[1074] The Consecration Of Coffee

Guest poem submitted by Suresh Ramasubramanian, <suresh@>:

 to Archbishop Oscar A. Romero

One day of god
drinking coffee in my patio
nothing is normal--
    not the calla
    with its penis of gold
    nor the iris
    like purple lava
    a volcano spills.
I find in the depths of the cup
chasubles embroidered
with black moths
& red stains--
    the sun fires
    a scintillation of silver bullets
    & of candles drowned--
        there is blood in its shine.
I place the cup on its saucer
with a most tender care
as if it were a chalice
& say the litany:
        Guatemala
        Nicaragua
        El Salvador
& one side of my heart
tastes white & sweet
like cane sugar
    & the other,
        like coffee,
            bitter & black.


	-- Rafael Jesús González

1999.

I rather like this man's vivid brush and rich sense of color. Extremely
rich, kind of like a visual version of Colombian coffee.

Wonderfully evocative - the beauty of South America hiding blood and
violence.  Black moths and red stains to remind you of bullet holes and
splashes of blood from all the people shot in long years of guerilla
warfare, coups and counter coups.

Yes, a lot like a perfect blend of cane sugar and coffee, as the man says.

Suresh.

[Biography]

   Rafael Jesús González

   was born in El Paso, Texas, attended the University of Texas at El
   Paso, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, & the University of
   Oregon. Professor of Creative Writing & Literature, he taught at the
   University of Oregon, Western State University of Colorado, Central
   Washington State University, the University of Texas at El Paso, and
   for thirty years at Laney College. His poetry and scholarly articles
   are widely published in reviews & anthologies in the U.S., Mexico &
   abroad; his collection of verse El Hacedor De Juegos / The Maker of
   Games published by Casa Editorial, San Francisco, went into a second
   printing. Also a visual artist, his work has been exhibited at the
   Oakland Museum; the Mexican Museum of San Francisco; & others in the
   U.S., Mexico, and abroad. He was Poet in Residence at the Oakland
   Museum of California and the Oakland Public Library under the Poets &
   Writers "Writers on Site Program" in 1996.

	-- http://www.think-ink.net/rafael/index.htm

[this poem is archived, accessible and awaiting your comments at]
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1074.html