coffee men

conversations
backdated political aphorisms
spoken as words
known as memories
and huddled outdoors
in banned smoking sessions
whose newspaper obituaries
read in silence
give meaning
and conviction to the dysfunctional sacrafice
of sons and daughters

the coffee men
gray old and irrelevant
warmed in the pressed crotch of ironed underwear
from sitting too long on padded transient cushions
starched starbuck deniziens
sitting in favorite seats
speaking familiar phrases
good mornings and false hello's

men with time
of bowel irregularity
and frequent unrination
of routine morning rituals
and obssesive cleanliness
men whose wives
want them out of the house
every day even if only to do
nothing

conducting the pretense of business
in donut house offices
setting tentative appointments
making empty lunch dates
with high-minded insincerity
these tired old men
whose lives are made up
of telling old and worn stories
in vain repititions

one day will I be such a man
I can only hope
to find this grace of expiration
every hour of
every morning
without cream or sugar
the mystery of the commonplace
in the blackness
of coffee