The POTW: Verse Til It Hurts

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POTW #862
(Week of 23 February, 2014)
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I wandered over to the old inspirational stomping grounds at Peet's Coffee this morning. The counterman, I noticed, did not ask me whether I wanted room for cream in my coffee, despite his being a new guy who's probably never seen me before. Maybe he could read my preference in my face somehow? Anyway, it struck me as odd, and then I started thinking about "no room for cream" as an approach to life in general, and so there became a poem.

(Incidentally, for those who pay attention to these details, the Cat Sock Lady was there, but she was wearing plain beige socks, nearly indistinguishable from her skin! This departure from the norm disturbed me, and I thought of Donny missing the strike in The Big Lebowski. Her husband was with her, though, and he had on a nice aggressive pair of argyles, so maybe all is not lost.)

Room for Cream?

No room for cream
All doom foreseen
I drink my coffee unadorned
Touch the brim
With verve and vim
The bull and the blood and the horns

No sugar either
Diluting the bitter
Congealing the bite into paste
The heat and the breath
Of disaster and death
Are an integral part of the taste

And I don't need a top
I'm not leaving the shop
To go is to be diminished
I clutch my chair
With resolve and despair
I am staying until I have finished

Copyright © 2014 by Dave Grossman

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