Poets Don'T Drink Coffee Poem by Michael Buhagiar

The tickets collected with an hour to spare,
We stopped by the Mozart Café in a shell
On the water, and took in the drinkers and rare
Miasma of fresh-roasted coffee bean smell.

“How civilized! ” she said, in a tone of approval;
And I nodded, though really not sharing her ardour.
Then a tide I called took us out through a portal
To the wind and the gathering dark and the harbour.

Unearthly rapt faces surround a fire
Where one tells under stars of a hero who lapsed
And escaped in a shower of spears with the flame.

It once heated a bowl to force ever higher
A crystal of blue and deep green, now collapsed;
And I remember her face, though more sharply her name.