John Doe On Caffeine - Poem by Artchil Daug

The fumes of the newly brewed coffee
escaped beneath the buzzing sound of my table lamp

as shadows heaved itself in the living room
on that cold January dusk preparing to swallow me in bits

as heavy traffic clogged the streets just outside the windows
bellowing both human progress and street children just

like any other day that passed through as regular as
it can be nothing unusual and no breaking the metronome

that started in a morning that brought no novel meaning
only the repeating mantra of the placid river across town

raining leeches on several teachers that went berserk
at school today because of a proletarian education without taste

like that nauseating bump into the local priest with all his
thou shalts and thou shalt nots and the moral acid that melts

the beautiful sunset reminding me of things more worthwhile
than textbooks, moral or otherwise; there I was

sitting down on my puny industrial chair frolicking over
sweet caffeine the sadness of the world with my dignity intact

but remain faceless in a society antagonized by differences
and the incessant assertion that all men are created equal.