Coffee percolates.
My day, brain, body start up,
as I percolate.

Coffee is proof that God’s loves us and wants us to be awake. (I think I will have to work this into it’s own haiku.)

This is adapted from the famous saying attributed to Ben Franklin that; “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

Though Franklin was really talking about wine but the Beer Lobby got a hold of the quote and changed it for their purposes. Soon, each T shirt with this on it will have to have an asterisk and some additional text explaining who Ben Franklin was and that he didn’t invent the $100 bill.

Franklin did write, in a 1779 letter to his friend Andre Morellet (translated from the French): “Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.” (from wikipedia)

For me, by Friday, after a week of up at 5:30AM, I am so groggy, sleepy, fatigued that I can’t lever myself out of bed without a crowbar, the wonderful sounds of the percolator as water heats up and rises through the center tube, shoots out the top, splatters against the lid, splashes out over the coffee and drips, drips, drips down creating coffee and the slow process begins of bringing all my systems back online.

My morning shower …
freshwater dripping, like diamonds
too much of the world

Standing in my morning shower, watching the water drain around my feet, I can’t but think of Paul Simon’s ‘Diamonds of the soles of her shoes.’

She’s a rich girl
She don’t try to hide it
Diamonds on the soles of her shoes

He’s a poor boy
Empty as a pocket
Empty as a pocket with nothing to lose

I read where the number of people worldwide without access to fresh water dropped drastically last year. What changed was that people who lived with 30 minutes of a freshwater source were no longer counted.

What I want to know is how much of the world can take a shower, wash their clothes or get a drink without ever having to wonder if fresh water, let alone HOT fresh water will be available.

I read recently where the City of Atlanta has a three day supply of water in case of catastrophic electrical failure.

And then there is Flint.

As a side note, Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’, may be the last ‘Album’ that I bought NEW before the CD era.

Last note, the too is correct and not a typo – get it?

Invisible Force?
Wake up aroma power!
Just smell the coffee!

May the force be with you.

Is the coffee theme getting worn out?

Forced?

Sunshine this morning!
Flooding through windows. My Soul …
claps its hands and sings!

Based on one of my favorite lines of poetry and just the words to describe the feeling of the sunshine pouring in this morning. With all due respect to my friends and family up north, weather in Georgia cannot compare with the snow. But, it seems it has been so long since we have seen the sun down here.

Somewhere, Jim Harrision I think, writes that Spring Time moves north, 5 minutes every day …

It was Harrison who has a great quote on the Yeats poem … if I could only find it.

Sailing to Byzantium

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATSI

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

W. B. Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium” from The Poems of W. B. Yeats: A New Edition, edited by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright 1933 by Macmillan Publishing Company, renewed © 1961 by Georgie Yeats. Reprinted with the permission of A. P. Watt, Ltd. on behalf of Michael Yeats.

My Song? Black Coffee …
Sarah Vaughn, the Divine One,
all I do, is pour …

Sarah Vaughn, the Divine One. So said Ella Fitzgerald and I am not prepared to argue. Here is a link to a digital recording of an old 78 record from 1949. For me, the hiss of the needle on the record just adds to the appeal.

Lyrics

I’m feeling mighty lonesome
Haven’t slept a wink
I walk the floor and watch the door
And in between I drink
Black coffee

Love’s a hand-me-down brew
I’ll never know a Sunday
In this weekday room

I’m talking to the shadows
One o’clock to four
And Lord, how slow the moments go
When all I do is pour
Black coffee

Since the blues caught my eye
I’m hanging out on Monday
My Sunday dream’s too dry

Now, a man is born to go a-loving
A woman’s born to weep and fret
And stay at home and tend her oven
And drown her past regrets
In coffee and cigarettes

I’m moody all the morning
Mourning all the night
And in between, it’s nicotine
And not much hard to fight
Coffee

Feeling low as the ground
It’s driving me crazy
This waiting for my baby
To maybe come around
Mmh, mmh, mmh

Songwriters: Francis Joseph Burke / Paul Francis Webster