Coffee Hounds

My ode to the other brew and its aftereffects.

Jolted, a caffeine kick
that shatters the cranium
of your innocence,
of your frailty.

You are not that anymore,
four years old on a swing set
the year before you enter
that indoctrination camp
called kindergarten.

You’re pure, unspoiled,
immaculate before the
eyes of God.

Then, be it from
the pressure of peers
or simple curiosity,
you become knoephla soup
exposed to the air for
fifteen hours and forty-five minutes
straight, looking worse than
Paris Hilton after an
eight-ball and a night
of dirty sex.

You are random, disoriented,
subject to the whims of the
craziness that holds you hostage.

Deprived of sleep and
deprived of energy, you
become a member of
Dave Attell’s target demographic.

All because you are infatuated
with that liquid Turkish delight,
pitch like a black hole but
tasty like a filet Mignon.

You are addicted, and so welcome to
this nation of coffee hounds.

Reviews

[Chris Taylor]

Yes sir, I am a hound as well. Just reading this made me go out and grab a large dark roast at Caribou Coffee. Nice Atell reference. I was not expecting that. Good poem with a double meaning.

[ButterflyWonderland]

A great write. I love coffee.

[Dream Weaver]

A wonderfully sarky brew served
with immense brilliance…I’ll take
mine black…

[Rene Velez]

that was cool, I love my coffee, LOL,

"You are not that anymore,
four years old on a swing set
the year before you enter
that indoctrination camp
called kindergarten."

that's deep right there, innocence is a rare commodity and doesn't last very long in this day and age, proper write my friend

[Zoe Jay]

I like the sharp wry wittiness of this piece. It is not aways clear why certain drugs are socially acceptable and others are not. This poem has the random, crazy, unfocused energy of that over-amped state that many of us exist in without even realizing it. Very evocative. Lovely use of sounds, rhythm, punctuation, to give it that jagged spiky feel. I also like the way you contrast childhood innocence with the later sullying of both the flesh and the mind, and the way you use the sullying of the flesh to reflect the sullying of the mind, the use of chemicals and herbs to achieve creativity, productiveness, energy, open-ness, whatever - all things which we are naturally given as children. A really cutting and insightful use of metaphor which works on both levels. I kind of like the light-and-dark and moral symmetry of the poem. "Indoctrination camp called kindergarten" and "Paris Hilton after an 8-ball and a night of dirty sex" are both modern and highly effective descriptions which are insightful and accurate in the distastefulness. Like it! :-)

[realmwriter]

Teh, Coffee Hound I Am My friend cause time and time again I think Dave attele is talking about me and I want nothing better than to go throughthte screen and tell him to knock it off. Very well written piece and I love the discriptors. I am jittery even now!