Cuban Coffee Crisis

This is a tale of detente gone
awry, of the murmuring voices
heard at the summit,
the atmosphere of those heads
of state angry, all due to coffee pot
mishap, the spray of a maker explosion.
Oh Mister Coffee, how tensions
had eased, how the nuclear
arms race puttered to halt,
yet then you splashed hot Joe
over Nikita Khruschev,*
who at once took his brown shoe,
used same as a hammer to table.
Kennedy felt java too, his suit
stained by a rain; Cuban rich
caffeine delicious bean brew,
yet he mused sullen remaining so
staid, seconds to each grim man
powerful worldwide made quick
for Scott Towels—
cleaning the mess so important,
as tempers too
needed assuaging.
Prime Minister,
(Great Britain),
he too felt fallout in his thinning hair,
tried bawdy levity, shrugged as he
eyed Mister Khruschev on the spot.
World once on precipice, threats…
We will bury you,
stained fabric, H-bombs.
Short in the maker
(that java machine),
fist wet in manic pounding,
thoughts of a cheap product—
leaders of men,
politicians so chosen
ruing the broken, wishing,
perhaps, for things not yet
invented, like Keurig.


40 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
8-23-16
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*Nikita Khruschev was the Soviet Premier (USSR) from
1958 to 1964, and he instigated the Cuban Missile Crisis.