Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

The Marxist Coffee Mug

The Marxist coffee mug
hid itself in a packing crate,
deep in the excelsior.

Swinging from a dock crane
above ship and below blue summer sky,
the Marxist coffee cup left the bombs and arrests of its homeland
in favor of the welcoming warmth of Castro's Cuba.

Class struggle dissolves
when conga and brass trumpet combine
in the rising air of sultry evenings.
The parrot's wing is 
red for passion,
yellow for unity
and green for plenty, by the hand of the noble proletariat. 

Imagine the alarm of the Marxist coffee mug
when, a day after arriving and being thieved from a government-owned warehouse,
it found itself in the hand of a woman named Consuela
who smashed it over the head
of her unfaithful lover Miguel.

When you dream,
when you love,
and most of all when you take up a cause,
remember the Marxist coffee mug.
Realize how closely the bones inside your flesh
resemble ceramics,
and the white around the sideways eyes
of your fellow traveler,
El Noble Loro de la Revolucion
_____

("The Noble Parrot of the Revolution")
 

12 comments:

  1. Ahhh, I LOVE this!!! Definitely one of my all-time favorites.

    Amen, baby:

    "Class struggle dissolves
    when conga and brass trumpet combine
    in the rising air of sultry evenings."

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  2. No one does tongue-in-cheek with either the tongue or the cheek you do, Shay. This feels like a cautionary tale mixed with a surreal mural and perhaps just a few peyote buttons. I especially love the last stanza.

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  3. The babyman...ugh. The poor Marxist mug...But I have a feeling the mug will win, especially when Juan grabs Rosalita and they clap and stamp those ceramic bones to bits. Ole!

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  4. Good intentions can always be used against you (though I guess he deserved to have a mug smashed in his head)

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  5. When you have a Marxist coffee mug anything could happen. LOL....I will check out your new book on Amazon. I loved your poetry collection!

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  6. One should always beware of mugs... and of forgetting just how breakable one's inner bits are.

    And the tags made me chuckle.

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  7. You tailored this so well, the finale couldn't have been more right, being a martyr for the cause of its master. Love it, all including the Mug's coloring.
    ..

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  8. imagining Groucho at the potter's wheel, somehow ~

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  9. This is fabulously woven... loved it!

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  10. When you dream,
    when you love,
    and most of all when you take up a cause,
    remember the Marxist coffee mug.

    Truly, a lesson in existentialism right there!

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  11. poor mug never got a taste of the coffee???

    I must run away and sob .... for the pity of a life given and taken in passionate haste ... oh the waste! the waste!

    okay, seriously ... (yes, I can be serious for a moment, times 3, but no more)

    interesting word images and metaphors ... I like it - it has the remorseful bitterness of that acidity and acrid-nakedness (truth?) of coffee, yet embodies the truth of the escape velocity of tea ....

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  12. Appreciate the humor, Shay! you have the knack for it, well above!

    Hank

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