"cafes" poems
I saw you in winter,
and thought of tree branches feathered by starlight in poorly lit neighborhoods. A hearth where the more honest parts of myself, I am bared fetal, warmed upon, welcomed.
I saw you in spring,
and thought of long drives in the countryside in the rain. Ice cream melting from our chins dancing petrichor upon our toes, kissing by the sea shore.
I saw you in summer,
and thought of sleepy boathouses, uncovering ancient childhood treasures in the woods. A secret lake somewhere, the sky's reflection in promise. Windy hilltops upon which to blame each other for the sunrise.
I saw you in autumn,
and thought of scarfs and cafes, city streets and sunsets where we watched each others breath escape. Apartment staircases where windchill hibernates, the world slowing down around us from your window.
The first time I saw You, I thought to myself, "I could live there."
Aug 20, 2015
Aug 20, 2015 at 5:24 PM UTC
big sweaters, ghibli, acrylic paint, cafes, knit blankets and unplanned afternoon naps on the couch, gardens, bananas, vanilla almond milk, soft yarn to crochet into ****** scarves, candles after midnight, the big trees with bulky roots, patio furniture, pianos in random buildings, the internet, manatees, the boundless colours of nail polish, peanut butter & honey, rubber boots, pens that write well, fresh new notebooks, skylights, american netflix, mothers that understand, tête à têtes, one glass of sweet white wine, awkward eye contact that turns into comfortable kissing, airplanes, fresh air, baseball caps, the female collective, the really good dark chocolate, flowers, pumpkin spice lattes and ***** chai lattes, candid laughter, yoga, oceans, high waisted shorts, striped t-shirts, docile cats, playful pups, french presses, integrity, sunscreen, meerkats, penguins, chameleons, autumn leaves, fall fashion, ruby woo mac lipstick, osho, dynamic meditation, compassion, siblings, scrambled eggs, smart phones, garageband, metronomes, hot glue guns, quinoa, ferry boats, soft hands, bicycles, real people, fat snowflakes in ample, graceful ********** backpacks that don't hurt your shoulders, hair conditioner, multi-vitamins, soft sand under bare feet, people that own up to lies, clarity, samsara, satori, samasati, visions, echinacea, lavender oil and frankincense, ambrosia apples and ripe avocados, authenticity, Morgan Freeman's voice, good kissers, ******* iced tea on a hot day, curtains, the smell of beeswax, art galleries, hand massages and foot massages, reiki, plums, mild thunderstorms, soccer ***** good surprises, when birds don't **** on your head.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 7:24 AM UTC
I come from New Orleans where the swingers hook up with the singers, and the boxes have a person inside who speak to you through a thick horizontal slot in the door. You come from Minnesota where the most aggressive sentence is “Hi, how are you” and you’ve attended church every Sunday of your life, even though you don’t really believe in god.
We came to the West to skate with the surfer junkies. But then the harbors got bombed and we moved out East to see the hipsters and the artists beggin on the streets. We went to the South with the racists and bigots were dying for a good show. We moved up North to escape from the 70s, and with the 80s on the rise we figured we’d best stay away.
The 70s were rockin’ with **** and LSD in parks and concerts, and on benches on the streets. The smoke in the air was everywhere, from the slums in Wisconsin to the cities of Dallas. Even the poor were lost in the haze.
When the 80s arrived with Rock ‘n’ Roll and techno beats from windowsills upstairs. The music was groovin’ and the ladies were fine. We saw billboards of our names in neon orange lights. The *** was replaced by coke, and the LSD with ****** singing and swinging with delight in our eyes.
When the AIDS broke out we were sick in our beds listening to Pink Floyd and Elton John, and still we were singing. The 70s got us high while the 80s made us die
We lived through wars in Vietnam, and Korea; we fought back the communists with red ink on our hands. We broke down the door into China and got them to arrive in the present and join the world. Although their chairman sits on a chair of lies he leads them with an angry fist in the air pumping “three cheers for Mao”. “Three cheers for Mao”.
When the Soviets launched themselves to the moon we responded with our money and flashed our shiny new machinery in their faces. We marked our territory and claimed triumphantly that “We’re the best”. And we launched our war nukes and pinned them into intimidation. Then the Cubans sought revenge for the death of the Pigs on their Bay. With rifles in hand we stormed the beach and unearthed Castro and his regime.
With our beds soaked in blood, and our dreams covered with fog, hand in hand we lay. We recalled the dances in the backs of old Cafes where the passwords were as simple as three quick knocks and two slow ones. We remembered the guns that pierced the heavenly chorus for the negros in the south. And we thought about the music of the 70s and the death in the 80s and I thought about you for a minute more.
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 4:29 PM UTC
I spend my summers in Amsterdam
Everyone rides bikes
The girls all wear short skirts
The wind blows and all the girls ride by with their ***** in the air
I sit outside the cafes and watch the bikes go by
May 14, 2016
May 14, 2016 at 9:25 AM UTC
Filaments fixed on your eyes all night
and the possibility of a chance, of an opportunity,
that I’ll be able to talk to you,
because the club lights are blue
stretched like animal hide across your own hide:
complexion clear cheeks still rouged
though tidal club glow is still blue.
It’s pathetic, worse than any diabetic
with their HumaPen Memoir insulin
length of pen, recording the time
and date
and precise amount of pain
they inject from the last 16 doses.
My pen is my keyboard and records
miserable times
and forgotten dates in cafes
and precise amounts of pain,
though this diabetic is a pathetic poet
and he knows it.
Aug 19, 2013
Aug 19, 2013 at 2:49 PM UTC
Bridge
Over river Seine.
Blue buildings silhouette
Cast behind. I could almost cross
Over and smell the cafes
If only it wasn’t
A hanging.
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 12:14 PM UTC
Love letters to every person who has ever seen the stars as someone's freckles:
1. You were afraid to love him. It was okay, he did not know much except for demanding what he wanted despite the word "no".
I want you knowing that you deserve better than half *** apologies and snowstorms for white blood cells.
2. She was your first girlfriend. Her hair reminded you of your mother's curtains in the living room. Burgundy.
She loved you but she had to go, I bet you wish you never hung that rope in your basement.
3. Everything was set on fire, even your lungs. You started finding ashes everywhere but in your shoes. Walk away
before she gives you a new meaning for saying grace.
4. By now you've had enough of religious boys. And Oh My God, how your hips felt like heaven.
This is all ******** and he always went to church hungover.
5. This time you've forgotten how to sleep without his breath in your ear. I think his name was Noah or something like that.
It was ironic how he didn't have two dogs, two cats and oh yes, that's right. He had two lovers.
6. You went crazy with him, he was so full of water. You thought you'd drown when he touched you, and you did.
7. You were so pale that I thought you were dying. This is a letter to myself to remind me to never fall in love with a boy who cares
more about putting his cigarettes out in public ashtrays than asking me how I take my coffee.
He was extra surprised to learn that I was vegan and only drank water when we sat in cafes.
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 8:52 PM UTC
There is a silence in the house
An empty voice
There is a lack of something
And I cannot find it
I wake up early
And get out of bed late.
I do little chores but
I never get anything done
I drive to coffee shops
And cafes
I search for places that have people
But still I am alone
And so I come home
There is a vacancy here
That I cannot explain
There is a void that grows
And every day it feels larger
And the silence gets louder
As if the space in which there is no one
Gets bigger day by day
The echo of it lengthens
And the sound of footfalls
And the creak of old wood stretches outwards
And at the end of it all
It feels like a stadium filled with no one
An arena of empty chairs
And all the howling, cheering life
That isn't there
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 2:10 AM UTC
Milk!
MILK!
THERE IS NO MILK!
well I'm not
getting out of my pyjamas,
so the cat will have to go
..........
One p.m, a week's ***** dishes in the sink
mind like a bog
.....
& the new radio
doesn't work
.........
MILK!
THERE IS NO MILK!
.....
& I want my coffee
but my purse
has had enough
of spending sprees
a POUND it says?
YOU WANNA SPEND
A QUID?
You *****
You *****
Forget all about that!
You spent everything
on coffee yesterday, remember?
hanging out in posh cafes
& all for what?
There is no milk!
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 9:36 AM UTC
the Himalayas rise
there is snow on the peaks
I watch it from my bed
I gaze and gaze at it
in the morning
as a little village girl goes by
sniffling with cold
I too am cold
it is chilly here in Tosh in May
but a young Israeli boy
took off his shirt
and stood on the fencepost of the guesthouse dancing
down was the deep green valley
all of us watched in admiration
the next day I went down to the waterfall
which from here is a beautiful whisper in the air
there are donkeys and a path
and pretty houses on the other side of the valley
and everywhere there are people smoking hash and relaxing
in the cafes and the guesthouses
it is almost like a pilgrimage smokers keep coming
and sit around smoking talking
I pull down my woollen cap my arms and back
feel the chill despite a thick sweater
despite a blanket and a four inch thick quilt
I roll my joints and smoke them alone
sometimes smoke them with others
I look at the hills and the valleys and the wooden houses
I look at the white peaks glowing in the sun
and talk about CCR and stained glass art with Michael from Norfolk
who’s going down the valley to another village for a party tonight
with his young Spanish friend
I talk about Bombay with Puneet and Manya from Kanpur
who’ve come here on a Bullet
Hash Heaven Manya says reading my mind as the joint passes on
to the four engineering interns from Delhi
and all the time I sip on ginger lemon honey
for my sore throat until on the last day it disappears
unlike the young Israeli girl’s pink laptop in a pink cover
found by the part time caretaker in the garden on a pink chair
she left behind last night because it was too dark
come again the guesthouse boys say to me as I pay them
what a scene I think how cool as I begin to leave the village
down the dung-clotted stone steps nodding to the smokers coming in.
Jun 7, 2017
Jun 7, 2017 at 11:13 PM UTC
The villages of Algiers
Well, suburbs
Really, but villages
Is what is said
In French
And heaven
Knows, despite one
Hundred thirty years of
Colonization
Brutalization
Deprivation
The many Algerians
Still
Love French. Those
Villages team with men
At night.
At night, the women
Wait
Indoors
Behind doors, away.
Waiting.
But at night the
Men take the streets.
At night the men crowd
Streets, cut in
Front of traffic, clog
Cafes, stream
Toward the mosque away
From the mosque fill stores
But mostly
Mostly they
Squat
Sit, or just
Hold up walls.
They lean.
Stare. Talk. They watch cars
As they jostle and jolt
Watch other men
Walking, watch
The silence
The noise. Watch
Stars, the
Dark
Still buildings
The passing cat, the rhythm
Of the wind,
Watch the gibbous moon and
It’s cycle
The fullness, the waxing and waning
They watch
They witness
The villages
The suburbs
The streets
They watch
The dead.
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 9:28 AM UTC
He was coming out hurriedly
While she was about to come in
They met at the glass door he and she
Accidentally
And both froze momentarily
And she startled and both stared
Unattered a second and eventually he
Said I'm sorry
He was taken in by her beauty
And so he struggled for his wallet
Gave his business card she looked she
Said oh really?
And one night when she was lonely
Remembered him she took out his card
A cellphone number she dialled suddenly
Accidentally
Since then they met occasionally
Not at her home and not at his office
At the park at cafes for she said she's
Always busy
Too occupied in a huge company to see
Unawares she's in a different division
Those whom he knew acted anxiously
So strangely
One day he asked will you marry me
Two fine kids later by merit moved his
Office next to the boss next to her he
Wants to be
Accidentally
Nov 19, 2017
Nov 19, 2017 at 12:41 PM UTC
Tilted heads stare into spaces.
Tilted heads around dinner tables.
Tilted heads walking down city streets.
Tilted heads as they walk on the beach.
Sitting side by side in street cafes.
Searching postings of weekend retreats.
Never bothered by voices expressed.
Self-absorbed and consumed but never suppressed.
Over-share meals, feelings, and pangs,
GPS tells us your when and your where.
Pictures in mirrors, duck lipped eyes wide.
Never a moment too private, declared!
Be well, be good, and please keep in touch.
Dec 31, 2014
Dec 31, 2014 at 11:09 AM UTC
I have a right to stand
I'm claiming it now.
Turangawaewae; 'a place to stand'
Is a deep empowerment from the land
Learnt through ancestral connection
Strengthened through ahi ka; 'keeping the fires burning'
Well, my ancestral stories ain't so impressive
There were few battles
Though my granddad worked for the air force in world war two
- As an accountant
We didn't encounter the gods or try to bring down the sun
Though when my Grandma arrived here she built up the soil
Soul of the Earth
For 70 years
As the city sprang up around her
And my mother aged 11 played follow the leader with a goat in the next door construction site
Where her house is now
My uncle found an old mans false teeth in a cup
Climbing through an abandoned house
My aunt visited James K Baxter's Jerusalem
She wasn't a fan of his poetry
But his wisdom spoke to her
My other aunts jumped through the neighbours trees
Who threatened to shoot them
My father followed my mother here
After her O.E with my sister in the oven
He ******* about John Key as much as anyone
And praises this land; it is home.
I stood on a windy cliff surrounded by pohutukawa and learnt the whisper of the sea
Roughing it on an island I tried determinedly to turn into a pukeko
I got my first cut, bruise, scrape from this land
My first breath, poem, touch of a violin, my first kiss was here
I know the rough patches, the fringe scene, where the best soil is
(It's at my grams house)
I know how to spot a drug house, which cafes will let us jam, where the open mics are 5 days of the week.
I know Kirikiriroa.
My fires have been burning
And I have a right to stand
I have learnt through my own evolution
Through Janet Frame's railroad country
Through a history
Cities growing and spreading
They weren't just here
As it has always seemed to me.
The countryside, what was here before?
Landscapes of forest and mountain
Familiar yet unknown to me.
When I go away I will know the difference
When I return I will know this land
The depth recognized through contrast
Defined by difference
As the sun and moon complement
Light and dark
Sorrow and joy
And,
As in yin and yang
I will know nothing is completely separate.
When I go away I will know
So fully
And I will return and say:
This is my place to stand
My turangawaewae
My Aotearoa
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 7:24 PM UTC
Sapphire drops of moonlight bounced off her umbrella and a cool, smoky mist escaped her crimson lips every once and so often.There she stood alone, on a loud, bright and miserable winters’ night. Pensively gazing over the glistening city streets before her.
Echoes of light gleamed from the windows of bars and cafes. Reflections of lover’s kisses melted in a cold November rain. Live music, laughter, conversation! O what a cheerful sight is the city at night, for all but one this evening.
Such striking acts of delight and love did nothing but depress her.
This loner longs to stand with the pack and live her life, instead of merely existing. She is the Steppenwolf of her time. Unwanted and alone. And much like the original Steppenwolf, she gives and cares for others very much like family. Alas, despite her best efforts, she could never fit in.
And perhaps, never will.
Nov 3, 2015
Nov 3, 2015 at 7:51 AM UTC
Little Teddy bear
pink and cuddly
lying on the kerb
with the lights
of the cafes
bouncing off you
Oh who’s missing you tonight
crying for her teddy bear?
maybe it’s little Amy asleep
who dropped you
while her mum carried her
into the car?
and maybe now little Amy
cries in her room:
'Where’s my teddy bear?'
And Mom says: 'Oh, sweetheart;
sleep, maybe it’s in the car…
we’ll get it in the morning.'
Little Teddy bear
pink and cuddly
lying on the kerb
with the lights
of the cafes
bouncing off you
Oh who’s missing you tonight
crying for her teddy bear?
maybe it’s little Lin
who came visiting from Shanghai
and exchanged her panda bear
for an Aussie cuddly toy
and she’s in the airport now
and cries: 'I lost my Aussie teddy bear'
and they can’t find one at the airport
and Dad says:
'Don’t worry;
we’ll get you a new one
when we get home…'
Little Teddy bear
pink and cuddly
lying on the kerb
with the lights
of the cafes
bouncing off you
Sep 27, 2010
Sep 27, 2010 at 9:59 AM UTC
This year, Spring has been stopped in its tracks.
Incessant rain has driven life underground,
so as a diversion, we're putting on a play.
It's not the real world, rather a representation of it.
The director is a control freak, so her role is perfect-
she can dictate without having to act.
Rehearsals take place in the Philharmonic Hall where the local
band used to practice. But the young have all gone to the city
looking for work, so the drum kit in the corner stays shrouded
in a black cloth and the unplayed snooker table supports our props.
On the stage, the backdrop is dominated by a church.
Its steeple points to God only knows where, aiming to instill pure thoughts.
Impossible to believe, its true aim is to inject fear into its people-
depending on your point of view.
The main player likes to be different. He turns up.
A vain attempt to give some structure to his life.
Late as usual, he's unshaven, and drowsy with wine.
No one can decide whether he's in character or himself.
Waiting for our cue, we stand on the narrow balcony,
flicking damp cigarettes into the river of rain below.
Eventually, we all change, put on our monstrous armour,
become the same curious creatures following the same script.
Except one....
who refuses to change, deciding in his own mind where he will play his part.
So he pulls on his proofed coat and heads out for the bar.
Outside, the power is off.
The streets are silent. Even the cafes have closed earlier than usual,
tables and chairs left out in the rain chained together, like prisoners
crying for release.
He slips along the cobbled streets, chanting his lines in time with his own footsteps:
'There are more dead people than living....the living are getting rarer.'
Even he's not sure if he's quite himself or still in character.
Briefly, the clouds part to reveal the cold light of the moon,
the only thing in which he has absolute faith to guide him on his way.
copyright © Caroline Grace 2013
Apr 26, 2013
Apr 26, 2013 at 1:07 PM UTC
I swallowed her and now
She lives inside me or I live
Through her, we are alive.
I’m her friend, her teenage
And fantasies, a sixty year old-
Hair and books she ever read
Long distance phone calls
And delight matched our
Love for Sujata, Mr And Mrs Iyer
And I sat on her couch on my
Despised vacations sketching
Letters to Milena, Quabbani
And we spoke of her brothers,
Generations and cafes I went.
I’m Delhi, Bangalore and
Endless conversations-
She never met and she’s my
Lost Malayalam, postcards and
A world so familiar, a childhood.
Hold your breath and relax
I’m going to stay and listen
Till you are out of stories and
I repeat, remind and you smile.
I’ll get you melodies and 60s
Harold Robbins and Nutan,
Your weirdness and aloofness.
You don’t grow old with me
I’ll live, I promise as your fonts
Visit places you walked and
Write to you all, deep- blue
Letters, deep- blue-letters.
You are my first high-heels
Strawberry fields and music system
I’ll recite you a love story
Picture him as our classic heroes
And giggle as girls sixteen and
Seventeen. You swallowed me
And I live through you, we’re alive.
Oct 15, 2015
Oct 15, 2015 at 12:25 PM UTC
This is to all those misfits
To the Romeo car-washing in Inglewood inlets
To the Hippy selling crystals on the Venice boardwalk
The Magician swallowing 8-balls at the Huntington Beach peer
The Rapper selling CDs in the Ranch Market parking lot
The **** tatting in a makeshift garage
The Poet slinging chapbooks at cafes and rec centers…
Not androids pontificating from lecterns
But grimy roots burrowing deep
Seismic rumblings toppling down
Insured ivory towers
Smashing pilled-paradigms beneath Docs
Hustling and slinging
In the forbidden outshacks of civilization
In tents, over barbed-wire, beside shards
Desperate and burning
For neither Truth or Beauty
But for LIFE
They do not tap wrists
No, they thump chests
To feel it beat
To feel it rage
For fugitive fugues
For new eternities
They embrace
********** romance
Graveyard necromance
The holy hunger for change
Defying commercials and charts
Shivering and howling on streets
Waging guerrilla war
Liberating cubicled-hearts
Dec 23, 2016
Dec 23, 2016 at 8:20 PM UTC
They say it's not safe to walk around here
You'll see women standing on street corners
Few drunk mortals and usual dealers
Still, it has a unique flair that's sincere.
Interesting folks spotted at cafes
Nights and on weekends, the scene is alive
Best galleries in town, boutiques survive
A form of art, nothing close to cliches.
The kind of place that gives someone a fright
A misconception for some who can't stand
The riveting darker side of their mind;
It's here geniuses like Baudelaire saw light.
There is something alluring about them
Those society scorn, the marginalized.
Judgmental souls persist; not so surprised
When below the surface waits a poem.
The people here have no care in the world.
Whether it's where they work or their hangout
Here, free spirits do not need to stand out
They think lightly and none shall be bothered.
They say it's not safe to walk around here
It's the truth, one must be a bit careful
But this area, genuinely soulful;
Rather here, red light district I revere.
Mar 9, 2012
Mar 9, 2012 at 4:53 PM UTC
A new calendar is a map of time
Showing you spaces in which you might live
And setting off the seasons and solemnities
The penances and feasts in order just
Beneath pictures of cafes’ in Water Street
Arctic-wind hiking trails in Ikkarumiklua
A pint of Quidi Vidi in The Gut
And Peter Pan’s statue in Bowring Park
Or maybe
Our Lady of Walsingham
Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe
Notre Dame de La Salette
Or some puppies and kittens
And may you find your heart’s desires this year
Jan 1, 2019
Jan 1, 2019 at 1:14 PM UTC
Palaces of ****** souls
have green neon text frames
standing sideways like arches;
divine arrows, they guide
the paternal flunks, the tar-soaked offspring,
the lonely and the business bunch.
Here in these palaces, all sin is a freeze, all
lust is a spin.
Fairy lights are often flagged in a net,
to catch mischievous mares flinging
themselves against the glass displays
of overpriced clothing shops.
One finds when wondering the perpetual
lines of restaurants and cafes, the vastness of them
having a motherly touch, for
these palaces, they stretch like the sky and
they spread like the shepherded
fire ants of Gaia herself
And when ones welcome is overbid
they need only to follow the
evenly laid out, sorrow yellow street lamps
and bite their cheeks and bare the frost
for soon the polluted lux will lead them to
an overnight joint, a limbo of sorts,
where they can breathe anew.
On those red leather sofas- fast food
or the district kind- when the night seems
to crawl on its final limbs,
they'll lay and slip into sleep.
Some say they never do wake, that they
wither with the moon and then
haunt the attics of the dance halls
where they swirled and laughed and lived
in a previous life.
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 2:34 PM UTC
Grandmothers buy flowers while their husbands
lick a cone
chocolate-vanilla swirl.
Homeless rockers keep their front
drinking beers around the statue
when all they really want
is an ice cold
strawberry treat.
Replace cafes with parlors
perfecting soft serve service, pouring
fountains of custard
to children of all ages and size.
Jun 11, 2012
Jun 11, 2012 at 6:53 PM UTC
It was the first gift he ever gave her,
buying it for five five francs in the Galeries
in pre-war Paris. It was stifling.
A starless drought made the nights stormy.
They stayed in the city for the summer.
The met in cafes. She was always early.
He was late. That evening he was later.
They wrapped the fan. He looked at his watch.
She looked down the Boulevard des Capucines.
She ordered more coffee. She stood up.
The streets were emptying. The heat was killing.
She thought the distance smelled of rain and lightning.
These are wild roses, appliqued on silk by hand,
darkly picked, stitched boldly, quickly.
The rest is tortoiseshell and has the reticent clear patience
of its element. It is
a worn-out, underwater bullion and it keeps,
even now, an inference of its violation.
The lace is overcast as if the weather
it opened for and offset had entered it.
The past is an empty cafe terrace.
An airless dusk before thunder. A man running.
And no way to know what happened then—
none at all—unless ,of course, you improvise:
The blackbird on this first sultry morning,
in summer, finding buds, worms, fruit,
feels the heat. Suddenly she puts out her wing—
the whole, full, flirtatious span of it.
2.5k