Jim's Retro Village Coffeehouse: Two

The Older Bald Guy sat quietly in his easy chair, listening to Loreena McKennitt on his stereo. The view across the bay and down the harbour was peaceful, and yesterday’s snow had melted. Although he was perfectly content and fulfilled in his retirement, he occasionally found himself thinking about the joy, and the madness that had been “The Village Coffee House.” He smiled to himself as he remembered how the holiday season would always drive the coffee house habitues to greater leaps of creative energy. He recalled, for example, one typical day in December not too very long ago...

The Folksinger was playing her Celtic harp, and singing an excellent rendition of “In the Bleak Mid-winter,” while the Music-Student-Who-Looked-Like-Bob-Marley joined in from the floor with a complicated, but very poignant counterpoint based on John Lennon’s “War is Over.” The audience was rapt in collective silence.

The banner behind the postage stamp stage proclaimed “And on earth Peace, Goodwill toward People.” The Feminist-Art-Major had trouble with the original wording, and so had made that portion of the Scriptures gender neutral. The Resident Radical, as usual, had trouble with the sentiment of the banner, and vented his view that banners should only be used to reflect the wishes of the proletariat, or, at best, quotations from Lenin, Marx, Che, or Mao. He favoured something alone the lines of “Throw off your Capitalist yoke, and recidivist religious superstitions. Exceed Five Year Plan quotas!” The OBG quietly preferred the “...Goodwill toward People” choice.

The OBG was having his third cup of a blend of two-thirds Kenya Estate AA and one third Mocha Java Brown, a blend suggested earlier by the Poet-with-the-Beret during their (argument) discussion of the efficacy of metered, rhymed poetry in conveying a poetic message to a 20th Century audience. The discussion was left unresolved, but the OBG still favoured his own view that rhyming was overly confining in communicating the immediacy of modern thought. There were, however, times when rhyming could be used to create a feeling, or a mood, more effectively than prose. The piece on his steno pad was case in point...

Stars

The laughter of children,
The suddenness of Spring,
Fond memory in an old man’s eye,
A well-worn wedding ring.

The dancing of the Northern Lights,
The wind upon the sea,
Comfort of an oft’ read book,
A cup of Ceylon tea.

The lights upon a Christmas tree,
The scent of new-mown hay,
Remembrance of an absent friend,
The moon-path on the bay.
* * *
These stars I’ve used to mark my way
Home, through soul-dark night:
These memories that ensure I shall
Always walk in light.