The Coffee
Underachievers
the coffee underachievers
wildly spending cash advances for famous
novels
they will never write;
the coffee underachievers
ardently debating the sum of angels
who can dance atop a split hair;
the coffee underachievers
daring to go where
no one has wanted to go before;
the coffee underachievers
flippantly jousting with lance-like wit
one wonders why they bother;
the coffee underachievers
their company I await I even
can imagine: pastel colorized Bogart mugging
in a Ted Turner
Casablanca wet dream;
the coffee underachievers
love only three steps from coke;
the coffee underachievers: LEGAL LIVING HELL
& I'm Charon
(where's my tip?)
a cat named contemplation
basks in solace and remembrance
the genius of her recall pure
through warm milk-haze, its gaze mutes all
sharp edges.
grooms self in the image of its maker
house proud gestalt, the majesty of self
sure and crystal integrity.
feeds self and spirit
its hunger is not its needs but wants
no priss this puss, though it always feasts
from gold.
stalks in chaste and reverent confidence
preying shameless and unfenced
hunt-lust not wanton, but sublime.
shits decorously when feeling the call
neat earth returns to earth, old meals
and all things culled, debts paid.
sleeps fully but aware
its rest no torpor, but finesse; Morpheus
visits not the cat which naps.
I rejoice in this strength I see
I revere its profundity, for to be fenced
in by books
and plans grandiose, to strive to touch without
harm, to smash
the prison walls which garret the spirit,
I must learn:
to walk in grace is to walk like a cat.
to live such grace without pain
though it may be the narrowest jamb to prance
means transcribing feline incantations of
reserve;
Self-space my Isis temple.
