A Notebook – Since 2007
Sketches from the edges of notebooks, nine images under a thematic title.
This week’s theme, cafes, is taken from Hemingway’s short story titled “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” in which two waiters, one younger and complaining, the other older and empathetic, wait to go home while a lone customer, an old man, lingers on, drinking.
Click anywhere in the gallery for scroll and captions.
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
din din the din again awakens within opossum’s impossible
sleep who who who off course assume he’s just fakin’ it
come rumbling down Mariposa Hill on steel skates nailed
to two-by-four a narrow but elephantine wobbling thing
a train carrying loads of images (more than Instagram) of pics
not taken (bench flowers, wood windows, alleyway signs)
books browsed but not bought (Merton and Bukowski,
perfect bookends) clickety clack clickety clack the slides fall
into the track and story lights illuminate the cars one night
after another a passenger train book full of water filled pages
the dappled light brushed gravel path below the tall umbrella
flowering rhododendron grove somewhere the sounds
of rumbling water tousled over rough rocks submerged tales
rail cars dome car windows at night simply reflect your own story
when what you want is to read the stars their ingredients in a wok
galaxy spinning with caramelized onions
peppers spinning whiffle balls the train now crossing and switch
backs aside the can’t-make-its-mind-up river down river tracks
and the railroad tracks a fretboard of rail strings wound tight
miles uptrack put your ear to the rail you can hear chords
clickety clack clickety clack don’t look back don’t look back
train train coming down the track arpeggios
but you “forgot to remember to forget” and the train
brings it all back home in the kitchen with old tooth
making french press coffee in a 10 gallon drum
walking in circles circle of fourths and slide shows
just to pass the time walking down the line offshore
in the distance the library of parisian bold coffee cafe
Mornings, like me, enjoyed
up with a cup of coffee,
the first sip a prayer,
an offering, for Patty
and the kids before work,
primed the pump,
but I don’t think he ever
worked on his bio,
and I’m sure he did not
know a pronoun
from a down dulcet.
All day long he stayed
disappeared in the galvanized
wooden shells,
from ground breaking
to the pipes out the roof,
returned with the turning
of the tide and said,
“Get Dad a beer,
will ya Joe,” each
from which I took a sip
until one day I took
too much out of us
and things were never
the same again
but in the mornings
before work,
quiet over a cup of coffee,
maybe I was up early
to go surfing or ride
my bike to school times
my car was broke down
usually a Bug in the shop
at Jim & Jack’s,
two Iranian brothers
down on the corner of Grand
and Sepulveda,
but that’s another story.
Dad was no good with cars,
couldn’t hear the engines,
always “feels like it ain’t
gettin’ no gas,” he’d say.
That’s one way it was just
outside LA city in the industrial
beach town on the edge between
the cool water and the heat
some mornings sunup
with a cup of coffee
and few words, maybe
enough for a haiku:
damp carob odor
as three trees drop chocolate
pods crushed on the walk.
To writ in stone did
those two crows
alone appear each
morn to renew
our sacred vows.
Fell from the commute
of the daily murderous
drive we awake with
black oily coffee
the dew steaming
after the frost faced
nest broken open
hatching of bugs
flies about they
can’t be counted.
Good mates in
the end make
good poems
where hide
birds in trees.
What and where
thru displacement
here during the moon
of words dressed
in black feathers
this crow types
last night’s notes
its mate never far
emits the occasional
caw clawed to signify
I am here you there
in and out of our
respective shifting
stances first you
then me to gather.
Starbucks, have you any coffee for me,
can’t you see I am very sleepy,
won’t you tell me where a barista might be,
is there a cappuccino and a table,
an umbrella, and a seat?
Starbucks, can I sit outside your door,
on the sidewalk with a napkin and pen,
writing my poem that no one will read,
doodling my time away
to an ambiguous ending.
And when the barista comes out,
asking me if I’d like some frothy whipped cream,
wonderful cream like the fall of moonlight,
the garden lanterns are lit,
while a gypsy jazz trio plays
dans les nuages.
Starbucks, I don’t know if you have what I need,
a lonely table under a carob tree,
where I’ll sit and sip a cold coffee,
my heart squeezed through a napkin ring,
wishing for skylark wings to fly away and sing.
(“Skylark” is a 1942 jazz standard song, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, music by Hoagy Carmichael.)
Every day now followed a similar pattern, beginning with a walk for a cup of coffee I would bring back to our motel room for Sylvie, who slept on, from a nearby cafe or coffee shop, where I might sit drinking my first cup at the counter or a small outdoor table, my little pocket notebook for company, giving every man Jack the impression I was productively occupied, not that any Jack would care, but some mornings I had to settle for the coffee brewed in the motel lobby, or, last resort, made from a rickety electric drip coffee maker in the motel room, using the premeasured packets of coffee and water from the bathroom sink, the coffee poured from the carafe into plastic or foam cups, the foil wrapped mints left by the housekeeper intended it was my guess to smooth the bitter oily watery edge of a coffee made with dirty equipment, water heated only lukewarm, with beans ground to dust. But when I got back to the room with Sylvie’s coffee from abroad, she might still be sleeping, or the television would be on, and she would catch me up on the local news, weather, and road conditions. Check out time was usually 11, though most motel guests were out and back on the road by then, as we often were, too, the noise of a neighbor’s flushing toilet, pipe gurgling shower, slamming doors, the awakening road rush of 18 wheelers, motorcycles, family vans loading up, delivery trucks coming and going, or a squealing housekeeping cart preventing further sleep in any case.
“Morning Motel Coffee” is episode 71 of Inventories, a Novel in Progress in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads.
Xavier Roman Catholic Church was within walking distance from Hotel Julian. Hearing they hosted bingo every Monday night, I walked over to play a few cards. About 20 players sat at tables in the church hall, Father Juan calling the numbers from a podium on a stage. I bought half a dozen cards at 50 cents each at a table set up at the entrance, took a paper cup of coffee, and found a seat at a table where sat a couple of ancient nuns wearing simple blue scarves, rosary necklaces, short black smocks, and Jack Purcell canvas shoes, white with the navy blue stripe on the toes. The night was hot out but the hall was cooled by three electric fans dropping from the ceiling. At one table was a family of seven: father, mother, grandmother, and four children aged about 6 to 12, three girls and a boy. They were all attentively playing multiple cards but occasionally one of the kids pointed to another’s card where a call otherwise might have been missed. A new game began, and I paid attention to my own card, intending to play but one card per game, in no hurry. I would drop my winnings, if any, into the donation box on my way out. The room was quiet, Father Juan calling the numbers in a sonorous, serious voice. The night passed on peacefully. If one of the kids shouted Bingo! a polite applause ensued, and the nuns smiled their approval. I sipped my coffee, unused to late evening caffeine, and after a couple of cups began to feel more alert to the musty smell of the hall, the noises – shuffling of cards, shoes, chairs scraping as someone got up for a trip to the refreshment table or restroom – and in the quiet between calls I could hear the soft whir of the big fans slowly turning above.
“Bingo at Xavier” is episode 34 of Inventories
a Novel in Progress in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads.
(Click link for continuous, one page view of all episodes.)
Note: With episode 30, the title of the novel was changed
from the original working title of “Ball Lightning” to Inventories.
Russell Bennetts, editor extraordinaire (Berfrois, Queen Mob’s Tea House), interviews the Prince of the Toads for his popular series “Poets Online Talking About Coffee.” Head on over for a cup and check it out.
Below: “The Dance Lesson,” 32 x 64, oil paint and oil pastel over acrylic:
The Coming of the Toads 