Coffee

Company Name

Mike Rembis
The Coffee Poem

Coffee

In all of my travels
In all I have seen
The key to tranquility lies in a bean
Not pinto or kidney
Not lima or green
But dark, rich and bitter
And dancing with cream
To be found in the streets, Cosmopolitans know
“It’s legal to brew!”
So they let the bean grow
And it’s picked, Oh so gently!
With hill climbers hands
And sent off to market to far away lands
Now everyone knows,
As the bean pickers do
That nothing is better than fresh home made brew
The beans must be picked
And same day be roasted
Or else you lose flavor
So pickers have boasted
The beans are then best when they’re crushed right away
And boiled in crystal clear water, THAT DAY!
It’s what captures the essence of dewdrops, they say
That wait with the beans as they ripen away
So as you sit idly
And look at your cup
Think of how much it took,
To fill up
Somebody climbed a mountain for you
And brought the beans home
And roasted them too!
And somebody took them
By land and by sea
In hundred pound bags,
Through customs, with fees!
So if you complain that the price is too much
I counter by saying
“You don’t pay enough”
And if you insist on engaging my clutch
I have a suggestion
“Then –
Don’t drink the stuff”
I’d rather pay more so that you may have less
I’d rather enjoy what I know while you guess
And if you should wonder
Why my feelings are such
I’ll now tell the story, Why I like it so much
On a cold winter day
As I sat all alone
Not a friend did come over
Not a friend did I phone
Not a morsel of food in the house could I find
But a few cubes of sugar and a tin full of grind
I studied the can and read the directions
And learned, Even I
Could now brew to perfection
I opened the tin
The aroma I savored
And wondered how I would enjoy such a flavor
I put on the water
It came to a boil
Then tossed in the grounds
And the water did roil
The brew churned and foamed,
Turned from brown into black
And from that very moment I knew I had the knack
I soon poured a mug
And so slowly it flowed
Like heavenly mud from the banks of the Ob’
I dropped in my sugar
And poured in my cream
And then watched them both
Dissolve in the steam
I started to wonder if this were a dream
And found this concoction,
Quite simply, Supreme
I then took a sip
And the taste was so bitter
And creamy! And sweet! All at once made me jitter
‘Twas like kissing my wife for the very first time
And for once in my life,
Having reason to rhyme!
I finished the mug
And although satisfied
I then poured a second
For I felt so alive
I had found a new friend and it came in a can
Like a Genie whose bottle
You find in the sand
I soon went to shops where the congregates drink
And share wistful stories
Or sit and just think
And learned from my friends
That there’s more, so much more
There are beans in the world
You can’t buy in a store
So packing my bags and my mug
For the road
I set out to find out
Which beans are not sold
In stores and in shops in my part of the earth
The beans that – So Precious!
They don’t know their worth
I traveled on foot to the land that lies South
Only to pleasure my craving,
My mouth
Yet in every shop
It seemed all I could find
Was imported, dry roasted Columbian grind
It all was quite tasty,
Yet something it lacked
That tingling sensation you get in your back
When you’ve just drawn the Ace from the top of the stack
And the look on your face that says
“I’m the one, Jack!”
To hillsides I climbed in Brazil and Peru
Just hoping to find
That one special brew
The one that would tell me
“I love you, too!”
I know it sounds crazy but what could I do?
A madman possessed
The stories repeated
In spite of the tales
I dared undefeated
To find the black bean that bleeds when it’s heated
With the essence of dewdrops
I move on, unimpeded
To every hill in the Andes I roamed
In every village and valley
I combed
Every camp, Every hut,
Every one I could find
Was drinking imported Columbian grind
“Enough is enough!”
I said with a laugh
“I’m going to Europe to see what they quaff”
Away I did go
On the ocean by ship
The porter then spoke
As we pulled from the slip
“Rare and exotic are blends you will find,
Our menu is best, and unmatched!
When you dine –
The choices from Kona to rich Danish drip
Are better than any you’ve had on your trip”
I tried every mocha libation they had
Every espresso
And found not one bad
Yet mug after mug
However I tried
I’d still found not one to be
Satisfied
In ten days and nights we took harbor again
I called to the porter
“I thank you, My Friend!
The beverage we’ve shared have been tasty indeed
But I’m off to find more”
And he bid me “Godspeed!”
I trekked to the Northernmost lands I could reach
Where they sweeten the drinks
With orange or peach
But the brew is so bland
For the beans are so old
I knew right away
It was South I should go
In Paris and Naples
They carry rich roasts
Waiters are quick to attend to their posts
But the beans are not special
Though the scent fills the air
It’s only dark roasted Columbian Fare!
I sailed the Aegean
Where the Turks and the Greeks
Serve the brew like it’s syrup
So I stayed there for weeks
But that something,
Was missing
And I soon ventured on
To Kenya and Congo
And lands far beyond
But the elephant brew,
As they call it down there
Was so strong and virile
I sprouted some hair!
And then I set out on the Indian sea
Where many an Island was waiting for me
These islands so lost and so rich and so green
I was certain that one,
ONLY ONE, had the bean
I stayed to the South on the edge of the land
And asked all the natives that I found on the sand
If the mountains had plants
That they serve into drink
And found that they didn’t
But that they had a link
To a land in the East where they trade off their fruits
For bags full of seeds
And boxes of roots
So they drew me a map
And they pointed “Out There!”
I abandoned the waves and I took to the air
My pilot was kind and he took me to Java
Where jungles are dense
And mountains belch lava
Where pelicans soar with the bats
And the trees
Have squirrels who fly without
Even a breeze
The flowers sprout wide
And as tall as a man
They’ve been growing here since
The day time began
And up in the hills I was told I should go
Where the rains never stop
And the big flowers grow
So I hiked and I plodded
Through mud filled with leeches
I scampered and scurried to the Easternmost reaches
Of the isle where the land fell away at my feet
And found myself cliff bound and
About to retreat
When a man with a mule
Hauling bags full of beans
Rounded the cliff with a boy in his teens
They were headed for market
To sell all their stock
But sold me a handful
Wrapped up in a sock
I roasted the beans right there on the cliff
And ground them myself with a rock
And a stiff
Piece of wood that I found on the hill up above
And soon brewed myself
A cup full of love
The brew was so bitter
And crudely unique
I knew it the moment it entered my cheek
The bean grew nearby,
But this was not the one
To the North! On a hill,
Where there’s even less sun
I knew I should go for I knew it was there
Only five hundred miles
But not by the air
For the land there remained untamed and uncharted
It was not for the weak
Or the feeble fainthearted
I went to the port to charter a boat
But NOBODY,
NOBODY dared take me afloat
“Upon Java Sea to Borneo land?”
A sailor spoke up, “Friend,
Please understand,
We just don’t go there
No matter the reason
Be the sky and sea blue or the stormiest season
Those who’ve attempted
Have never come back,
Except for that fella’ – Ol’ Captain Mack”
He pointed across to a man with no legs
“Look at the ghost – Now he sits and he begs!
He used to be mighty,
A commander was he
Of two hundred men
And a fleet of ships! Three!
But once in the waters of Borneo land
A thousand brown natives emerged from the sand
And swam and canoed and they boarded the ships
And cut all their throats
All but one –
All but his
They threw all the bodies one by one
To the deep
And the blood woke the sharks
From their nautical sleep
And they came and they ate
With their teeth sharp as knives,
Then made Cap’n Mack jump!
Made him swim for his life!
Two days he floated alone in the sea
Some fishermen found him, and thought,
‘Dead was he’
No one can say how the Captain survived
With legs ate by sharks,
He should have just died”
I went to the Captain
And told him my scheme
Expecting he’d tell me to give up the dream
But instead his eyes fired
And his voice was elated
He told me “It’s been seventeen years
That I’ve waited
To go back to Borneo and find the black bean
That lost me, me legs!
Along with my team!
And now one has found me
A soul such as I
Who’d risk life and limb
For a taste of the sky
I have here a map
Of the place that we seek,
A place that the natives call
Devil’s Hand Peak
It is lost in the bush only twelve miles in,
And the natives around it, They think it’s a sin
To set foot on it’s soil
And harvest the beans
So they’ve built giant fences around it, you see
Impenetrable,
Although it may be,
I’ve laid out a plan for a man
Such as Ye!
We’ll take to the air on a catapult sling
And slowly glide down on a giant cloth wing
Then we can pack all the beans that we need!”
“Yes, Cap’n Mack, but tell me –
How will we leave?”
He said not to worry
So we took to the sea
With Mack’s First Mate, Charlie
Our strength was now Three
Stealthy, at night
We arrived on the shore
With fog and no light
‘Twas like creeping a moor
Nobody saw as we crept our way in
Through the bogs and the muck
Before mornings begin’
And we came to a wall that was twenty feet high!
And beyond it,
The mountain that reached to the sky
The moss was like carpet
Heavy vines tumbled down
The light began sparkling on the dew all around
We then chose to climb
And abandon the sling
As we raced up the wall hearing little birds sing,
There were drumbeats and footfalls
Alight on the wind
And as soon as we crossed
We knew we were pinned
I stared back but once and it jangled my fears
There were ten thousand men there,
With ten thousand spears!
We had just gone a distance
That their aim would not reach
For the mountain’s forbidden
And the wall, They won’t breach
So we clambered and scrambled
And climbed up the side
Charlie took Mack on his back for the ride
And we soon found a basin
At eight thousand feet
Where the beans we found
Grew among fern and moss peat
With heather so beautiful
And roses so sweet
Dewdrops, So mystical,
I fell to my feet
The First Mate was speechless
And Mack took a seat
“Know this, My Mates,”
Old Mack said with a smile
“We’ve been the only folks here in a while
You can tell all your friends,
And the humble and meek
That you were the ones’
Conquered Devil’s Hand Peak!
And we gathered the beans
And our fingertips stained
With the essence of dewdrops
Our backs and necks craned
We then filled our sacks with all the beans we could find
Captain Mack roasted
And Charlie would grind
And we soon brewed a pot
From a glacier fed stream
By the time it had whistled
We felt so serene
And so calm and so peaceful for sharing the dream
Captain Mack had the sugar
And I had the cream
We then raised our mugs for a victory toast
From the cliff we could see out and over the coast
And I only had one
Single glorious sip
When the earth shook like mad
An explosion had ripped
The roof of the mountain
And ten miles high
The boulders and vapor and ash filled the sky
So we dropped all our beans
And I ran for the cliff
And Charlie sprang forward
Captain Mack in his grip
Charlie thought quick
And unfolded the kite
And Three jumped together
Holding on for dear life
Sailing down to the Ocean
With our faces of soot
I looked back but once
When I saw that our loot
Was encumbered by lava
And the rocks tumbled down
And buried the grove with a crash and the sound
Of Catastrophe wailed
And further and further and further we sailed
On the blast of wind dealt us by Devil’s Hand Peak
We were over the Ocean
And yet up a creek
The hang glider soared from the squealing volcano
Glancing at Mack
I saw the look of the pain of
A life of ambitions and dreams never granted
Before we had ditched,
The Captain recanted,
“Beware your obsessions,”
He told us “My friends,
We’ve chased our desires,
Now see how it ends!
The bean was much sweeter in our thoughts
‘fore we knew –
This day that we taste it,
The dreaded curse TRUE!
I should have heeded the warning that…
That…
LOST ME, ME LEGS!!!
Should have burned the damned map!
NOT AGAIN shall I beg!”
And then he let go
And he fell to the earth
In a blink of the eye
He was gone from the berth
I looked at Charlie
And he peered at me
We saw in each other
That loss set us free
We floated along on a burst of warm air
That carried us off
From the mountain of flare
And finally touched down to the salt of the sea
The impact killed Charlie
And left only me
I clung to the mast
Of the big giant kite
And drifted all day
And all through the night
Fortune beheld me and so I was saved
Some fishermen caught me
And spared me the grave
From the stern I could see crimson smoke to the West
That billowed from
Devil’s Hand Peak, And the best
Of the beans were now gone
They were all dead and gone
They were all gone but one that I held in my palm
“How could it be that I carried it here?”
The tiny black fruit
Of the drink I hold dear
And what can I do now with one,
Only one?
I held it and marveled in light of the sun
I pondered the sip that I had
‘fore the blast
There could be none better
So I made it my last
I carry the Devil’s Hand bean as a charm
In the fold of my pocket,
It keeps me from harm
So, when you sit idly and look at your cup
Think now, how much,
It took to fill up
Somebody climbed a mountain for you
And brought the beans home
And roasted them, too!
And when you’re at market
In time of reflection
I beg you to bypass the pre-ground selection,
And buy the whole beans,
And take them home, Do
For nothing is better
Than fresh home made brew
When telling this tale
I hope you may learn
Live for your life
Before it’s your turn
And if you must know
What’s happened to me
I’m now safe at home
And sipping my tea.