Attempts at Happiness

Coffee with Tubulcain*

I drank the 

fresh but dark

deep but taste bud consuming

roast that you brewed 

on the bridge, on the arc

that connected humble living to power looming. 

Yes, you poured that coffee down my throat, 

our throats, 

granting corrupting energy for the day, 

empowering us beyond mere words and fists and condensed hate

to the realm of death, 

a death more lethal than that of Cain, your ancestor,

one that occurs at a mass scale, 

a giant shadowing over a valley. 

In doing this, you began history. 

You woke us up, your dark brew did 

and now I sit here with a hefty glass of it in hand

looking across the table, 

wondering why I made you, 

child. 

You are but a little kid, to me, 

billions of them gone mad, insane. 

I give you freedom of your lives and you've dispensed of them carelessly

Why did I settle for thick, true and brutal coffee

when I could just daintily sip a cup of tea? 

I blame you not, Tubulcain, 

for only a discover, a knowledge, you have made.

I placed down on earth a power

and you, your cunning, picked it up ; 

from there, a natural-borne volcano did erupt. 

I look at you now and listen about your days

and it seems that you do care dear about each of them 

You've created the extraordinary with your freedom. 

However, I worry that

that which you've created will destroy you, 

the same coffee that ignited you will sedate you 

and you will lie on that table cold. 

I see your eyes...

They're shutting methodically slowly now. 

Are you here with me?

I allowed you to make the coffee

so that you could be real, be free, 

be mine by choice and not tyranny

but in such freedom...

but in such freedom...

Fie!

From sword to gun to cannonball 

From chariot to tank to B-10 bomber

From Jericho's walls down to firebombs to nuclear, 

greater power, greater fear 

You're gone, aren't you?

You sleep like ice on that table there? 

I suppose I can retreat to calmness, 

to avoid a silly scare. 

I am not God, am I? 

I can make you live again, awake again, breathe and see, 

bestowing on you freedom of choice. 

Tubulcain... 

Would you like another cup of coffee? 

*Tubulcain is a biblical figure, by tradition 7 generations down from Cain, known to be the first creator of weapons of war.