Living the Dream

Excerpts From A Cup Of Coffee and Care

Looking Over The Rim Of Love

Coffee perched in cup holder, too hot, yet,

to put rim to lip and swallow some to

wind-down prenuptial time. Hands loose on wheel,

lights of city fading into little ground-down stars

of rancher’s pinpricks stating we have made our home here.

Houses nestled in little gullies with front lawns

stretching for sagebrush miles, there is an Aloneness,

almost a vulnerable settlement and stay

of panic-paced city you have just left behind.

I see you settle into the curled back

of vehicle, much like a cowboy’s back curls

to adjust to jar and spar of hooves

and seat of saddle that takes you home

after a quiet clip and clop out in far range,

but having had to go through town’s paved clank

of shoe and shy at such a foreign frenzied flutter

of too many, too close, and too much. An almost-feeling

of having stayed too long at some trotter’s oval

that burst its seams and the horses have left the gate.

You follow home-drifting stream and make poems

in your head of wind and ripples laughing

to see you follow maps of soul back to where light,

and love grasp like fingers on a favorite cup; reins

that show the grasp of years, guided like horse

that needs no halter and knows your knees so well

it finds its way to hearth by heart,

Going home, waiting to see that familiar fence;

loping land, and stacks of well-sawn wood

bracing best warm fire wishes for your return

of heart that holds a heart, well-worn, against this ‘stead

like leather, rubbed soft and chamois, finds its fit

like hand to glove again. Here, after love; a new love,

waiting to grow to each other, is what the fold and hold

of such “’til death” truly means: When light bursts,

like glad heart, to see a place, a face, come into full view

after a long, well-held, honey moon with many harvests.

A Sip Of Soul

She speaks in whirlwinds of fragile wings

to those of us who know

serenity in a flurry of feelings

that dart between the leafy shadows

to capture that central sip

of soul that would surrender soulfully

to her beauty and her grace

I am wont to enter greening glades

to press my intentions on forest’s felt

and in that gentle gathering

I am given webs to weave

on coffee’d rims of porch swing.

Feeding The Ancients Chocolate

This morning, my favorite color is brown,

brewing in the antique pot, waiting for cream,

so it can leave grounds in the bottom of the mug

and something to chew on.

I am a poet. I am. I have put on my Chocolate

River voice and spilled it across the table tops

in the Hopewell Café so others might lap

at my lines and leanings towards ordinary, brown.

Stains of light billow off the Bay, where tide comes in,

goes out rich as a melting poured straight from earth.

It is sweet and my tongue twists words round

before layering bright box faces with my rusty meanings.

My portfolio, padded with native skin sonnets,

bulges out with the nuts and cream of an almond life.

I am a brown poet, buying time with my best

brown words. The Hopewell Rocks are slathered

with Earth Mother’s sincerest breath.

I have offered up nuggets of necessary nuances,

dug into the mudflats and left sweet prizes there

for tourists to find and lick clean.

Over double-double coffee, I wonder at the words

I tucked into the Flower Pot hoodoos. Will they melt

or turn to stone? Should they slide into the tide,

will they be carried back to the earth from whence I came?

Were the faces there, so ancient they have no teeth,

grateful for the brown beans of belief, I breathed on them?

Will they remember me when I return to sit in the café

to slip secret sonnets to them again?

I shall never drink black coffee again, now

that I have offered cream to the mix. It must be stone

ground so we can swallow it smoothly.

Strategies Over Coffee

Coffee etches up crack

through minute spaces unseen

like water sinking into sand

or like fine spaces in filigree

it splays bony fingers

reaching morning lips perched

on mouth with purposeful tongue

ready to slip to dip tip

of words that could wage many little wars,

of big ones that we never planned,

but neither did we stop while stirring

with silver spoons or rubber-ended pencils.

There are headlines, stomping their feet

on gray snow of city’s celebration,

marching barefoot, dancing in a room

above me so that I hear shuffling

while I hone my teeth

on translucent static swarming

from a reticent radio trying to outdo

sweet cheek of bird filling with sunflower seeds

in swinging lardy drop-boxes

tied in midday sun which hovers

between short dawn and swift sunset

these days.

Grounds swirl at bottom

no matter how filtered it is

little Arabic words escaping heated brew

like children, orphaned but ecstatic

running through rain to keep

from being swallowed whole by every side there is

Exiles, scattered in garden to add meal for worms

fiber for new things to grow, perhaps even anger

that a world that picks and cooks coffee beans

for such sport as sun-up slurry and cravings

while little staccato voices hide themselves in cavities

waiting to cause much pain later.

Cream clots in clabbery clouds

to hide reflection of ne’er do wells

who linger long before shower and prayer

so they will be too rushed to notice

a golden dome turning gray with funerals

of nothing but remains of cities, communities,

square blocks of homes, caves of last thresholds

for hiding fire in so one can have a hot drink

to soothe night’s beast

that rises smokily from valleys

workers bent over, shell-shocked,

that café latte can be poured

while we plan new ways to take over the world,

over coffee in fine china that has split its seams

with weightiness of conversation.

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