“Coffee Clash”

c.2020 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(12-20)

Coffee at three-and-a-half

Up early again

Funky and frostbitten

From a day on the porch

Snow on my shoes

Gloves on the beer tube

Lesson unlearned by a younger man 

Like Popeye

“I yam what I yam”

The Professor left me in quite a jam

I’d prefer

To spend my time with Mary Ann

Instead of pondering the point

Of well-laid plans

Coffee before sunrise

Pull down my T-shirt

Rub my eyes

Streaming Phil Hendrie on my device

Still swimming in the lingering night

Pouring a cup of wake-me-up

The taste splits my face

A grin from eyebrows to chin

Last

Lost

Lumbering

Leaning to one side in my chair

Infinity at the edge

A drumbeat from Sister Sledge

Trying to recall

What the Mahavishnu said

I’ve been a poor pupil

Never one to sit in school

Instead learning best on the razor knife

On West State Street

Channel 13

Going live

In 1979

Now, I’m a disabled old guy

But still jonesing for callers on the line

Cheering, jeering

‘High Life’ beering

Young and yobbish

Never cowed by the snobbish sons of fortune

Who counted pocket change

In cut diamonds and golf balls on the driving range

I ran away

People are strange

My Judgment Day

Precipitated a fall from grace

Coffee before wisdom

I sit in my seat

Not fully complete

A pale poltroon

Old too soon

Still on the vibe of a teenage kid

And the things he did

Now I’m fat, failing, and on the skids

Yet strangely content

To write all night with good intent

Syllables of want and need

Like ‘A New York Telephone Conversation’ by Lou Reed

Chugging caffeine

Gratefully

I check the windows twice

To be sure of the overnight

The first hint of daylight

Will cause spirits to flee

And wreck the ragged poet’s dream

So sip the Sungyung carefully

When the sun peeks out

It’s turned to a mug of Maxwell House

Coffee before the day

I’ve gone miles astray

Like a jet with Ford Prefect

Working on my latest project

Writing from my waiting-room chair

Bought at the Cancer Society store

For 1.84

Life was easier to digest

When taken with words in jest

But now my craw is crammed with SPAM

And a trickle from the beverage can

Like ‘The Prisoner’ I am a man

Resigned

Sidelined

Yet feeling fine

Vinyl grooves on the move

Past a stylus, sharp

Orville Gibson

Guitar and harp

Who will discern the table’s turn?

Sounds spun, back to front

Flipped and played

Sides in relay

Coffee before my chores

Remembering the record stores

Churches of collector’s choices

Cheering fools with hoarse voices

Chain-smoking

High-hoping

Looking for that one rare platter

By ‘The Only Band That Matters’

An issue thought to be rejected

Somehow in print

I found a hint

In the back pages of Goldmine Magazine

Somehow I thought my quest for Punk reward

Would last a thousand years and more

But at 59 I’m merely a bore

An odd fellow, out

Telling tales of a title bout

With Ian Dury and Wreckless Eric, falling about

In the days when I drank Guinness Stout

There were no concerns 

Only bridges to burn

A flaming feather

Held up to the herd

Coffee clash with my cache

My script for a biopic

A concrete epic

Written in mud, with a stick

Of how a kid from Midwestern roots

Ended up in biker boots

Then ran up roughly on the rocks

A gamble play to beat the clock

Went face-first into the bricks

Dribbling blood and spit

‘It is what it is’

Through a Tardis flight

Deep in the night

A leap beyond reality

Smack dab, a jib and a jab

Got a stripper on my lap

Paid with heel-stomps and handclaps

I ran off the map

Right from the edge of 70’s glee

To a distant date in history

When my hip was shot

And both my knees

Content to vent my best

In a tome to tease, not protest

A hook for the reader

A reason to return

When time permits

To my season of bullshit

Drinking, drooling

Kid-schooling

Nobody fooling

“Hear what I say, this was the way, back in my day!”

No need to stay

Tip your hat

Move along

Gone it is, my favorite song

‘This Land Is Your Land’

By Woody G.

Thank you friend

For your company

Written on my iPhone SE