I wrote this about my friend Kevin and a night out at MoKaBee's. We had just been to "Open Mike Night" there. MoKaBee's has since moved down to South Grand and is a gay and lesbian bar. When it was in Kirkwood it was a coffee house/book store/beatnik-vampire hangout etc. This really gives a good picture of what a typical night was like. It was cool.
Yeah, man.
Kevin was cool, too, in a kind of nerdy jazz-man way.
The whole evening was interesting to say the least. The parts of this piece that are in quotes are things that were actually said or heard there that night.
March 10, 1994
You sit there and stare.
"the answer is blowing in the wind."
Eyes on the reader of poetry as he garbles on for four days time.
I thnk about what you're thinking about.
"I drown in your deep knowledge."
I know very little about you but you feel familiar.
"Go on, read one."
The exhibitionists love you 'cause you're the voyeur.
"Come and take a walk with your sister the moon."
My mother expects me home five minutes ago.
"I called upon my god by he was sleeping on that day."
Don't really like anyone, do you?
You should smile more, it becomes you.
Comfort like being in your presence.
I think about what you're thinking about.
"Hello?"
Into space and other countries, I guess.
No glass sits before you
Not a cigarette in your hand.
Eyes on the empty table before you.
Worn coffee stain rings grace the paint splattered surface.
An ashtray, a used swizzle stick, an old napkin.
Coffee rings.
What's the deal? The BIG deal.
You'll probably never tell though it isn't a secret.
Coffee rings; more of 'em.
Comfort is an old easychair my fat grandmother used to sit in.
"So you don't like American girls, huh?
Well what DO you like?"
Eastern block, former Communists.
Coffee rings; big ones. Latte cups.
An ashtray, a used swizzle stick.
An old napkin.
I'm done, I sit down shaking hard.
"Read another one."
Yeah, right.
"Sing then; you should."
Next time, next time;
With more coffee rings.
You said so yourself.
What was that bit about coffee being the nectar of the gods?
The transcendentalisticity of it?
Maybe I made that up from yours and my thoughts.
Eyes on the lovers (vampires).
Eyes on Trafica.
did you notice all the coffee rings?
I love this place.
The coffee is good and strong.
So what does your head ponder?
Where are you now?
Oslo? Prague? Berlin? Warsaw? Budapest? Bucharest?
Coffee rings again.
The world is dirty and full of dirty people.
Hatred for humanity.
More like dislike, really.
"...I am a humanitarian as vegetarians eat vegetables."
...And drink coffee.
Eyes out in space.
No glass sits before you.
Not a cigarette to be found.
My grandmother's big easychair.
And the coffee rings,
Rings...
Rings...
Rings...
(~*
