Coffee Soliloquy

 COFFEE SOLILOQUY




To cafe-au-lait
Or to cafe latte?
To Cafe Colombiano
Or to cafe Americano?
That is the question.

Is it better to stay
Or down a frappe?
A hot mug to go
Or iced cappuccino?
Just plain consummation.

Do you have a Black Tie
Or prefer a Red Eye?
Do you like a Green Eye
Or just a Flat White?
The natural color of resolution

Would you pick the Irish
Rather than the English?
Hot tropical Jamaican
or vodka laced Russian?
From discovered countries or travellers choices.

Have extra cream on top
Or just plain decaf?
Unsugared milk coffee
Or sweet black coffee?
Just to ward the sleep, what dreams may come

Endless choices
coffee courses
Why would you macchiato
If there is an Affogato?
Coffee enterprises of great pith and moment


Fervent coffee wish:
To wake up, to not sleep;
And the mind becomes all awry
Empty cup in all its glory.
To be awake, perchance to daydream-
Ay, there's the rub.





10222011




******

chance

Chance


Reading
in a yellow dress
and a bright cardigan,
Green as her eyes
had become,
She lowered her book
and paused.


Lounging
in greige trousers,
a camel jacket,
and shirt in cordovan,
He stared
from the corners of his eyes
With a hint of a smile.


Book fell.
Both bent.


A moment passed
as eyes locked.
Smiles crossed,
and hearts rocked.








8172011

All Hallow's Evening

All Hallow's Evening



Full moon
Bloody moon
Crying loons
Headless goons
Howling wolves
Goblins, ghouls.

Sharp fangs
Death's pangs
Spiders' bite
Fangs' might
Vampire's kiss
Snake's hiss.

Bloody red
Bloody dead
Red lips
Dead lips
Red Blood
Dead blood.

Lonely shadows
Deathly gallows
Ghastly faces
Ghostly paces
There's a sad keening
This hallow's evening.

From faded memories

of unforgettable summers

and cold Novembers,

I remember you.

Though the summer breeze

seem to bring bright new things

still there is in the air it brings,

Traces of you.

 

 

 

                                                                        --Untitled

                                                                           1012011

 

 

 

The smile

If you could paint me
this morning,
leave me smiling
Because,
I want my mind
to freeze-frame
and reminisce:
our night-
how fiery it was
our embraces-
how tight they were
our kisses-
how ardent they were.

And through it all,
I want to remember:
all the sweetness
all the tenderness
all the traces
and nearness
of you.





















09272011

SANTORINI ISLANDS, GREECE

                             I didn't expect it quite like this. The place is one large volcanic dish. Islands formed by volcanic vomitus. Underwater volcano with  island detritus. For one, this place is hot. It has a flaming,welcome mat. I couldn't care less, though.Even if it ate up a lot of my precious dough.    

                              We got there, by boat. Tugged by a huge, comfortable, float. With a lot of noisy mothers. A lot more smoking fathers. Babies competitively screaming.Children boisterously running. Everybody speaking Greek. Something we didn't speak.    

                              Came noon, we got there. Supposedly, we'll be fetched, but our ride was nowhere. And it's hot -  like a dragon's lair.No one said it is going to be fair. At last, the rickety van arrived. Collectively, we smiled and we all sighed.  It zig-zagged its way up the mountain trail. All sweaty and dusty and our patience frail. At last, we got to the caldera's top. "It's beautiful," said all, with nary a but.    

                             The hotel was, aptly, named Poseidon. The concierge was Russian, the owner, an adventurous don. Dark rooms they had. Quite rustic and not that bad. Moussaka, we ate. Calamari by the plate. Cool, sweaty, bottled draft. To sate the weary, obtuse and daft.                     

                             Next to Oira, we went by car. Same group of islands, a little yonder afar. Driver dropped us by a paved promenade. Walked a distance and drank some lemonade. Baklava, we ate , then watched the sun slowly dissipate. A little wonder no one hates this place. Glorious sunsets and everything else in place. Blue and white domed houses by the mountainside. Typically very Greek, inside and outside.    

                              By morning next , to Fira we went. Fire, it is said, was what the place meant.  It sat by the caldera, beautifully cantilevered. We all stared silently, our eyes all tethered. Beautifully serene. Serenely beautiful. It also had a stony marbled promenade. Merchants and wares went on competitive charade.Greek gold and silver and some exotic favors. Trinkets, fruits and ice cream in different flavors. We sat, we shopped.  We walked, we talked. Then headed back to Hotel Poseidon. Yes, the one owned, by the prominent Greek don. 

                             












                             Finally, we went to some isolated  beach. Cold, cold waters;  stony not 


sandy beach. Some old church by the dusty roadside. Domed blue and whitehouses again 


dotted the mountainside. Didn't try to jump and swim. No one's on the water for want or 


whim. Ate some red delicious fish. By the seaside, on a bluff, with a vegetable dish. 


Strangely exotic. Palatably rustic.     

                               

                             Lastly, we went to another ancient church. Isolated on a narrow valley, on a lonely, misty perch. Just a craggy, stony road. Dried grass and a pond with verrucous little toads.Where people sang old Latin hymns, divining to an antique icon the color of tin. Somnolently serene. Very peaceful within. Unstressed and lonely.  Unharried yet lovely.  Then, we went to dine, this time, with some local wine. Aromatic bouquet. Reminiscent of the flowers of May. Redolent food. Devastatingly good.  

  

                               Sad to leave this place. So protean, an aesthete space. I guess, I will, again, come back, in time. A thought worth another rhyme. Sometime, another time. Thinking of goat cheese and of sea breeze. And of air thick with scent of orange blossoms. And of relics and treasures from the ocean's bosom.  

  

                               I'll bring mere prescience and a nostalgic kiss.     

                               And I won't expect it again to be, quite the least.

09082010

Morning Blues

( My wife is wondering if I made this up! Really! Just one strange winter morning...)

               I kicked the stuffy green canopy on my bed they call a comforter. I am already sweating up a stream while it is a frozen tundra outside. My  frosted window is wet and glistening in this late winter night. I was left wondering why I am wide-eyed at four o'clock in the morning when I suddenly remembered  that I have an ache down below and had to empty it into this ivory colored bowl in this cold room they called: the Water Closet( water to wash the face; water to bathe in; water to sink the long banana-like submarine; water to dilute the bladder water). Halfheartedly, I gathered myself, staggering side to side like a drunk duck, cursing myself when I toed the bureau, relieved the bladder and the half upright hose that leaned on the right like the tower of Pisa (wink, wink). Went right back to the warmth of the green fuzzy blanket and got comforted.  Snored back, rather loudly,  uncaring or not remembering,  if I shook the leaning hose of Pizza ( wink, wink) or just shoved it right back where it got comforted too. Oh, I couldn't care less. I was already busy snoring by the time I realized so.

                 I opened my eyes to a quite bright morning with my unruly, stiff and oily hair standing up on one side like a Mohawk except it is not bald at the sides ( uhh , just a tad so). I slept on the one side of the bed nearer the hissing radiator vent. My hair went up and wouldn't yield to the comb as if it got drowned with Viagra gel. Ugh, I have a strange headache, unusually early today, but now I remembered that I downed a highball last night half filled with a strange concoction I saw on the tube they called: absinthe ( I actually had a small one from my travel last spring, small bottle - from Prague).The heroine, if you must call her that, said her mouth dried up with the other mixtures so she preferred the drink and it actually made her quite, how would you say that - engaged or inflamed or both - and ended up cavorting with the hero. Hmmm. strange drink. Besides, it gave me this throbbing headache that seems to gnaw and annoyingly so. Startled back to life by the sound the dishes made when my wife dropped them while making breakfast this morning. One other thing, this strange drink left an unsavory aftertaste that I suspect left a dried up mark on the side of my mouth. Hmmm, really strange drink.

                    I managed to get a long hot shower. There is this unusually minty soap and shampoo that left a cool after effect mixed with the warm needling of the water. Rubbed and scrubbed to the gills. Felt fresh. I didn't skimp on the toothpaste either. Slathered it! I then went down and started wolfing the over easies with some brown craggy and rough bread they called multigrain ( they are supposed to burn longer and make you less hungry longer, ah). Dunked them, yes I did ,on the lukewarm coffee sweetened with Splenda. Ah, the luxuries of diabetes.  I pulled my unusually light but warm brown Moncler jacket ( reportedly made by plucking all the feathers of ten, or more, geese, probably more,and they call it -"down" for reasons up to now I can't grasp) with all the garbage in its pockets including the napkin I used the other day after breakfast mixed with some dried up gooey stuff ( I really wondered if that was some snot or something) and nickels and dimes and clips from the office and rubber bands that got tangled with the car keys.

Aw, what a morning.

02082011