Third cup.Jazz.A man is talking with Ray the barista.Hum of refrigerator.Coins. Tip money dropped in a glass jar.Coffee maker — frothy release of steam, metal stirring along metal.Drums. Piano. Saxophone.Fridge door closes; cushioning.Ray greets a customer, “How’s it going?”She orders a latte mocha triple shot.Talk of parking, a popular topic this morn.Coins again.Ray laughs.Air ducts … Continue reading Coffee Shop Audio Sketch
Tag: coffee
Misc. Haiku 51-55
51
What’d I write last night?
The morning is coffee
And looking through notebooks
52
Twenty-eight and still too scared
To say thrice into the mirror,
“Bloody Mary?”
53
Moon at an acme
That no company could match —
Din of merger news
54
Kerouac’s best haiku
Were the ones that went
Uncollected
55
A retreat
Into alcoholism, no
Not me
Leaving Aus-town
Actually, my knee is aching, and so is my back. I’ve been packing things. Got up at 4:34. The garbage truck. Did you hear it? Banging mechanical arm, squealing brakes, beeping as it backs up. That’s the last time I’ll ever hear it. I’m drinking some iced coffee. Ate a slice of toast with peanut butter. Have showered, taken the pizza box to the trash, updated my blog. Wow, I’m nearly ready to start drinkin’ again though it’s only 8:50.
Bad heartburn, though. Need to get some meds for that, pepto or Immodium, Tagamet? Don’t think I’ve ever had Tagamet. Drinking some water. Was not dehydrated this morning although I rinsed out four cans of Guinness, a bottle of pinot grigio, a couple Red Hook IPAs, a Bud Light, a big Lagunitas IPA, and our highball glasses...
The short story continues...
Antwerping
Your toes against me moved,your "best feet." You were told.Morning herald camealong wearing shades.My window open all night.Heels on the cobblestone streetand I can't help but looking.Down to the plaza and someonedrinking coffee, unfolding a bicycle.Your best feet against me moved.Heels on the cobblestone streets.Not finishing upstairs,walking alone with frites.If you weren't the only one … Continue reading Antwerping
Songs for Art and Memory
All of the great
Songs about memory
And art
Have already been
Written. I didn’t
Have the .
I forget, I didn’t
Have the power.
Picasso said it all about
War, Petrelli could fly.
And here I am feeling
So ordinary.
Let me not have to go
To work
And curse the goddam computer
And overdose on coffee cup cures.
Picasso married the dancer in 1918.
Petrelli saved the world.
I’m content taking love for granted
And writing about the Senate.
I know,
This is just another poem.
Ezra Ain’t Easy
1
I could’ve gone
to see Pound while he was
still in the hospital.
But my mother-in-law hates him
and it would’ve killed her.
So I just let
the crazyman be;
him & Fords,
Jags, Land Rovers, etc.
2
One of the
must-read poets
said he couldn’t write
with stubble on his chin;
called for
a holiday for writing.
In other words,
a good time
to swear off coffee,
not to get too gassed.
3
Ezra Brooks
bourbon you say you
were drinking.
But why then
do I smell lime
on your breath—
I am not a teetotaller,
not a prohibitionist. I know
there is no cuba libre
for whiskey,
none for fascists
the world around.
Burlington Northern
My uncle, a climatologist,
suggests that global warming
could cause the melting of the
Northern Passages once impassable
to the likes of Henry Hudson
or John Cabot or his son Sebastian searching
for a route to the spices & silks
of the East Indies at the behest
of royalty, their county’s or not.
Imagine: the northern passage is a convenient
shipping route from, say, Shanghai
to NYC forget the skinny Panama Canal
or slow trains or coffeed truckers.
Betty Cave
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Cleansing begins with the
eyes closed
vanquish
and thoughts of
her.
A cave
an underground stream
pure and cold
making slick
the heft
of vague & ageless rocks.
Who was this woman
Betty Cave:
(A) minor poet
(B) darts champion
(C) president’s wife, or
(D) the first American shaman
The sound of wind chimes
is air’s soliloquy
Pine needles fall
and bring to ground green fragrance
In her clinics by the brook
no one sleeps alone.
Not she
not Elizabeth Taylor
Not Kurt Cobain
nor any of the other
27 suicides.
In the morning it is
pecan waffles
with falls of syrup
(world’s highest)
Coffee is OK
In her words, “Permissible.”
With the gleaming ink of morningDocument Block Status & Visibility Visibility Public Publish Jan 19, 2007 8:56 am Stick to the Front Page Move to trash Permalink URL betty-cave Preview https://johnbrandall.com/2007/01/19/betty-cave/(opens in a new tab) Categories Search Categories Fiction Dialogue Dreams Essay Farm Miscellany Painting Poems Travelogue Add New Category Tags Add New Tag Separate with commas Featured Image Set featured image Excerpt Write an excerpt (optional) Learn more about manual excerpts(opens in a new tab) Discussion Code editor selected
she signs the executive order
of waking, satisfied for us all.
Vegas
Everyone debauched but everyone a virgin in some way. You can’t have tried everything, you can’t have tired of everything. Something to come back for, something to save for next time, when you’ve got more money, some savings to play with, and hopefully better luck.
There’s a premium on everything, and nothing is free. Not even luck. Luck costs money. Luck for a buck? Maybe the stars are free, but good luck seeing them through the neon broil. Maybe it’s time for a drink. Maybe it’s time to skim some winnings, to cash out, to double down, to parlay, to bet the house, to count some cards.
Good place to come for a birthday. One you don’t want to remember. Just cab doors opening and closing. Croupiers changing shifts, cleansing their hands of the table and all the bad luck that came with it. Cashiers sitting behind bars. Chips in their neat little stacks of hundreds or thousands. The peaks in the distance. The hotels standing and stretching in the hot, dry desert air, the sun not far away.
Gathering chips for their bets, trying to get free drinks, trying to get comped. A generous mix of Filipino, white, some blacks, you name it, a few Koreans, the new wealth Chinese—cabbies called them whales because they were big fish, big betters. Old and older. A bunch of kids crawling around doing god knows what, more likely to get kicked out of the casinos than anyone else because they don’t bet.
Mafia types—Skyball Chibelli and Baba, hoping the croupiers don’t look too close at their money. Cabbies who went to high school here. Eighties music, light shows, five-dollar minimums, champagne bottles, sixes and eights, Manhattans, Coronas, the hot sun, no clouds, bellmen looking for tips, towel boys looking for tips, everyone looking for tips and some people giving them. The whole place like an octopus but with more arms, looking for anyway to get its hands on your money, and when it does—bang! it pops its barb into you like an unexpected sting ray, whether you are an expert or not. Here, no one is an expert. Experts get beat up and know better...
Vegas never closes...
Morning At End
I need morning as the dune does sand.
Everything smooth as a pond
tucked away thick in a woods
no one hikes through.
Until the neighbors,
high on coffee and grits,
take their cute little dog out to piss.
That tree it lifts its leg on
used to be morning.
Now it’s stinking-wet noon.
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