March 03, 2008
Monday Poem
Rags to Richness
Jim CullenySitting with a coffee in the morning sun
seeing the high ledges a mile offWe go up there to perch on edges
and peer down into the bowl
that cups our town’s tiny sprawl
into the creases and pleats between
the treed knobs of old mountains
—a serene sprawl
except when cars come full of pilgrims
with a taste for the quaint.
Then I can't find a place to park.
Then there goes quaint.
Then it’s more like New York.
I glance down into my coffee's dark-browness
into it's french-roastedness, and think of Maxwell House.
How far I've come from
my mother's ordinary
perked Maxwell's
to free-market gourmet,
dark-roasted Dean's Beans,
expressed, french-pressed,
or dripped.
How far up the food chain
from being the son
of a honey-dipper's son
and bluecollar squirt, to being one
within easy reach of lattes
and cappucinos fizzed from pots
in our town’s surfeit of java huts.
Lattes and cappucino for the world of one,
cake and Maxwell House for the rest.
..
Posted by Jim Culleny at 01:54 AM | Permalink






















Comments
Inside, the Coffee Mill
An old lady in orange with a foghorn voice
Laments the wait for the bus of her choice,
A cookied couple; she in velour and smooth coiffure;he in curly hair and the casual cultured stare,
A daydreaming lady in soft brown,
Her face shaped by destiny's frown,
While outside the door,
The misty early evening, wind pushed and sibilant
with cars, tenspeeds, and heads bent beneath the clouds and the stars.
Posted by: rhbee | Mar 3, 2008 2:44:47 AM
Post a comment