the black highway of eternity.

Coffee and its Implications for Puppy Training

I look down at the new puppy in my lap and
Realise that I’ve dribbled a few spots of coffee on her.
The light brown espresso stains are not
A match for the liver dark skin spots showing
Through the light coat of coarse white hairs,
Hard white over soft mottled pink, like an old man’s pate.
She’ll need some cover next summer to avoid sunburn.

But for now she huddles for warmth, curled on my lap,
One half eye on the table’s croissant crumbs, just in case
My attention wanders. I can read, drink coffee,
Nurse the puppy – any two of the three.
She makes a poor napkin, wriggling, unsettled
So I’ll get little reading done for now. An annoyance
Because cafés are where I read, write and such. Now

I am banished to the chilly patio or the streetside tables
With the smokers, breathing in the exhaust fumes
Of trucks and people as this State is not sufficiently
Civilised to allow small animals inside retail establishments,
Pet shops notwithstanding. Children, yes, and they are
So very much more unhygienic, noiser, less ‘cute’.
The small dog and I are cold out here and
She has no coffee to warm her.

She allows me little work, even if I were in the mood.
Strangely, watching her breathe, the fat, pink freckled belly
Swell and retreat, the paw over the muzzle, the twitch of dreams,
Is enough recompense. The purpose of small dogs
Must be to awaken the maternal instincts of men.

The Critical Importance of Coffee
to an Existential Philosopher

What was it, did you think, that Sartre was drinking
As he pontificated at Les Deux Magots?
Wine was fine with his lunch, prix fixe but
It makes for a dull afternoon unless its effect
Is neutralised with post-prandial caffeine.
(Otherwise, that damn boulder makes no sense at all).

You can overdo the caffeine of course. The Greeks and Italians
Prefer it very strong indeed, which may be why we have heard
So little of them in Philosophy in recent times.
The French have only two kinds of coffee – large or small.
No latte, no froth and - decaf? As if.
This is serious stuff and being French they are quite certain
That any other way is quite absurd

Made badly, the stuff is bitter, dark and causes gloom,
A poor creative choice that intensified angst over why
You would spend your days grim and dingy cafés
Peering down at the gritty lees of yet another hit
While hoping for another conversation about the meaning
Of life, or lack thereof. A leap of bad faith – at least the waiter
Seems to be authentic. Pass me my beret.

The Opportunities for Unrequited Loves
Occasioned by Coffee

There seems to be a universal rule that cafés will only
Employ fresh young things to serve my coffee.
They’re cheap perhaps. I’m less discriminate with age
But I’ve fallen for the waitress again, the third this week.

Institutionally polite and even kind to the maudlin old duffer
In the corner, who can’t take his eyes off the girl’s
Fine featured face, ringlet blonde hair (carefully messed),
High breasts, oddly jutting mouth and hips, not pretty except
In some medieval faery fantasy way and dressed to suit
In knitty, drippy things. Student, musician, actor perhaps
As no-one thinks of waiting as a career. It’s a fill
Between gigs, the intrusion of the dreary, the necessity
That steals the days between the dreams.

As with last week’s tougher type – What do you do in
Your real life? Oh, I sing, I front a bondage fetish punk band.
Of course you do.

Coffee as an Aid for Avoiding the Inane

There is no shortage of ordinary madness
In my world. Those mildly deranged who
Assume that a ‘Weak.decaf.skinny.soy.latte.please’
Is a coffee rather than a politically correct
Warm slightly flavoured milkshake . Baby food.

But mere fools aside, the truly mad walk among us
And walk they must for they are in constant motion,
Brownian, unable to settle to their thoughts.
The beverage is held gingerly in a fluted paper cup,
Brown of course (as if that adds flavour);
Sucked through a nipple in the clipped on lid.
They have missed the point
As the busy self-obsessed so often do.

Coffee must be taken seated, among the indolent;
The wasted; the thoughtful; the conventionally mad;
The earnest and the unconventionally sane
Who take the time to fuel their less important days
With slow thought, slow food and strong brown drink.

The Importance of Coffee in Maintaining Relationships with Errant Offspring

The prodigal is home again and children are
Awkward at thirty, large and old enough
To have developed their own immutable
Routines, ideas and reasonable demands
Not to mention their being encumbered
With partners and other sundry obligations.

We agree on so little now. Rockets are fired
From the temporary Gaza of the kitchen into
The occupied dining area. The annexation of
The shed by a sibling in his absence will foment
A revolt of sorts. The simple choices of foods, music
Or movies are matters for discussion by the local
Security Council. So far, there has been a frank and fair
Exchange of views between the powers.

But coffee provides common grounds, a point at which
The warring clans may touch. The house is full
Of the smells of strange, flavoured kinds, to be
Brewed in those tiny metal devices on the stove top.
He is at ease, having been in England for years;
‘A place where good coffee is as rare as friendliness’,
He snarls. For a while, he had to rely on cola.

A chubby goth girl with a lisp buys the pretty, androgenous boy a drink…

‘Do you have, er…can we have a
Decaf soy latte, no, not take away, we’ll
Sit outside, yes where my friend is, he’s
The latte, he’s vegan y’know…er, what kinda
Tea you got here – oh right, that’s a long list
What’s that lemon grass stuff like then?
Yeah, I’ll have that, what? Yeah half a pot
I reckon, just to see no nothing to eat just now.

Oh dya think so so yeah I got it
At that craft market on Saturday
Good place how much was that then
Six-fifty, here, you’ll bring it out?
Thanks, have you got an ashtray?