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Your Punishment in Hell
by Gary Leising
Someone will douse a cobra in gasoline,
light the sucker, and shove it headfirst
down your throat. It'll speed straight
through your esophagus, unfurl
its hood to fill your stomach
then begin to strike and strike and strike
and strike and strike: fangs pierce
your stomach, venom pours in,
the little burn of incipient ulcers
grows quick, paralysis sets in.
Your lungs stop before your brain,
before your hand, which lifts
to your mouth the plastic-lidded
paper cup holding the caramel
macchiato cappuccino with a double
shot of espresso and frothed soy milk
topped with two shakes of cinnamon
and no, NO (yes, you said no twice)
sugar that was made for you
slowly, while I, already running late,
waited behind you for a simple,
already-made black coffee.
You will lose all motion before
that drink reaches your mouth,
but you recover and the drink,
strangely, has vanished, and barrista
and cobra-douser-slash-lighter do it all again
and again. I know this because,
for my angry impatience,
I am behind you in line in hell
forever, the pot of black coffee
behind the counter steaming,
turning, I know, bitter.
from Fastened to a Dying Animal. © Pudding House Press, 2010. Reprinted with permission at the Writer's Almanac.
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For the black coffee drinking poetry crowd Maybe crowd is a misnomer
#1
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Posted 2010-October-26, 05:34
If you lose all hope, you can always find it again -- Richard Ford in The Sportswriter
#2
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Posted 2010-October-26, 08:59
Well said.
The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill temper. — Friedrich Nietzsche
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists — that is why they invented hell. — Bertrand Russell
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists — that is why they invented hell. — Bertrand Russell
#3
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- Joined: 2004-September-22
- Location:Northern Maryland
Posted 2010-October-26, 09:59
Give that man an AK-47 and we all need to watch out!
The part that breaks me up at Starbuks is that after someone orders the
"caramel
macchiato cappuccino with a double
shot of espresso and frothed soy milk
topped with two shakes of cinnamon
and no, NO (yes, you said no twice)
sugar"
then the person taking the order does not actually fill the order but rather passes the order on to someone else. I'm impressed that they can remember it all and even more impressed that they can repeat it with a straight face. Me, I bring a book to read while waiting to order my black coffee. I am only rarely aware of whether today's blend comes from Columbia or Kenya.
The part that breaks me up at Starbuks is that after someone orders the
"caramel
macchiato cappuccino with a double
shot of espresso and frothed soy milk
topped with two shakes of cinnamon
and no, NO (yes, you said no twice)
sugar"
then the person taking the order does not actually fill the order but rather passes the order on to someone else. I'm impressed that they can remember it all and even more impressed that they can repeat it with a straight face. Me, I bring a book to read while waiting to order my black coffee. I am only rarely aware of whether today's blend comes from Columbia or Kenya.
Ken
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