Coffee and Conversation

I've been spending quite a bit of time in coffeeshops, lately, writing and reading and watching, and I am always struck by how long people can talk on and on about absolutely nothing. Conversations are rarely meaningful, these days, and when they are, they don't usually end in a good place. Surprisingly enough, the most interesting conversation I've heard in the past month occurred when an old bum sat down across from a business man in his late 30s, who was journaling, and began to question him about what he was writing. Eventually, the talk worked its way around to what the man was doing with his life, why he was writing, and what he really hoped to accomplish. All of this, however, came from the bum; for the business man, each answer was like pulling teeth. He neither worried about, nor cared to know, where he was going, and why. Eventually, though, the bum got the man to warm up to him and drew him out of himself in a true platonic dialogue. It was remarkable to watch, but even more remarkable to realize how happy we would all be if we thought as much about our destiny as that bum did.

Coffee and Conversation

So many words, that tumble out

and stir the rising coffee steam,

obscure a silent, wasting gout

that tears the stitches from the seam

between the body and the soul.

Each twitch expands the ragged rent,

and still the words are wrought to pull

a thread where needle never went.

As empty voices settle down,

and hope upon a hopeless way,

where conversation sets a crown

of motley fool's bells aplay,

we think to take some health from this,

from sounds that merely signify

the helplessness of life amiss,

unspoken in a speechless lie.

But still we talk, and still pretend

to hold a weak community

through conversation without end

and days endured unhappily.