Ancient Church

I Want an Office With a Window by Raphael Shelton

The florescent lights, the computer’s fan
And the air conditioner’s gentle murmur
Are all the sounds I hear.
They aspire to be crickets and whippoorwills
In the meadow of my standard government issued office.

A box labeled, “Personal desk starter kit”
Boosts my monitor to eye level.
How can “21 indispensable office products
in one convenient kit”
be personal?

Coffee and Its Imitators

by Raphael Shelton
There is a great difference
Between coffee-flavored-water and coffee.
Like the difference between
Watching baseball on T.V.
And playing baseball.

One is a vital fluid, like blood
Or the sap of a mighty tree.
The other is imitative at best, like skim milk
Or the scent of a scratch-and-sniff sticker.

Coffee-flavored-water is for people
Who like to pretend they like coffee
But don’t.
So they take their coffee-flavored-water
the same color as the walls of my office,
just barely on the brown side of white.

Coffee-flavored-water drinkers
Make life hard for coffee drinkers,
Because they do not know the difference.
Coffee-flavored-water drinkers
don’t care which they drink.
By the time they have diluted their black liquid
To color of sand, it doesn’t matter
Whether the office coffee pot contains
Coffee or its imitators.
Copyright 2006 Raphael Shelton