Earl Grey

[pre]

Earl Grey

He stands under signs
for organic,
fairly traded
coffee
and his
expression
stays the same
as he takes my order
and patiently
points out
The teas are listed over there

Café boy,
calm,
serene,
standing there
in black skinny jeans

Um, miss
lazy voice,
lulling
Tea’s ready

and I stumble through life
as I stumble through my order
at the local café

Well, that's a new subject. ^_^

Maybe you should add speech marks for the cafe boy's words?

awww crud. cafe boy's words are supposed to be italicized but it didn't do it when i copy/pasted. just imagine it =]

Na, you need to add the tags in when you post it up here. See?

Hmm.... I don't know how constructive I can be... I really enjoyed reading this!

It wasn't especially deep, but I actually don't mean that in a bad way at all. I like the simplicity of this poem: almost pure imagery, just a moment, a snapshot. Maybe I'm misinterpreting it and it has some deeper meaning, but I liked how it was just a moment from your life, escaping to a serene cafe for a cup of tea and to gaze at an attractive boy.

Yeah. It's very unique. Nice work!

I really love this. Short, sweet, simple and most of all, engaging - a bit like flash fiction turned poetic, or something by William Carlos Williams ["The Red Wheelbarrow" comes to mind].


Really wonderful work. ^_^

Ah, Dreamy likes CWC? I'm not too fond of it...

Though, this was good. I think I would urge you to use a slight bit more punctuation. Keep in mind though, it was only the last stanza that made it work for me. ^_~ My poetry [what I enjoy to read, I mean] has to have meaning, and make me think. This ends up folding back on it's self and you're left having to reread to see how the person went through getting their coffee, because that is how they go through life... and how does that line up?

I also like how the POV kind of floated around. You weren't sure that it was in first person until a while, and I liked that.

Keep it up. Just don't get to CWC! I personally can't stand the Red Wheelbarrow...

Suzanne has a point- the last stanza implies that the poem is deeper and makes you wonder if you missed something in the rest of the seemingly simple poem. However, I don't think everything has to necessarily have meaning, Sometimes it's refreshing to just appreciate something for it's simple beauty and not tie your brain into knots overanalyzing it! ^_^

Dear abbisnall,


Suzanne's suggestion isn't the solution: grammar is not going to save this.

If there were one interesting turn-of-phrase, one less-than-clichéd caricature of modern life a la coffee shops, one reason to care about the narrator--anything--then I could say something positive.

As it is, let's pray in the writer's animal kingdom this is the kind of thing that gets eaten by its mother before it has the chance to walk on its own.


Best,
Brad