Unless it’s iced, it must be HOT –
Not warm but really steaming;
Yet when that isn’t what I’ve got,
I feel like simply screaming!
I rarely order coffee out
‘Cause tepid’s what I’m given
And just one sip erases doubt –
To breakdowns, I am driven.
I don’t add milk, I like it black
And hot like an inferno,
Which can be made, if you’ve the knack,
On stovetop, drip or Sterno.
When coffee’s sold in eateries
Or any other venues,
Unless it’s hot enough to please,
Remove it from the menus!
My Pantry
I have a kitchen pantry,
Narrow though it is,
Still contains some sterno,
For the millennium’s world’s end.
I’ll not tell you how long ago
Its contents got organized,
And the blue shelf liner, wrinkled now,
Would have won a magazine prize.
Its door has an old-fashioned hook,
Due to the settling of the house,
Open it to a bin of birdseed,
And protection against a mouse.
There’s are extra cans of tomato sauce,
Some chili and some peas, and
When I get inspired, I can
Cook with one of these.
Impulse buys like dry mashed potatoes
And cans of stuff I don't even like,
But they were on sale, weren't they?
Thought I'd use those down the pike.
Now you’ve gone and done it,
It’s gonna get culled again
Lots of things to the church center,
But not that sterno can!
With his magical prophet powers
He swore he could start April Showers
And bring a heat wave to enemy land
Saying all of our foes must be banned
To humid, muggy unbearable weather
Causing their skin to feel like shoe leather
A land hotter than even Dante’s Inferno
Packaged in a can of strong Sterno….
Switching sides faster than a traitor
Becoming didactic sooner than later
Saying his truth was better than gospel
That he was as Christian as any apostle
He caused a hawk to slowly flutter by
And changed it into a pretty butterfly
Now his comrades have become weak
Skinned down the field like a blue streak.
You wake in the midst of an inferno!
In a flash your body bursts into flame.
How could you not awake before this?
You were reading under the cover by sterno.
You go into shock and then euphoria.
Death creeps in and waits with folded wings.
He seems like an old friend, just the two of you.
From the distance someone singing “alleluia”.
You lose all your senses but anxiety.
Turning to him you falter…. quietly.
Peacefully serene, you accept the extreme.
You enter the gate to immortality.
© Charles Henderson
For Brian's 2 to 14 contest