Caffeine

For the price of a

cup of coffee

you can …

no, I need that supposedly

expendable cup.

Do not belittle

its worth

to my morning drill.

I realize

I’d save the world

if I only gave it

up—hunger

to be no more,

a kid to go to

school instead of

eking it out on the

street,

and that Bibi

and Hamas

would embrace as

dear old friends—

and BTW,

valiant, brave reporter

on the lines of

genocide:

if I bought your

wanted java

I’d be surely

left without—

cranky, eyes two

Samsonites,

stuck in a shitty

airport, its vending

machine fresh out

of Arabica beans,

depriving me of my

early morning joe—

no, not Obama’s

Joe the plumber, but

Joseph, master of

his brothers

down in Egypt,

who when asked

to drop a pigment

from his multi-coloured

coat, told them to

go to hell;

or Jesus’ earthly

father, unable to

hammer wood

without his shot

of rise & shine,

pleading with his

son

to change the water

to espresso, an elixir

he could never

live without.

Andreas Gripp

April 8, 2025

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