Home » Poems » Brian K. Bilverstone » Cafe Watch

Notes About The Poem

I wrote this in 2023 while sitting in a coffee shop in a local market town. I'm a bit of a people-watcher and doing this concentrated the mind in a fun sort of way.
By the way, Huggies, for those who don't know, is a proprietery brand of disposable nappies (daipers) in the UK.

Cafe Watch

Café Watch


Sitting in a café, watching life pass by.
People rushing into shops; important stuff to buy.
Groups of foreign workers, stopping, shaking hands;
Local people bustling by – can’t interrupt their plans.

Outside, a lonely busker tries hard to make a splash,
But in these post-pandemic days, so few folks carry cash.
Dads and pregnant mums-to-be battle kids and buggies.
Squalling children at their sides; prams piled high with Huggies.

Faces fixed on mobile phones; hand-held gods adored;
Devoted to devices that their owners can’t afford.
Lunatics on bicycles intimidate, unchecked;
Maximum discourtesy, minimum respect.

Fitness freaks in sandwich boards try to drum up trade,
But no-one wants gym membership – don’t want to be delayed.
Pretentious coffee drinkers sip their frappé-choca-mochas,
While obese men in football shirts spout nonsense about soccer.

Invalids and elderly trundle by on scooters.
Workaholics sit at tables, glued to their computers.
Market traders, thin on ground, do their best to trade,
Looking glum and hopeless at the pittances they’ve made.

People come and people go; things go on much the same,
Slipping in and out of sight within a narrow frame.
For casual observers there is so much to descry;
Whilst sitting in a café, watching life pass by.

lifepeoplerhyme

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