Morning Coffee

A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)

by Alec Derwent Hope

Reading the menu at the morning service:

– Iced Venusberg perhaps, or buttered bum;

Orders the usual sex-ersatz, and, nervous,

Glances around; Will she or won’t she come?

The congregation dissected into pews

Gulping their strip teas in the luminous cavern

Agape’s sacamental berry stews;

The nickel-plated light and clatter of heaven

Receive him, temporary Tantalus

Into the Lookingglassland’s firescape.

Suckled on Jungfraumilch his eyes discuss,

The werwolf twins, their mock Sabellian rape.

This is their time to reap the standing scorn,

Blonde Rumina’s crop. Beneath her leafless tree

Ripe-rumped she lolls and clasps the plenteous horn.

Cool customers who defy his Trinity

Feel none the less, and thrill, ur-vater Fear

Caged in the son. For, though this ghost behave

Experienced daughters recognize King Leer:

Lot also had his daughters in a cave.

Full sail the proud three-decker sandwiches

With the eye-fumbled priestesses repass;

On their swan lake the enchanted icecreams freeze,

The amorous fountain prickles in the glass

And at the introit of this mass emotion

She comes, she comes, a balanced pillar of blood,

Guides through the desert, divides the sterile ocean,

Brings sceptic Didymus his berserk food,

Sits deftly, folding elegant thighs, and takes

Her time. She skins her little leather hands,

Conscious that wavering towards her like tame snakes

The polyp eyes converge…. The prophet stands

Dreading the answer from her burning bush:

This unconsuming flame, the outlaw’s blow,

Plague, exodus, Sinai, ruptured stones that gush,

God’s telegram: Dare Now! Let this people go!