Tuesday 20 July 2010

Milk Poem, the sensible

Finding God in coffee cups
brewed by stovetop percolator
so that the burnt coffee edges of God fill the house
and if one were pregnant, one would heave at the stench, I see:

that God leaves a brown ring at the base of the mug,
the stained china, bone china,
the molten ash of the bones of the ox
or where oxen are short, the bones of brown cow Bess.
We pour Bess's milk into Bess's old bones,
and bugger her baby, pardon my French.

Bone china and jelly and marshmallows the pink of cherry blossom,
all these are brewed from the bones of cows.

Reading the tea leaves, when they're not made of tea,
but dried-out beans from the dark-roast jar,
and their smutch on the mug is a fine dark line,
I study the Lord and wonder when.

2 comments:

M L Jassy said...

It is possible to derive a gelatin-like substance from the seaweed agar, so hopefully Bess won't have to die for any more marshmellows.

A correlation between coffee and God is highly appropriate.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

This is true, about agar, though I doubt the message is percolating down to your average marshmallow provider, alas.

(I am wallowing deeper 'n' deeper in vegetarian discontent, you see.)

x