The Cacographer

Gold (Draft #2 - tell me which version you like more)

My biscotti
untouched in the twirling smoke
has remnants of sour coffee
gone cold and ash
delivered from a cigarette
three men away
speckled brown and grey
echoing the skyline.

And I
small mouthed and silent
despite the fortitude and tumult
of crowning daylight

I clutch at my soiled print
proclaiming 1/2 price cabbage
1/4 price melons, and Vincent Price
died of a gunshot wound
to the heart after he put
on a protective vest
and dared a friend
to shoot him.
Police in Orofino, Idaho,
said the vest was designed
to protect against grenade fragments
not bullets,
and despite trembling fingertips
I set down the cup,
without clatter, the coffee
brimmed and intact.

A man as black as I am old
jostled my steel table
where my ponderous palms rest,
cool in autumn
and he smiled
despite my quaking Panama Hat
and I watched him turn brown
coffee in cream.

My long coat a leaf
in the mud,
I feel heavy

Touching a cigarette
to my lips,
I close my eyes against the sun
and let the crescendo and fall
of the turgid city
drift me away.


OR

My biscotti
untouched in the twirling smoke
has remnants of sour coffee
gone cold and ash
delivered from a cigarette
three men away
speckled brown and grey
echoing the skyline.

And I
small mouthed and silent
despite the fortitude and tumult
of crowning daylight

I clutch at my soiled print
proclaiming 1/2 price cabbage
1/4 price melons, and Vincent Price
collapsed on the L-train,
where no one knew him,
and despite trembling fingertips
I set down the cup,
without clatter, the coffee
brimmed and intact.

A man as black as I am old
jostled my steel table
where my ponderous palms rest,
cool in autumn
and he smiled
despite my quaking Panama Hat
and I watched him turn brown
coffee in cream.

My long coat a leaf
in the mud,
I feel heavy

Touching a cigarette
to my lips,
I close my eyes against the sun
and let the crescendo and fall
of the turgid city
drift me away.

posted by OrangeDrink @ 2:09:00 AM