Poem: Licorice Tea for Me - Chatting with Kenny Weinstein - Poem: Overdue Library Book

LICORICE TEA FOR ME

For someone who claims to love coffee,
even the names are beautiful -
El Pico, Chock Full of Nuts,
Folger's, Maxwell House -
why is it that I usually drink tea?

The best coffee takes time to brew.
Pull out my Chemex coffee maker,
pop in a Melitta filter, sprinkle in
quarter cup of desired sweet-smelling
grounds, add boiling water, and
swoon as the aroma rises like
a kite at the beach.

What's wrong with me? The hell with the
Licorice Tea. To the kitchen I go
to brew me some Starbucks Peppermint.

***

PS, I drank the Egyptian Tea, after all. 

A C Moore opens at 10 am. Gonna buy RIT DYE - purple - and color my beautiful pink linen napkins Mom gave me. They are all stained and purple will cover it.

***

 Napkins and undies.

Talked for an hour or more to my cousin Kenny Weinstein, who lives in Herndon, VA.  What a nice guy! He used to be a pilot at the Willow Grove Naval Air Base, which is closed.

Talk about loud noises! You'd be in the middle of something and these bombers would fly overhead breaking the sound barrier.

Was I showing off when I emailed Kenny some of my art work? I've gotta figger out how to affix these from my ceiling so they twirl around.

 When I got off the phone with him, I knew I was low. I stuffed myself, took glucose tabs, you name it.

Then I had a coughing fit. Something went down the wrong pipe. I coughed for nearly half an hour.

Called Mom to tell her about my conversation with Kenny. I kept clearing my throat and it got harder and harder to talk.

"I'm hanging up," I said.

Actually, I just coughed some more now.

Hold on. Lemme check the Internet.

Coughing is a reflex action triggered by some irritant in the respiratory passage. It is intended to expel this irritant as rapidly and forcefully as possible.  

Just sent a short story to my sister Lynn to review. It's true but I changed all the names. It's about a trip to THE BIRCHES, home for the elderly, which I called Franklin Row. 

I have two more days to submit to Bella Online. I actually wrote a one-act play. Wanted to do dis for years.  

OVERDUE LIBRARY BOOK

"Autumn" by Karl Ove Knausgaard
is several days overdue. As I
read for half an hour this morning
before I get out of bed, I couldn't
stop reading. And read for nearly
an hour.

Yes, it's worth it, I thought. A strange
book whose chapters include Fingers, Oil Tanks,
Badgers, Infants and Cars.

It's a book for thinkers. People who like
to read in bed and chew pretzels at the
same time, getting salt all over their
sheets.

Impossible for me to listen to music.
Sorry Gregg Whiteside of the Classical
Morning Show, but attention is
focused on Karl, whose photo
is on the back cover.

Truthfully? He looks like a serial
killer rather than a serial chapter man.   

***
In an interview I had today I mentioned that Karl Ove believes the best book ever written was Flaubert's Madame Bovary.

Let's take a peek, shall we, of the very first sentence. 

Click here on Project Gutenberg.