Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops

The Coffee Shop Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops from June to August 2016By Don GerzHow Poetry WorksA poem has special ways of being and working that differ from other forms of communication. A poem aims at TRUTH, not facts (although a fact may be used, usually to get the poem going). A poem aims at SPIRIT, not details...although it might use a detail from where to begin. A poem must be read as a WHOLE with a purpose that exceeds the worth of its component parts. A poem is greater than the sum of its words, phrases, sentences, and stanzas. It is not merely a collection of isolated words. The essence of the poem is its overall message and atmosphere, not its details. This is true of all poems.Poems have their own purposes and are not undilutedly biographical or even compositely autobiographical literary sketches.Copyright © by Don Gerz: 2016 The Coffee Shop 2 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 However, the poet is permitted to catch a bit of actual dialogue or a paraphrase of a piece of real dialogue, but that does not make the poem biography or even autobiography.Not even the poet has complete control over how the poem takes shape. A good poem almost writes itself, and the poet has to get out of the way or yield to the dictates of the poem. Of course, the genres of biography and autobiography have to adhere to fact.Consequently, readers focusing on biographical or even autobiographical elements in the poem will not significantly aid in experiencing the poem as a universe in and of itself. In fact, such a focus inevitably impedes understanding and appreciation.Poetry is a creation of a new existential and emotional experience--a whole new world-- and all the elements of a poem must be considered in light of all the other elements within it so the reader may become immersed in that new world of being and feeling.In other words, biography is biography, autobiography is autobiography, and poetry is poetry. Each genre must be read accordingly.June 4, 2016Pieces of EdenA crossword here, a Sudoku there snatches of conversation across the room...Life is snapped together like a puzzle made from the pieces of other puzzles.We have long ago abandoned reconstructing the original image.Instead, we fashion new images, approximations of Eden closed to the Public thousands of years ago.While perfect, the image of what was meant to be The Coffee Shop 3 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 is inferior to the pastiche of what is, missing pieces and all...Snatches of conversations, wordplay leading to business deals, marriage proposals births, deaths, dissertations, and more entice our Edenic impulse like a puzzle fated to incompleteness... and therefore mortally unfinished.If we ever found all the pieces of Eden, we would cease to strive toward it and stop trying to live it.For it is not in us to be content with the pieces of a puzzle that is already complete in another Land that we can see but not touch... now.June 7, 2016Coming and GoingFlying over a shopping center parking lot, a mockingbird rests on a light pole, giving no thought of where and why it comes and goes. The Coffee Shop 4 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016Gazing in astonishment out of windows, we sip coffee and wonder what it must be like to come and go like a bird, like a bird, like a bird.June 9, 2016Alone TogetherWith an I-Phone in one hand and a Samsung in the other, he looks up from yesterday’s USA Today because a real human being is talking, apparently to him.He places an index finger on a word of a story about Muhammad Ali’s death and looks up from his paper to see who’s talking to him.Oh, it’s his girlfriend. Flesh and blood, with all the inconveniences of blood and flesh, The Coffee Shop 5 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 she has only one hand-held device and apparently thinks he might like to know she loves him.After all, he is her boyfriend, and she is his girlfriend.He smiles and returns to the story of a fighter who lived without hand-held devices... a man who did things others still read about.What a strange land where the living are dead, and the dead immortal.June 10, 2016The Living DaylightsWhat a strange land where the living are dead, and the dead immortal...Reminders of life well-lived and deaths well-died...Where the living dead live empty lives of quiet desperation...And where true life is measured by the living daylights... The Coffee Shop 6 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016Where the bloodless die on vines, and a thousand cowards excuse themselves from standing On formalities forgotten like dancing cards at summer cotillions and debutante parties in country clubs...And why not throw in mint juleps, fraternities, sororities, and life full of life as it was once known,When nothing was more important than coming out alive?______June 12, 2016The Thing Is (With a Nod to Friedrich Nietzsche)Things in and of themselves are a problem for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that, while things may seem to exist, it is their characteristics that truly exist, not things in and of themselves.But you might exclaim, “How can things not exist?”A thing exists only to the extent that we perceive it in space and time, in type and kind.But you might observe, “Space and time, type and kind, are things in and of themselves.” The Coffee Shop 7 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 The way we experience space and time, type and kind, is through their characteristics, not in and of themselves.And you might observe, “Then these words do not exist, just their characteristics.”Correct.Then you might say, “Where does this leave us?”Characteristics leave us wherever we want them to leave us.And you might say, "I want us to be left in love.”June 15, 2016We’re Not So Bad “Whom do you call bad? He who makes others feel ashamed.” “What is the most humane thing? To spare others shame.” “When is freedom attained? When we no longer feel ashamed.”- Friedrich NietzscheWho among us has not wasted sacred time on shame?Who among us has not allowed him or herself to be sentenced to the hell of shame for trying and failing... or, for that matter, for succeeding?Who among us have not separated The Coffee Shop 8 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 ourselves from the safe herd to chance the fortunes of individual achievement?Who among us have not had the shame of others projected onto our lives in the making?When we stop wasting our time on shame... we’re not so bad.When we spare others shame... we’re not so bad.And, when we refuse the shame and fear of others... we’re not so bad.June 16, 2016Crazy Horse (1840-1877) His name meant, “His Horse Is Crazy,” which in battle must have indeed appeared to be so because his horse ran here and there, everywhere except where you could shoot it. It ran right at you; it ran diagonally; it ran away from you; and it inexplicably even ran parallel to the line of the battle, which, like all battles, was in continuous flux. It follows that, if you couldn’t shoot Crazy Horse’s horse, you couldn’t shoot Crazy Horse himself. Once, during a battle with the Shoshones, when he and his brother were in dire straights, Crazy Horse yelled, “Take care of yourself, and I will do the fancy stunt.” He did, and both of them not only lived, but Crazy Horse took a scalp, and both brothers captured two horses and then galloped to the safety of the Black Hills, the home of the Oglala Sioux. The Black Hills (“The Heart of All That Is”) was the home of the Oglala Sioux like Red Cloud, Short Buffalo, Black Elk, Little Big Man, Touch the Clouds (who was seven feet tall), Spotted Tail (a Brule Sioux), He Dog, American Horse, and Sitting Bull, who was a Hunkpapa Sioux, not Oglala like Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse fought with Sitting Bull at Little Big Horn and, of course, won. He also fought with Red Cloud at The Fetterman Fight, known as Red Cloud’s War. That was a great victory for the Sioux as well. The Coffee Shop 9 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016Crazy Horse was never defeated, although he had to surrender to the U.S. Army because apparently it was going to take the entire U.S. Army to kill Crazy Horse. The “fancy stunt” would work on a few hundred Indians and maybe a thousand army cavalry, but Crazy Horse wasn’t crazy enough to think it would work on an entire army. Even his horse wasn’t crazy enough to think that. Crazy Horse died in the custody of the U.S. Army in his late thirties, bayoneted by a guard who thought he was trying to escape. So foreign was captivity to him, Crazy Horse did not even realize his movements were limited during custody. He did not know the meaning of limits. For him, The Black Hills (“The Heart of All That Is”), the universe itself, was without limits and certainly without borders. He simply walked out of the building he was in to get a bit of fresh air. It never occurred to him that he was no longer free. Later that night, he died a free man. They never got around to putting him in jail. He died on the floor, declining an army cot. Crazy Horse was never wounded in battle. No photograph or drawing exists of him. He would not allow his photograph to be taken or even a drawing of him to be made. Yet we know all we need to know of the Oglala Sioux warrior named Crazy Horse, for his spirit is in us as human beings. When we have the spirit of Crazy Horse, we know him better than any history book or documentary can tell us, for his spirit is great and beyond all limits.June 17, 2016Looking UpI’m not sure when it happened.Was it when the little girl looked up at her mother with admiration, trust, and well-being?Was it when the man with a positive attitude asked the clerk how she was doing... and meant it?It could have been when the lady with a bad hip smiled at me as though she was not in pain... The Coffee Shop 10 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 which she had to be.Perhaps it was when I saw a man crippled with Parkinson’s still working in a grocery store, and doing his job well.It could very well have been when the little boy walked in front of his mother, looking back every now and then to make sure he was going in the right direction.I think it was when I wrote this.Things are looking up.June 24, 2016The Russian HitchhikerYesterday I was flagged down by a beaming, overweight young Russian named Igor who vigorously, no, emphatically (almost violently) insisted I drive him to a restaurant about a mile away. I think it was a restaurant he was wanting to go to; after all, he spoke no English, and I speak no Russian.Seconds before our encounter, I had been turning around in a parking lot because I had missed my turn, and he had been churning down the sidewalk in front of the parking lot. He had a gigantic grin on his huge sunburned face, a face wider than the sidewalk he was striding down at a surprising clip.I thought he had been wildly waving to me to proceed as I waited for him to pass so I could make a right-hand turn out of the parking lot. He was beaming, almost as though he knew me. He might as well have, because he sure had my number.Turned out he was looking for a ride.It seemed life or death...maybe my death, so who was I to argue? He spent the whole time while I was driving yelling in my right ear, "Da, da, da, da!" and banging his fist on my dashboard to punctuate each “da!” The Coffee Shop 11 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016When I got him to where he wanted to go (it was a restaurant), he bolted out of my car, stuck his big beaming Russian face in my window and yelled one final and triumphant "DA!"I cannot determine the meaning of my uncanny encounter with Igor.And I cannot explain why I felt invigorated by my startling meeting with this young Russian hitchhiker.Perhaps I was experiencing complete immersion in the vat of pure BEING...almost as if I were engendering what would happen for the rest of my life, improvising as I went to where I knew not, both physically and existentially.The experience felt creative, living from second-to-second with some form of grace.As Jack Parr used to say, “I kid you not.”And, as Igor would say, “Da!”June 24, 2016Meeting charging electric tubes, transfusing transparent red and white blood cells, immersing in vats of undiluted being, engendering, making what happens happen, improvising, climbing into The Coffee Shop 12 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 the unknown where no one can imagine what it means to meet you, creating possibilities, known and unknown, living from instant to instant graceJune 26, 2016Staying AliveIt’s harder than it looks, staying alive, as the Bee Gees put it.A dragonfly slides through the air on its way to where its whim takes it.Staying alive.Two women hug. They haven’t seen each other for at least a week.Staying alive.A man orders a coffee with a smile, and he is given his coffee... with a smile.Staying alive. The Coffee Shop 13 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016A woman re-parks her car so her front bumper will not intrude into her neighbor’s space.Staying alive.A man snaps his fingers to a song about a woman as high as Cleopatra.Staying alive.A woman with a busted hip clunks into the space where the dragonfly was.Staying alive, staying alive.June 28, 2016 Ignoble SavagesThe Lakota hunter, a noble “savage,” notches a single arrow, and shoots it straight through the sacred buffalo’s holy heart.He skins the huge animal, salts and packs the meat, loads it and all its parts on his horses and brings it back to the village for all to be nourished.Not a single part of the sacred animal goes unused.Old men and women, young children, and the sick survive because of this noble “savage.” The Coffee Shop 14 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 ------Later in the week “civilized” hunters in elegant train cars with red velvet benches and chairs. shoot and kill hundreds of buffalo with their repeating rifles and unlimited bulletsThey skin each for its hide and leave the carcasses to rot in the sun and feed the flies.Ignoble savages.June 28, 2016 Reality and the Written Word (Or, Why I Write)In the piece below, please note I am emphasizing written language over and against spoken language, which I will consider at another time. - Don GerzWhen you observe the world, you will notice not only separate places, things, events, and sentient and non-sentient beings. In addition, you will observe fragmented and extemporized “plays,” unified and linked “narrations” or groups of scenes that follow a specific sequence unique to your sensibilities. Each play differs from person-to-person, but each follows a specific sequence of narrations or scenes within the plays and within the scenes of the plays themselves as perceived by each thoughtful person. No two plays are the same.In fact, life is a series of informal plays loosely linked to each other. Not all will notice this linkage, but many do...especially those who dabble in the written word.These uniquely perceived plays make up the constituent parts of what we call reality or life. Reality is, by its nature, composite, multi-leveled, and perceived and created by individuals with unique perspectives, perceptions, interests, and previous experience of acts and the symbols of those acts and thoughts, which, for lack of a better word, I refer to as language...especially written language.If you write about your observations of the world and, of course, yourself, you will convey the world (and yourself as a part of the world) according to your individual habits The Coffee Shop 15 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 of organizing, evaluating, and philosophizing about the world and you. Your words will be specific to you and to your unique perceptions, moods, previous experience, language, and ability to think and write the words, phrases, sentences, and longer written expressions of the scenes and narrations you perceive and then share with your readers.By its nature, written language is more thoughtful, stable, cogent, sequential, comprehensive, fixed, artistic, philosophical, intentional, symbolic, and suitable for thought and study than is the spoken word. The spoken word is the fluid hummingbird to the written word’s fixed flower. Again, please note that this piece has been written, not to denigrate the spoken word over the written word, but rather to contrast one with the other.While the spoken word has its own characteristics that are lacking in the realm of the written word, the written word is ideally suited to the observation, expression, perception, experience, creation, and philosophizing of those who convey and, indeed, actually create the scenes of the plays of composite reality...past, present, and future.June 30, 2016 Lost?I remember driving and driving for miles, not knowing where I was. The more I drove, the more lost I became.After awhile, I became so lost it became liberating.I saw things I had never seen before, places I had never been to before, people I had never met before, sounds I had never heard... before I became lost.I continued driving and driving to get more and more lost. I succeeded beyond my wildest desires.I missed all my appointments in my world, all my chances for my advancement in my corner of my old world, all opportunities in my former world... The Coffee Shop 16 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 my world lost beyond my wildest desires.I realized I had new desires, new places to go, new people to make appointments with, new opportunities to make my mark... a new world that one day I would lose as well.How liberating to lose the places that define you so you might define the new places you find.No matter how lost we become, we are never really lost as long as we have ourselves... and our wild desires.July 2, 2016LinesStep right up, take a number, and wait your turn in line. The English call it “cueing up.” Most call it waiting.If you’re a good looking woman, you’ll hear plenty of lame lines and a few good ones, especially in bars.If you’re at a baseball game, you will often see a ball hit on a frozen-rope line into the outfield, maybe over the fence for a home run.When you’ve had it with someone who has been taking advantage of you, you’ll draw a line in the sand... if you value your worth.If you look in the mirror, The Coffee Shop 17 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 and life has taken its toll on you, you’ll see many lines on your face. In fact, you’ll see lines all over your body.If you fly the shortest distance between two points, you’ll be flying in a straight line... allowing for the wind, of course.Finally, you’ll be walking the line if you grow up to do the right thing more often than not... to be someone others can look up to, someone whom others can count on.And that’s no line.July 10, 2016ContingenciesIf I could get my blood pressure down, I’d be a lot happier... so would my doctor.If my neighbor would turn down his stereo. I’d be positively euphoric.If my taxes were not so high, I could retire in ten years.If my hairline would stop receding, that would be fine with me.If I would win the lottery, I’d have it made.If my candidate were elected President, this country would have The Coffee Shop 18 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 a fighting chance.If I could find the very best motor oil, my car would last for at least six hundred thousand miles.If I could land that job, I’d finally be satisfied.If I could find the right person, I’d be happy.If...if...if...July 11, 2016The KidA kid looks up as his mom orders a coffee for her and a pastry for him.He must be 6 or 7.But, whatever his age, the kid is right here and right now by his mom.Kids like him are years away from drinks like coffee, but that does not matter because his mom is drinking and tasting for him, experiencing the world for him...a world he will drink and eat of fully for himself soon enough.While his mom sips her coffee, the kid munches on his pastry...a roll with vanilla and chocolate frosting...a black and white confection showing his mom’s affection for him. The Coffee Shop 19 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 What will the kid remember about this moment when he’s 8, 12, 19, 34, 53, 62, 71, or older...long after he has tasted coffee and other drinks adults drink?You can never figure out what a kid will remember.Sometimes it may be the memory of triumphantly telling a neighbor you are 7, or pushing someone on a swing when you are 8, or jumping off a milk truck at 9, or crashing your bike at 10 and waking up in an ambulance with a concussion.But right here and now, the kid and his mom are one.Memories take care of themselves.July 12, 2016Incoherently YoursDear ______, (Fill in the blank.)I wish I could explain it...gather all of history’s people, places, and times...explain them all to myself and then convey the whole thing to you...make a gift of all that was, is, and will be and then wrap it all up with white glossy paper and red ribbon and then place it under this year’s Christmas tree for you.But I can’t. It would just be gibberish, words torn from each other and scattered by the wind over millions of miles and years.I wish I could account for myself, explain why I say and do the things I say and do...why I think the way I do...why I write what and the way I do...what I am thinking about just before falling asleep...I wish I could lay it all on the table with clearly articulated misgivings, convictions, doubts, assurances, failings, and successes...all for you.But it’s impossible. Although everything is present in a never-ending now, it’s all tangled up like slippery spaghetti in butter on a hot dish. The Coffee Shop 20 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 I wish I could heal you, heal every man, woman, and child. I wish I could heal myself. I wish I could restore the lives of all humans and every species, clean up every body of water, purify the air, and restore the Earth to a pristine state.But, I can’t.As I fall asleep tonight and every night, you and all these matters will be on my mind, and I will send best wishes to you and to the four corners of the universe.That I can do for you, for me, for all.Incoherently yours,______(Fill in the blank.)July 14, 2016Faith and BeliefThe relationship between faith and belief is not as obvious as many of us often think.We all try to act in faith, but, more often than not, we miss the mark.A life of faith is necessarily based on social and collective experiences that go back thousands of years and define the lives of those who adhere to a given religion's sacred tenets and the professional interpretations of its holy scriptures.Belief is a day-by-day proposition; faith is eternal.By its nature, belief is individual, psychological, existential, and, above all, unstable.On some days one is burning with an almost scriptural fervor.At other times, the same individual leans toward tepidity, a momentary agnosticism, or even temporary atheism.Faith is stable while belief fluctuates like the stock market: up on Monday, down on Tuesday, and back up again on Wednesday.Belief is a product of free will and honest individual reflection; faith is bequeathed; The Coffee Shop 21 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016Faith is collective; belief is solitary.Belief is a haiku; faith is an epic poem.Faith is a symphonic orchestra; belief is a jazz quartet.Belief is the wind; faith is a rock.And, more than anything, faith is a gift, and belief is hard work.July 12, 2016The Same Old, Same OldDid you watch the news today?People come and go, but the news is a film stuck in the eternal present with no idea of how it should go forward, or even where forward is.You think the news can only happen when no one’s looking... but everyone sees it as it rambles on like an inevitable freight train with no brakes.We can never get it through our heads that the same old, same old happens over and over again, but it does... every day... on the hour... every hour.Between commercials and the weather, The Coffee Shop 22 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 the news always happens... relentlessly.Lives are short, but we have each other between the weather, the commercials, and especially during the same old, same old.July 15, 2016A Writer's Manifesto I am interested in uncovering the unseen essence of a person, place, thing, and, especially, a moment in time. I am interested in uncovering essence, period. I am interested in observing and writing without preconceived notions. I am hopeful that my readers will not read me with their preconceived notions. I am interested in seeing and describing something important that is fleeting but that leaves a permanent trace of eternity. I am interested in writing about what is not known but recognized as present all along once I uncover and describe it. I am interested in writing about the passing that sneaks into permanence and the eternal that sneaks into the moment. I am interested in recognizing the unrecognizable. I am interested in writing about “common” and “ordinary” people, places, and things that turn out to be extraordinary when given a second glance. I am NOT interested in religion informing what I write. Rather, I am interested in informing religion by what I write. I am NOT interested in politics informing what I write. Rather, I am interested in informing politics by what I write. I am interested in the counter-intuitive as well as the intuitive. I am interested in morals and in the consequences of choices, but not in moralizing. I am interested in the plethora of perceptions and in the nature of reality and perception of The Coffee Shop 23 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 reality. I am interested in conveying the experience of the smallest and the largest parts of all that exists and how and why experiencing one is experiencing the other. I am interested in mystery wherever it may take me and my writing. I invite my readers to come along for the ride. Again, more than anything, I am intensely interested in uncovering essence in the most unlikely persons, places, and experiences.July 25, 2016Laptop Bossa NovaThe 3-year old girl in a stroller, sits contentedly, in a coffee shop. playing with her interactive little girl’s laptop while mommy and daddy play with their big interactive adult laptops as Astrud Gilberto gently sings “The Girl from Ipanema” from 52-years ago while the Bossa Nova beat entices the rounded murmurs of Stan Getz’s sax, his phrases wafting in, out, The Coffee Shop 24 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 and between Gilberto’s silky notes sung to a contented little girl sitting in a stroller in a coffee shop while her mommy and daddy play their own notes on their laptops.July 23, 2016 Between EarsWhen writing a poem, whatever you do, don’t pull an idea from your head and put it on paper where someone might get hurt by reading it. And, if you do, please put it back where it won’t bother anyone.Your head is the last place where you will find real life because real life does not exist between the ears where murky reflections of real life float and finally drown in puddles of false images of flesh, blood, and all the concrete and steel that hold the material world together for Spirit to bring everyone to life The Coffee Shop 25 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 and life to everyone.Without Spirit, there is no life. Without life, there is no poetry... only spaces between ears.July 29, 2016New Things and Other Such StuffA new thing is a thing to behold, a thing to nurture as Nature nurtures things created out of miasmas of no-thing circling around heads in a universe that waits with breath bated for The Coffee Shop 26 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 new stuff orbiting around still more new stuff.July 30, 2016 The Fear of SelfA President with braces on his legs once said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”He was close, but there are as many things to fear as there are black holes in this universe.And that’s the problem: We think too much.From the moment we get out of bed in the morning until we get back in, we think of all the things that can go wrong...Things that can hurt us in a million ways...People who might humiliate us...Friends who might wash their hands of us...Finances...health...traffic...the weather...The neighbors...the government...crime...Strangers...nothingness...suicide...Even our ideas of God.Most of all, and without realizing it, we fear ourselves because we are our greatest enemies.All the things and people we fear are really our inabilities to rise above the fears The Coffee Shop 27 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 we cling to like a child clings to its rag doll.In fact, we are rag dolls, playing with our rag doll selves, and the greatest fear we have is... the fear of ourselves.July 30, 2016The Deal That Never EndsThey have this deal at my favorite coffee shop where, after two in the afternoon, all drinks are half-price. Well, that was the way it was until today. Now every drink is full price all day, every day, probably until the end of time. At least it feels that way.I was disappointed...all of us were. We took the half-price deal for granted.We take our lives for granted, don’t we? We act as though we and all our loved ones will live forever; yet others leave this earth every day. Eventually, so will we.The deal is off.Today I was talking to a woman about the birthday of her husband, who would have been eighty-nine years old had he still been on this planet.When I was a boy, he taught me how to shoot a gun, how to tell a joke, and how to look at life as something you give to others instead of waiting for others to give life to you.He was a tire salesman who taught me that a salesman does not actually sell things: he sells himself.And he was a great salesman because he was a great man.He taught me how to be my own man. He did it in a hundred ways. Once, he even taught me to be myself by explaining why his cat was the way it was. I’m not sure what his cat had to do with how to sell myself while remaining my own man, but it did.By the way, I suppose I assumed the cat would live forever. It didn’t.All things must pass...men, women, boys, girls...even mysterious cats with their famous nine lives. The Coffee Shop 28 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016No sale lasts forever, and most deals last no more than a month or two.But while nothing lasts forever on this Earth, a true life is a deal that never ends.If you don’t believe me, just ask any cat.August 1, 2016Don Gerz earned his B.A. degree in English and philosophy with minors in secondary English education and psychology. He taught composition and literature for twenty-two years at private high schools in Texas and Georgia. Since 1978, Don has made his home in the Atlanta, Georgia area with his wife, the former Carol Brunhoefer.OnlineA Portfolio of Literary, Academic, and Teaching Works http://www.orgsites.com/ga/donald-gerz-literary-academic-works/index.htmlCollege Prep Assistance for Students and Their Parents http://www.orgsites.com/ga/millsprings/index.html The Coffee Shop 29 Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops by Don Gerz from June to August 2016 A Writers' Workshop http://www.orgsites.com/ga/writers_workshop/index.htmlYellow Brick Road: A Journal http://dongerz.livejournal.com/

Poems and Incidental Pieces Written in Coffee Shops

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