Morning Coffee

 

 

 

While occasionally I drink coffee

It is not a morning ritual for me.

 

For some it is a quick series of slurps

While scanning the newspaper.

 

Others chug their mugs

After scarfing down breakfast –

Be it a hard roll in New York

 

Or a Lumberjack special

-Three eggs over easy

With a heaping plate

Of butter and maple topped cakes,

Sausage and hash browns,

In Minnesota.

 

Long after the breakfast dishes

Have been washed and put a way

Countless clusters

Of unkempt grizzled old men,

Coprolaliacs,

Lollygag  around

The local greasy spoon diner

Or other gathering room.

 

Clutching their stained white cups

In soiled gnarled fingers,

They huddle around their tables

Like conspirators in a smoky basement.

 

Swilling multiple pots of strong dark coffee,

Many men and sometimes women,

Spend hour upon hour

Spewing verbal reams

Of vulgarity parsed daisy chains

As they swap

Off colored jokes and lurid stories,

Then chatter like grackles

About the news of the day.

 

WTO 11.24.11