The Coffee Shop

The Coffee Shop

The lamp burns dim on the chipped walls of the café,
spilling light from broken fixtures
like sacred stars shuddering on stark wooden floors,
trampled by the feet of souls going
no where in particular.

People from all backgrounds drink themselves from
hot mugs steaming with self importance,
speaking with those from other backgrounds.
no one realizing that there is
no such thing as the self.
no one realizing that there is only
one
background.

Words float back and forth, back and forth
echoing the trivial din of empty ideas
thought but never tried:
feigned philosophies proposed
but never practiced.

Conversations flood the air, all talking, but
none listening.
not one listening, except to their own voice
drumming and droning in their head.
drowning in the beat of their own drum.

Ceramic mugs scattered, cracked and chipped,
shattered like the attention of the professor
speaking to his dissatisfied wife, talking,
but thinking only of publishing prophecies
to impress the limited taste of the academy.

While she, thinks only of the barista
grinding coffee beans and sliding them
into the silver metal machines,
waiting for the timer to erupt
in a symphony of climax.

A college couple in the corner,
her, sharing the sob story of her tragic, tragic, life,
wanting the affection that she deserves but never had
while he, collar popped and pressed,
pretends to be interested, only to sneak
recurring glances at her pushed up breasts.

Concealed in the corner, wishing for sleep,
the insomniac stares into an empty void,
eyes black bagged and desperate, eyes
stuck in a bad dream, unable to wake up
to reality.

Beaten, abandoned, and abused,
the homeless man in torn linen outside the door
sits in tatters,
sits on cardboard and newspaper scattered,
hallucinating nightmarish visions of a white picket fence,
a car, and three kids.

Haunted by images, of images
of images, of a life like those inside:
ignorance ignited by a pompous sense of importance,
a flawed conception of individuality, asserting
that they are unique, unique, unique.

And only the prophet swaddled in
rags of poverty has the vision
to perceive people as they are, to
see all people as one person, all persons
as one people, all driven by wants, and the vital need to
Feel that none are as important as I.
That none are unique, and none exist,
The way
that
I
exist.