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Seven poems follow about my two addictions: coffee and chocolate. The first two with art were inspired by Kathy Kearns pieces, and a third was evoked by a Susan Schneider oil painting.
Poems on this page are
SLOW TALKER
A LATTÉ ENCOUNTER
CUP ROW
COFFEE WATERFALL
CELL PHONE CHAT
CHOCOLATE RUSH
HEART OF DARKNESS
SLOW TALKER
I tell her I didn't used to like him, but now I do.
She asks why, and I say because he used to
speak very slowly, and he still does,
but that even though he hasn't changed,
and I drink as much coffee as I ever have,
people don't have to talk as fast
as they used to
to charm me. She laughs,
thinking wrongly,
that I've switched to decaf.
A LATTÉ ENCOUNTER
after a Kathy Kearns Crockett Pottery cup
A latté now leans on
my pillow, on purpose
a pillow that echoes
known patterns
of wandering steam,
but soon on a thick
stack of news, it
will flatten its back,
artifact in repose,
only half of it there, yet
exposed like my need
for olfactory romance
with a virtual latté
I dare not call coffee,
lest it scoff: "I'll call you,
don't call me."
COFFEE WATERFALL
(Ode To My Drug of Choice)
Past rocky teeth,
smooth, pebbled tongue,
down yawning throat,
you disappear
into a place
I've never seen,
my coffee waterfall,
no cream.
You splash into
my gut’s great pond,
a carrier
of craved caffeine,
‘til thin as steam,
dark roasted bean,
you permeate
a wondrous screen –
the blood-brain barrier.
Let nothing intervene.
CELL PHONE CHAT
“Just come for a cup of coffee,”
he said. “You don’t have to get dressed.”
I ate quietly, listening.
“I’m trying to be nicer after last night.
I’m sorry for what I did.”
New Yorker cartoons played in my head.
Thurber’s characters always wore clothes.
Saul Steinberg’s? No,
this voice wasn’t that sophisticated.
He quit talking. She never appeared,
though naked in the coffee shop
would have been nice.
Last sip of dark brew down, I left,
still trying to picture her arrival,
and everyone but him
surprised.
For photo of Cup Row by Kathy Kearns, Crockett Pottery, please scroll up, since I can't dislodge it from where Google put it when revising my site in August 2021.
CUP ROW
We’re told
that they’ll probably
be dug up someday,
containers that hold
what we now drink
at our local deli,
coffees, teas, lattés,
Valona’s vessels,
old then, maybe decayed.
Our coffee klatch,
still in the pink,
plans to congregate
for many more Saturdays,
fun mornings to come
‘til we’re done
with our sips,
our occasional spats.
Wound down way past
decaf, we’ll be artifacts,
dry toast, lined up
high up with other ghost
cups, a bit cracked,
vessels, all of us, ready
to enter heaven's deli
for one more laugh,
one last nap.
For more art by Kathy Kearns, please visit her Web site at
Third Prize, 79th Annual Poets’ Dinner, 2005, Humor
Published in Issue 173, May 2005 Crockett Signal, in the 2007 Carquinez Poetry Review,
and considered my signature poem by several who know me too well.
The painting by Susan Schneider directly above belongs to the poem Chocolate Rush whose title is printed way below in the scramble Google achieved when revising this site in August 2021. The poem is printed above its title. The poem directly below, Heart of Darkness, got a third prize in 2005, as indicated above.
for more art by Susan Schneider, please visit her Web site at
HEART OF DARKNESS
Standing after sundown in front of the lit fridge,
I aim the brown plastic bottle
of Hershey's chocolate syrup
directly into my mouth.
Only a drop falls on my tongue
instead of the usual dark river.
I kick the fridge shut with a curse
and slam the bottle on the kitchen counter.
From the sink I grab a knife the moon illumines,
clench its fake ivory handle,
press and twist its serrated blade
into the bottle's hard middle,
and hack my way to more chocolate,
thinking that if my mother had nursed me,
I might not succumb to the horror
of these atavistic oral urges.
The knife slips off the bottle to smudge the floor,
and the bottle, half cut into and now sticky,
demands I finish the job,
demands that I taste every smear
left in its dark interior.
The shadowy Kurtz in me complies.
I extend and curl my index finger
into this heart of darkness,
unable to stop until I've licked it dry.
A spread like this, flat but textured, is Nutella for hungry eyes
and marshy tongue. It lets me imagine licking the chocolate
smooth concoction off spoon or croissant. An Italian devised
Nutella by fusing hazelnuts, ground fine, into a jet
of cocoa mix. Open a jar, peel back the gold foil
under the lid, read the list of ingredients, and dig in.
One inhalation confirms chocolate’s presence, as this oil
painting affirms one aspect of Rush Ranch, an impression.
Not only do I detect the air’s aroma, its essence,
but if I gambled, I’d bet a couple of bucks
that you also sense its resonance
with chocolate and hazelnuts.
CHOCOLATE RUSH
after Susan Schneider’s Rush Ranch painting Between the Rains
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