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Saturday, October 1, 2016

Three Coffee Poems


COFFEE

Coffee is a brown man
Made from soil,
Pressed into shape,
Fired shiny,
Waxen as a lizard,
Hat white like dried-out shells,
Pulling at reins of a rearing horse,
Hooves sharp as pickaxes
Kicking up bright clouds of lime.

Dark and fragrant visitor,
He makes his diffident presence felt:
Memories of fresh bread,
Woody nuts,
Heady camphor.
They lighten
Slumbering burdens,
Heavy luggage hauled about
By traveling sleepwalkers.

Swinging open the cabinet,
He hands out syrups to sweeten
Unfulfilled dreams,
Hot poultices to soothe
Unforgotten nightmares,
Tonics for the family,
Ointments for friends,
Infusions for the jaded,
Bandages for the heart.


Sweet fragrant coffee…

Sweet fragrant coffee, you fill me with delight,
You sharpen my hearing, focus my sight,
Waken taste and smell with rich, deep notes…
You waft restful draughts, quell restive seas,
Water vineyards and groves, hoe fruit-bearing trees,
Build sturdy safe homes, tidy cities on the plain,
Turn denizens to work for prosperous gain,
Hoist snappy white sails, launch fresh-painted boats…
You uplift my heart, quicken my feeling!
Just do not invade my sleep and dreaming.


I like my coffee hot and black...

I like my coffee hot and black—
hot hornet stings,
black squid ink—
heady broth of
bitter cumin,
red pine smoke,
dusky forests,
blue lightning.



Coffee, nectar of the gods

4 comments:

  1. October 1, 2016 is International Coffee Day.

    Gonzalinho

    ReplyDelete
  2. Photo courtesy of trophygeek

    Photo link: http://www.freestockphotos.biz/stockphoto/17878

    Gonzalinho

    ReplyDelete
  3. Credits - original publications:

    “Sweet fragrant coffee...,” Eastlit (August 1, 2015)

    “I like my coffee hot and black...,” One Sentence Poems (May 23, 2016)

    Gonzalinho

    ReplyDelete
  4. COFFEE, METAPHOR FOR DEMOCRACY

    There is no reason a cup of joe should be more than $1, and yet we are totally comfortable with the increased costs that have accompanied coffee’s reascension. Is that because post-recession, it’s easier to distinguish your values and beliefs with something material, like a cup of coffee? Or we believe that something brought to market under better conditions is worth paying a bit more for? Regardless of the reasons underpinning the financials of coffee, Locol’s $1 cup represents a paradigm shift and a return to a mean—perhaps it is possible to have both sustainably raised coffee that tastes delicious.

    Oliver Strand of the New York Times recently reported on Locol’s brews, and why the company is so adamant in redefining our centuries-old coffee culture:

    “There’s an extreme democratization that I really want to make happen in coffee,” said Tony Konecny, the head of Locol’s coffee operation, who goes by Tonx. Good coffee, he said, should be brought to a broad audience, not just a “self-selecting group” of epicures.

    Mr. Konecny’s ambitions for Yes Plz go beyond selling a high-quality cup of coffee at that magic price point, though he knows that it sends a powerful message. What he wants to do is shift the very nature of coffee culture. He has no patience for what he calls the “culinary burlesque” of pour-over bars, with their solemn baristas and potted succulents. “It’s dress-up,” he said.

    Those settings and presentations, he said, send the wrong message: that good coffee must also be expensive and fetishized. “We have become overly focused on this ingredient preciousness, single-origin puritanism,” he said. As a result, he added, coffee just keeps getting “fancier and fancier.”

    Link: https://longreads.com/2017/05/04/good-coffee-shouldnt-have-to-cost-more-than-1/

    We agree with the author that the nectar of the gods should be within reach of the common tao.

    Gonzalinho

    ReplyDelete