Starbucks and Cookie

STARBUCKS AND COOKIE I sit in Barnes and Noble Looking at the figure-display over the snack bar Oh how out-of-place in time they look Twain Shaw Hardy Dickinson Hemingway Have read them all Out of time The artist has caught them from middle-to-old age Twain the Mississippi observer older than the river that flame-gray hair nose-slipping specs cigar Shaw the same snowy mass but older than creation he contemplates the infinite Hardy stirs a cup of tea has just exclaimed “Wha! Pshaw! Jude isn’t as sad as that.” Emily? Emily sits for an artist she has a sweater tied round her neck- those drooping slender shoulders always protected but from what no one knows Hemingway what’s to say? he be da man smokes his pipe thinking about the slaughter of ‘brave bulls’ “Good fight!” says Ernie assigning some sort of ludicrous intelligence There are several more But I’ll leave them in their mothballs The question arises at least in my mind arises Given their various outlook would they earn a high place in today’s world? I doubt it None of them play guitar or saxophone The drummer they moved to had an unbelievable subtleness I imagine they could get through a work without need for a dripping drooling bedroom scene And then why watch anyone use the lavatory? They obviously didn’t know how to burn film didn’t need to burn time Call it imagination Call it intelligence Call it sanity!