Coffee Can On A Cliff Poem by Tailor Bell

Coffee Can On A Cliff

Rating: 5.0


There's a coffee can on a cliff
Like a shoeshine cup it sits

One minute
You watch the surf
Playing songs in La Jolla
Drinking margaritas over pits
Breeding dobermans for Detroit

The next, you're unlidding ashes

Contemplating their color
Probing the density
Wondering which parts are soul,
Which bone, pointy splitback ears in styrofoam

You might take a spoonful
With a shooter, a chaser, a shine
Crimped salt shaker and tangy lemon

Like a friend of mine, Clare
Who always wanted to go standing
But went bunny hopping instead

Man did she have a bounce
Smooth wedge and a six foot dismount

This world can't be unfair
Until you sit with the diamondmaker
Notice these road signs all point west
Where ceramic mugs are big business
Lined with liners of 'handmade' silk

You've got to squeeze out
Fresh juice if you want fresh
Just remember that coffee
Doesn't come from Park Place

And this place...
This spinning tequila worm you chance
Well, it's nothing, but relief
On the cliff

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Gary Witt 27 September 2009

One can dissect this one couplet by couplet and line by line, peeling back layers of meaning. At once irreverent and pondering, the poem's voice wanders along a thought-lined landscape, glimpsing something new with each step. One cool poem. Many thanks, G

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Jet Campe 12 May 2009

Woah dude, trippy poem...I may not be as elaborate with the vocab as the other guys, but wow...haha that's a thought to keep in your head when you go to sleep at night..

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Alison Cassidy 25 September 2008

You must read this one without trying to make sense of it. Listen to it - like music. Just let it play and absorb the sensations you feel, the images you see, the unpredictable flow of it and somehow understand..... why you were inspired to write about 'coffee can on a cliff'. Bloody magnificent poem. love, Allie ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

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Will Barber 01 September 2008

Blending the macabre, the divine - absurd, on the cliff. - Will

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