The coffee shop I’m writing from today
Is my favorite kind of place.
Stained oak tables and battered counters, arabica brown,
Employee-owned, comfortably crowded,
Angsty barista sporting a shiny nose ring,
And snappy smile under chai-mocha eyes.
Hand-sprawled menu, simple drink descriptions
In dusty blue sidewalk chalk,
Cup capacities plainly listed in the language of the locals,
No need for hasty Italian translations,
Sonos speakers pouring a perfectly brewed soundscape
Somehow seamless from Dylan to Pavement,
Mazzy Star to Miles Davis,
Melodies landing lightly
Amongst the scattered conversation
Of eclectically caffeinated customers.
Tag: poem
-
Chai-Mocha Eyes
-
In-Between Chill
Winter rain etching erratic paths down window panes,
Blurring the world into a watercolor dream,
Painted with a palette of grays,
Slow, rhythmic tap-tapping on the rooftop,
Drumming a steady soundtrack of solitude on cold tin,
Not the up-tempo swing of a welcome summer shower,
Nor the hushed All Blues brushing stillness of winter snowfall –
But that in-between chill,
Too brisk for comfort under the open sky,
Not quite cold enough for the hearth's hot glow,
A damp, dark slate-tinged groove calling you
Back to the bed's blanketed embrace.
-
The Last Time
Most endings slip past unnoticed.
The last swim in the ocean,
the final bike ride home.
One day, you lift your child
without knowing it’s the last time,
their smallness slipping from your arms
before you realize it’s gone.A final bedtime story,
a last school drop-off,
a closing conversation with a friend—
all ordinary until they aren’t.We mark the big endings,
but life is a quiet unraveling,
a series of goodbyes we never think to say
until we’re looking back,
wishing we had paid closer attention.
-
Just Write
Sometimes, while staring at a blank page,
the mind wanders,
stretching to absurd lengths
to dodge the task at hand.Asinine thoughts swirl—
out of place in a coffee shop
at 7 a.m. on a Tuesday,
and probably just as much anywhere else,
at any other time,
on any other day.Should I reignite my old cigarette habit?
Would a third espresso unleash creativity?
Is a hermit’s beard and mountain seclusion the key?“Stop it,” I tell myself,
forcefully,
aloud,
likely sounding insane
to anyone within earshot.There might be merit
in one of those musings—
just not now.Now the instruction is to
Just
Write.To splatter mind matter on the blank page
and see if, amid the mess,
something worth keeping
shows up.
-
Gentle Reminder
Starlight dances softly upon rooftops,
Gliding through barren branches
To play on fallen leaves,
Reminding us gently
Of our own star’s
Promised return.
-
Moonlight Society
If you are lucky enough
to live near a 24-hour grocery store
and haven’t yet wandered in at 3 a.m.,
I warmly invite you to join us
one quiet night.Prime parking spots ripe for the taking,
aisles wide and open as parade grounds,
freshly stocked shelves encouraging
a leisurely reading of labels,
checkout lines empty
as forgotten dreams.Among the sparse pre-dawn crowd,
polite, conspiratorial nods are exchanged,
binding us as silent members
of a secret moonlight society
of insomniacs
and solitude-seekers.
-
Casual Urgency
Now and then, in traffic,
or sipping tea at home,
it strikes me—this race
is likely halfway run.Who’s to say? We pace blind,
never knowing the final distance,
which makes strategy
a bit of a joke.Maybe I’m still in the first third,
time enough to jog, to breathe,
to save the sprint for later.
Or maybe the last lap’s begun,
and here I am, strolling
when I should be surging.Without sudden omnipotence,
all I can do is play the odds—
hope that forty-one is somewhere
near midcourse,
or not,
and feel my feet
where they land.
-
Whale Day (Slight Return)
Inspired by a new Billy Collins poem,
I hurried home, eager to write,
sure I could catch the same easy current—
only to watch this poem unfold
like a half-deflated balloon,
listing sideways, refusing to rise.It’s like hearing Hendrix tear through
Gypsy Eyes on a ’68 Strat,
then picking up my cheap Ibanez
and fumbling my way
through a crooked version
of Three Blind Mice.
-
Help Wanted
At the dealership this morning,
waiting on my oil change
(a task I once handled myself,
back when money was tighter
and time felt less costly),
I watched an old man, newspaper in hand,
perfectly content
with the unremarkable quality
of the free coffee.He scanned the obituaries
as casually as one might browse
the Help Wanted section—
not actively seeking a position,
just open to the idea
of future possibilities.
-
American Dream
Unloading the dishwasher, stacking plates
on top of their idle mates,
who rarely make it into the regular rotation,
I decide to count—twenty-two.Twenty-two plates for a household of four,
with an automated dishwasher
and free child labor to load it,
stacked neatly, waiting for a banquet
that will never come.I’m not sure I even know twenty-two people,
certainly not twenty-two I’d invite
to my home for a meal, all at once.
But should that unlikely day arrive,
I’m ready.This must be success—
owning enough plates to feed a small army,
and not washing a single one by hand.
Welcome to the American dream, kids.
-
Mailbox
Four things waited in the mailbox today:
an early Christmas card from your aunt in Ohio,
a bill from the electric company,
still arriving on paper
despite being paid online,
a flyer from a real estate agent—
irrelevant now,
but maybe not in three years,
when high school ends
and the mountains call.And then a journal,
ordered a month ago
and forgotten.
It showed up like a small gift,
I’m writing these words in it now,
having recently filled the last one—
proof that past me is good at buying things
future me will need.The blue ribbon,
nearly the color of your eyes,
pulls me back to that little Italian place,
our third anniversary—
candlelight, red wine,
a moment that stays intact
even as a thousand other evenings
slip quietly behind it.
-
Deep Burgundy Pairs Well with Modal Jazz
We have a parlor in our house,
which makes us sound wealthy,
which we most certainly aren’t—
unless compared to most of the world.You might call it the dining room,
but you’d be wrong.
No table, no dinner parties,
just a deep burgundy glow
that somehow makes Miles Davis
sound even better
floating from the Klipsch speakers,
wired to the Audio-Technica turntable.One wall is lined with books and records,
vinyl jackets worn, proof they’ve spun
longer than the machine that plays them.There are a couple of guitars,
a battered Martin, a shiny Gretsch—
both played poorly, but played nonetheless—
and a piano I don’t play at all.Framed posters—
Newport Jazz Fest ‘65,
Zeppelin in front of The Starship,
Dylan, moody and contemplative—
sometimes make me feel the same.A Buddha-head lamp glows beside
a small wooden bar,
Nag Champa burning atop,
giving the space a feel somewhere between
swanky jazz lounge
and 1860s opium den.At the center, a mandala rug,
where a table once stood,
back when this was a dining room—
before we had a parlor,
before we had a word
that made us sound wealthy,
which we most certainly aren’t,
unless compared to most of the world.
-
Half Price Melancholy
Sometimes, when I want to feel sad,
I go to the used bookstore
and drift to the poetry section,
where once-loved collections
wait for new hands,
marked down, half-price.Maybe their owners let them go,
deciding they’d gathered enough dust.
Or maybe the owners are gone now
and someone else packed the shelves,
boxed the dog-eared favorites,
and dropped them off
with the dishes and coats.Either way, it’s enough
to stir a quiet melancholy—
the kind that pairs well
with the gray weight of winter.
-
Sol Mate
Here, in the southern stretch
of the northern hemisphere,
the seasons hesitate.
Autumn and Spring exchange glances,
never more than brief affairs.Winter is a halfhearted lover,
rarely staying the night,
while Summer waits,
steady and burning,
pulling everything
back into her arms.
-
About Monday Night
I’m on the couch, attention split
between a spy novel and Monday Night Football.
The volume’s so low the broadcasters
sound like they’re sharing secrets.My wife went to bed with a migraine,
the kids are upstairs, asleep—
or maybe pretending, flashlights flickering
over pages beneath blankets—
like I once did a million years ago.My book glows under bright overhead light,
because, according to my driver’s license,
I’m at an age where surreptitious reading
is no longer required,
no matter the hour
or day of the week.When Joe Buck’s voice jumps with excitement,
I glance up from Damascus Station
just in time to see the Bills score.
I smile—not because I’m from Buffalo,
but because Josh Allen’s on my fantasy team,
and I’m now winning a silly game
that means nothing at all.
-
Daily Practice
Sitting. Observing.
Noticing. Returning.Half an hour a day
for the past month,
showing up with the kind of discipline
that mostly goes unnoticed,
waiting for whatever benefits
people like to promise.Then today at lunch,
you dropped an entire bowl of soup.No swearing.
No self-lecture.
No dramatic kicking of broken ceramic
across the kitchen floor.Just the heat of it rising,
the familiar spike of anger,
noticed and left alone.A breath.
A towel.
The quiet work of cleaning it up.I guess this is what progress looks like.
-
Trying Too Hard
“You really are trying too hard,” I said to myself,
“Grasping at words you’d never actually use
in real conversation. People who know you
are going to see straight through your pretentious bullshit.”“Perhaps,” I replied. “Perhaps.”
“Ha! Perhaps! Just last Friday you spent over an hour
desperately trying to cram quixotic into a sentence,
because you thought it sounded cool!
Don’t even get me started on the whole empyreal incident.
And just now, did you or did you not actually consider changing
the title of this poem from Trying Too Hard to
A Disjointed Discourse with a Vexatious Ego? Jesus, man, seriously…”I sigh. “You have a point, I suppose…
But in my defense, quixotic is a cool word.”“Sure, sure, it sounds cool. And, considering your recent writing,
I’d say it’s a fairly accurate description.”“Thank you. Perhaps you are just being a little overly captious?”
A defeated shake of the head.
“Alright. Have at it.
But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
-
Shape-Shifting Muse
Inspiration never knocks.
It lets itself in,
or leaves without saying goodbye.You look for it and it hides.
You stop looking
and it’s suddenly there,
balanced on the edge of a thought
while you’re busy doing something else.Some days it feels like a revelation,
the beginning of something important.
Other days it’s a scrap—
half an idea you shove aside,
sure you’ll never need it again.Until you do.
And you go back downstairs,
brush the dust off,
and invite it up
like it hasn’t already been
watching you the whole time.
-
Denial
A reckoning as shadows gather—
change, once gradual, now swift.
Yet we go about our business,
blinking past the breaking point,
blindly motoring forward,
as if things will never completely fall apart.
As if momentum alone
can keep the ground beneath us whole.Companions in crisis,
too comfortable to open our eyes.
The Truth About Tigers 