Celebrating Twenty Years of C & P POEM

Fourteen poets co-created this poem for C&P Coffee’s 20 year celebration, using a form of poetry called Exquisite Corpse. Each wrote two lines to follow two lines that had been written by another poet, but only saw the other poet’s second line.

 

We Poets find a home away from home here

A place to send our words winging without fear

 

poetry bridge stronger than the broken concrete one, steadfast throughout the darkness of covid

bound our hearts and minds together, and reached far out into the world

 

Cardamom and persimmon carry downwind, the kind

of memory found when we are together like this, witnessing with open hearts

 

the goddess of poetry unfurling her syllables — spiraling galaxies

careening and pulsating us beyond our mortal bodies, back into stardust

 

carbon and phosphorous, common and particular, matter

a-shimmer. The matter of us in orbit, ensconced, inspired, aspiring. Here.

 

Can you think of a better Place for Pie

and Poems- traditional and spontaneous?

 

Poetry house west town haven- word garden- cursive orange c and p anniversary

Thoughts realized thoughts performed thoughts by bards celebrate cafe mythology

A museum where fellow word painters display their

Tales of sweet surrender laced with deep-dyed espresso

 

Do you Call this Place a temporary home For a Piece of Pie

or a just-written Poem? Yes, it welcomes both forms of deliciousness

 

Here. We gather to read aloud and say Yes

To fellow poets, whether they’re applause-prone or attention averse

 

they can see Koon Woon in back & can prehend David

Fewster’s sideburns from California & Brandon streets

we rush like water bridging coarse hair to smooth jaws

and pasture in cracks and plants set in sidewalk reservations

 

where words flow, soothe and inspire

root a community in limitless aspirations

 

Featuring from far end of country,

A shearwater, coursing through air, over seas, thrilling in it

 

This is where we gather together for poems

And pie and praise, at the end of work days

 

We chorus and play, a creative home, coffee’s hearth

Poets and dreamers, our verses sway, we bridge the gap

 

There to here, we seek and scribble, image and music,

Ensconced in coffee and chatter, our souls replenish

 

Our eyes and ears, retune and return, in short order

To what brought us together, in memory and purpose

 

Lyn Coffin, Alexander Smith, Andrea Deeken, Shankar Narayan, Pam Carter, Lew Jones, Jean Braun, Paul Nelson, Carrie G-N, Cheryl Latif, Ellen Rittberg, Bonnie Wolkenstein, Arleen Williams, and Leopoldo Seguel