Barista

Feb 26 2016

The coffee shop

is all dark wood, soft music,

the bittersweet waft

of freshly ground beans.

The heady buzz of caffeine.

The cute barista

who makes a cup a work of art,

seductively dripping cream

stirring-in exquisitely.

Who serves-up mugs

with open hands

like precious offerings.

Who coaxes elixir

from temperamental machines;

mocha, macchiato, melange,

cappuccino, latte

espresso.

Who coquettishly winks

at all her regulars.

Jazz

ornaments the air,

baritone sax

a sultry voice.

The sweet pungence of pot

unfurls like heavy rope,

drifting

like sweet sedition

from somewhere in back.

Conversation buzzes, laughter erupts,

keyboards tap sporadically.

At a small round table

in a dim recess

a writer contemplates his screen.

A cup of coffee

has bought him a lofty view,

the comings and goings

the hoi polloi.

He is the privileged observer

who goes unseen,

the narrator

of his own creation.

A self-proclaimed god

he sits astride a private world,

like the deeply flawed Oz

behind his curtain.

The screen is blank

the cursor blinks demandingly.

The cold dregs

that stain his empty cup

remind him of a stale ashtray

overflowing with stubs.

Hot coffee

has gone to his head.

The cute barista

controls the rest of him.

I don’t write in coffee shops. I need absolute silence, no distractions. And I’m too fussy about my coffee (scalding hot and uncorrupted black) to let anyone make it for me! So my coffee shop scenario is pure imagination.

This poem began when I ground my first batch of a new brand of coffee. I’ve always found the scent of freshly ground coffee intoxicating, Even as a kid – before I drank coffee, and at an age when taste buds are far too sensitive to bitter to enjoy it. I remember the big red coffee grinders at A&P:  their Eight O’Clock brand, or Loblaw’s Pride of Arabia. (Back in the day when everyone was perfectly content with supermarket coffee.)

So when I smelled the fresh grounds, I felt myself transported into a trendy hipsterish coffee shop: the kind of place where artistic types mingle; where impoverished writers monopolize a table and try to get unblocked.

But where, as I said in the opening paragraph, there are too many distractions. Or apparently one too many, anyway! On a more serious note, one could also argue that from time immemorial, men have only created art in order to impress women:  a form of macho display, a demonstration of fitness. Like lions’ manes, rams in mortal combat.

I’m quite pleased with the strong analogies in this poem: the pungent pot unfurling like heavy rope; the narrator as deeply flawed Oz; the cold coffee compared to a stale ashtray. And even though it’s probably just padding, I couldn’t resist the delightful expression hoi polloi. Just the sound of it, if nothing else.

(Btw, the new brand I mentioned is Blue Heron, which is made by Salt Spring Coffee. Excellent!)