In a Nearby City
(Pockets On Coffee)


by
Dale Michael Houstman


1

Evening’s coffee benches
Surround the bloody trenches
And constantly thin throbbing
Of pistols boldly bobbing.

Boldly bobbing pistols throbbing
Half-naked in a crossroad
To shoot porter-sized hotels
On hotel-sized benches.

Scarcely a pistol. Scarcely a hotel. Scarcely a crossroads. Yet pockets on coffee!

2

The mayor’s pine-green pistol
In bauble-filled bottles
Kills portraits in earwax
Of coffee policemen.

The coffee policemen
Arrest the black bracelets
For mirthlessly choking
The cream-centered starfish.

Scarcely a bracelet. Scarcely a portrait. Scarcely a starfish. Yet pockets on coffee!

Pockets on coffee
For coffee policemen
Are choking on coffee
When coffee’s half-naked.

3

At the coffee-cured crossroads
Are coffee-brown benches.
Hipflasks of hot coffee
In coffee arenas.

Red wrinkles on pig soap
Scare the fast-sleeping zippers
In a pig soup-sized bottle
For the half-pistoled porter.

The half-pistoled porter
In evening’s soup darkens
To barricade crimson
On the pink beds of starfish.

Scarcely a pig soup. Scarcely a zipper. Scarcely a pink bed. Yet pockets on coffee!

Scarcely a bobbin. The benches are throbbing. Scarcely a porter. Yet pockets on coffee!

Pockets on coffee
As evening half-pistols
The fair-of-face starfish
In porter-sized bedtraps.

And evening’s wet muscles
Arrested by porters
With fast-sleeping pistols
and coffee half-bloody.

Scarcely a bedtrap. Scarcely a muscle. Scarcely a scarcely.  Yet pockets on coffee!

Red pockets on benches.
Soft pockets on bottles.
Mute pockets on starfish.
Wet pockets on coffee.

4

Evening’s coffee benches
Surround the bloody trenches
And constantly thin throbbing
Of pistols boldly bobbing.


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