.

And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Thursday, June 6, 2019

Coffee?

The morning coffee. I'm not sure why I drink it. Maybe it's the ritual
of the cup, the spoon, the hot water, the milk, and the little heap of
brown grit, the way they come together to form a nail I can hang the
day on. It's something to do between being asleep and being awake.
Surely there's something better to do, though, than to drink a cup of
instant coffee. Such as meditate? About what? About having a cup of
coffee. A cup of coffee whose first drink is too hot and whose last drink
is too cool, but whose many in-between drinks are, like Baby Bear's por-
ridge, just right. Papa Bear looks disgruntled. He removes his spectacles
and swivels his eyes onto the cup that sits before Baby Bear, and then,
after a discrete cough, reaches over and picks it up. Baby Bear doesn't
understand this disruption of the morning routine. Papa Bear brings
the cup close to his face and peers at it intently. The cup shatters in his
paw, explodes actually, sending fragments and brown liquid all over the
room. In a way it's good that Mama Bear isn't there. Better that she rest
in her grave beyond the garden, unaware of what has happened to the
world.
-Ron Padgett, "The morning coffee"

10 comments:

Franco Aragosta said...

____ A D-DAY LAMENTATION ____

The thought arises once again:
That our brave men have died in vain
If in our now-degraded state
We see no more why they were great,––
And rattle on belligerently ––
Rejecting Thought that made us free ––
Embracing now with loud insistence ––
Malice threatening our existence ––
Tearing at each other's throats ––
While a leering Satan gloats ––
A sorry spectacle that wrenches
My heart thinking of the trenches
Filled with anguish, fear and dread
As bullets whizzed above each head,
And buried in the mud the mines
Lurked to shatter limbs and spines,
While in the distance cannons boomed
Inspiring fear that all were doomed.
Then to see a body shattered ––
One a buddy –– now parts scattered ––
In the mud with corpses strewn ––
Gruesome lit by sun or moon ––
More pitiful the wounded lie
In agony praying to die.
And all around the smell of blood
Vomit, –– urine, –– faces, –– crud
Defined the hellish atmosphere
But few if any shed a tear.
They knew they had a job to do ––
Protecting our land –– and you ––
From Tyranny, –– Brutality ––
Poverty –– and Slavery ––
Their Sacrifice –– Our Legacy –
Now relegated to the Fire ––
Ever the Enemy’s Desire ––
Because their precious Victory
Was neutralized by Sophistry
That promised Peace eternally
By ceding our Sovereignty
As a dumb ovine assembly
Always led too easily
To the abattoir where brutally
They end up slaughtered ruthlessly.
And so the Enemy has won ––
Not by bayonet, bomb, or gun ––
But by an ideology
Seductive, to those lazily
Imagining there’s an Easy Way
To stop becoming Satan’s Prey.
Thus lulled into stupor we
Now feel a false Security.
Forgetting that we owe a debt
To those brave men who fought to get
Continued Opportunity
To cherish their fine legacy.
Because the Left runs Education
We’ve lost our great Emancipation ––
Betrayed great men through dissipation
Made worse by bitter argumentation.



~ FreeThioke

Thersites said...

You've certainly captured the times, old friend! I only wish that your sentiments had wider distribution. :(

Franco Aragosta said...

Speaking of Coffee J.S. bach wrote a cantata praising the virtues of the dark, stimulatig beverage.

Listen to The Coffee Cantata at the following link:

https://youtu.be/7n5mNEme9V4

An odd theme for Bach, but a lively example of Baroque style all the same.

Thersites said...

I need a translation....

Franco Aragosta said...

THE COFFEE CANTATA (English translation)

Recitative

Narrator: Be quiet, do not chat, And listen to what happens now: Here comes Mr. Schlendrian with his daughter Liesgen, He grumbles like a grizzly bear; hear for yourselves, what she has done to him!


Aria

Narrator: With children, aren't there a hundred thousand aggravations. Whatever I, all the time and every day, tell my daughter Liesgen, lides on by with no effect.

Recitative

Schlendrian: You naughty child, you wild girl, ah! When will I achieve my goal: get rid of the coffee for my sake!

Liesgen: Father sir, but do not be so harsh! If I couldn't, three times a day, be allowed to drink my little cup of coffee, in my anguish I will turn into a shriveled-up roast goat.

Aria

Liesgen: Ah! How sweet coffee tastes, more delicious than a thousand kisses, milder than muscatel wine. Coffee, I have to have coffee, and, if someone wants to pamper me, ah, then bring me coffee as a gift!


Schlendrien: If you don't give up coffee for me, you won't go to any wedding parties, or even go out for walks.

Liesgen: Okay then! Only leave my coffee alone!

Schlendrian Now I've got the little monkey! I will buy you no whalebone dress of the latest fashion.

Liesgen: I can easily put up with that.

Schlendrian: You may not go to the window and watch anyone passing by!

Liesgen: This too; but be merciful and let my coffee stay!

Schlendrian: You'll also not receive from my hand a silver or gold ribbon for your bonnet!

Liesgen: Sure, sure! Just leave me my pleasure!

Schlendrian: You naughty Liesgen, you grant all of that to me?


Aria

Narrator: Girls of stubborn mind are not easily won over. But if the right spot is touched, Oh! Then one can happily get far.
7. Recitative

Schlendrian: Now do what your father says!

Liesgen: In everything but coffee.

Schlendrian: All right then! So you will have to content yourself with never having a husband.

Liesgen: Ah yes! Father, a husband!

Schlendrian: I swear that it will never happen.

Liesgen: Until I give up coffee? All right! Coffee, lie there now forever! Father sir, listen, I won't drink none.

Schlendrian: So finally you'll get one!


Aria

Liesgen: Even today, dear father, make it happen. Ah, a husband! Indeed, this will suit me well! If it would only happen soon, that at last, instead of coffee, before I even go to bed, I might gain a sturdy lover!

Recitative

Narrator Now old Schlendrian goes and seeks How he, for his daughter Liesgen, might soon acquire a husband; but Liesgen secretly spreads the word: no suitor comes in my house unless he has promised to me himself and has it also inserted into the marriage contract, that I shall be permitted to brew coffee whenever I want.

Chorus (Trio)

Cats do not give up mousing, girls remain coffee-sisters. The mother adores her coffee-habit, and grandma also drank it, so who can blame the daughters!

Thersites said...

lol! I must have the same one...
Ei! wie schmeckt der Coffee süße,
Ah! how sweet coffee tastes!
Lieblicher als tausend Küsse,
Lovelier than a thousand kisses,
Milder als Muskatenwein.
smoother than muscatel wine.
Coffee, Coffee muss ich haben,
Coffee, I must have coffee,
Und wenn jemand mich will laben,
and if anyone wants to give me a treat,
Ach, so schenkt mir Coffee ein!
ah!, just give me some coffee!

Franco Aragosta said...

Decidedly a lighthearted –– even frivolous –– work, nicht wahr?

German Protestant Christans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were not nearly as dour, dutiful, and grimly attentive to duty as some of us today might like imagine.

From the almost tongue-in-cheek tone of this eccentric secular text I have to conclude these folk were capable of fully appreciating irony while celebrating their "off times" with considerable merriment.

Bach, himself, fathered TWENTY children with two different wives , and was reportedly reprimanded and disciplined for fooling around with a servant maid in the crypt of one of the churches he served.

Where he found the time and energy to create a virtual FIVE-FOOT SHELF of immortal musical masterpieces in addition to being a thououghly human fellow I can't imagine, but then BACH could turn out a musical masterpiece more easily –– and in less time –– than I can write an email or a comment at a blog.

That he did what did in a mere SIXtY-FIVE years makes his colossal achievments all the more awe-inspiring.

Franco Aragosta said...

I'm searching for a better performance, since I feel the "Liesgen in this one ound too heavy for a sly, mischievous, disobedient daughter of marriagable age. If I find one, I may feature it at my place –– OR –– recommend that you do it.

Thersites said...

Fair enough! It was a very "perky" piece!

Franco Aragosta said...

Indeed it is! I'm glad you could hear that.