Hearts and Minds

By William Friedman

For this anthology of poetry, I would especially like to thank, first of all and most of all, my fianc of a dozen years, Ms. Kristin Neal. Without her impenetrable help and care, I would never recognize the myriad benefits that love inspires in me, in this kind of blank verse.
I would also like to acknowledge the support of Mrs. Maguy Joseph, who was my companion in Paris for the past six years.
For many years, I have struggled to fill pages of prose, such as many notebooks. I never dared back then to compose any poetry. Significantly, I awoke one day and found (to my surprise) a penchant for rime; albeit blank verse. From many lines, I have consolidated these thoughts into a book of verse, about: holidays; Starbucks; war; love; black issues; and many others. (This is even a sampling.)
Thank you to my readership for experiencing this with me. Sincerely,
William H Friedman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499064094

Book preview

Hearts & Minds

WILLIAM FRIEDMAN

Copyright © 2014 by William Friedman.

Photographs taken by Mrs. Maguy Joseph.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/08/2015

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Contents

Starbucks

Teavana: Avatar of Starbucks

Starbucks

Easy Does It

The Williams College Library

Identity

Veterans Day

Veterans Day 2

Am I An Atheist or Merely Apolitical?

St. Valentine’s Day

News from Williams College

Fearing Hell

Abstraction

Undocumented Workers

Women’s History Month

Christmas, 2013

My Jewish Heritage

Black Issues

The Black Boy

Black History Month

Missive

Ode to Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Apropos of Nothing

Monet’s Bridges

A Nice, Clear, Breezy Day

On Her Birthday

On His Seventy-First Birthday

On Learning

Race in 2013, 2014

The Times They Are A-Changing

The Temptations of the Devil

Stanzas

A Second Troy

To Love

Insects

The Left Bank

Celestial Proof

Dilemma

Progress

Holiday Poems

New Year’s Eve

Merry Christmas

New Year’s

My True Heart

Starbucks

National Rifle Association (NRA) gun owners

wanted to flood Starbucks with firearms;

the nice CEO’s message: no guns allowed.

I lounged on a leather chair

reading the New York Times

supercilious of the politics all around me, around the room.

I would be left alone,

not a cog in a violence machine.

Few people enter

few with pistols holstered

in the pew, firearms aren’t allowed.

Verboten; forbidden; nonkosher.

The sun hangs lonely like a communion wafer

flat against the sky.

I should have learned better by now,

sitting cross-legged on the lawn of the Cambridge City Hall

(a bitter pill) suspended in time;

20/20 retrospect eyesight bound to old habits.

I order a cappuccino; a café au lait; a café latte; a café con leche.

I’m one of the fellas included in the gang.

I combine all the facts of The Times,

to be aware of exterior events,

this Starbucks my man cave, my Cymbeline cave,

my hermit’s hole in the wall.

All I do is purchase a coffee (of some exotic or esoteric flavor)

Am I a couch potato?

Instantly I am thoughtful of Parisian cafés:

Café de Flore, Deux Magots, Le Dôme, Le Sélect,

T. S. Eliot’s La Coupole, Café de la Paix.

Café latte coffee beans grown in Columbia

recognition worldwide: We are all prisoners in the Alamo,

our long guns vs. mercenaries, gun dealers,

gun manufacturers, vigilantes, and posse comitatus.

And then I recall a Starbucks I went to in Paris

Like KFC, like Brioche Dorée, they are all over the city.

Starbucks coffee too bitter even for the French

who traditionally take coffee (or espresso)

in the omnipresent, ubiquitous cafés;

against all the worst available scenarios,

Starbucks stands alone, the spicy liquid burns my tongue.

Did Howard Kurtz, the CEO, think beyond coffee?

About losing business?

Yet the bitter dregs of coffee beans leave a harsh

aftertaste.

It was a harvest of bitter fruit.

Teavana: Avatar of Starbucks

Back where we started again,

a new sale of assorted teas,

a sort of teahouse, separate and equal to Starbucks, now Teavana.

Exports from Ceylon, now Sri Lanka,

just as Starbucks has become a necessary staple,

and natural part of the machinery,

and I never fail in writing here,

shall I not try some tea?

Bring your own teabags? Your mother’s Lipton?

The Tea Party will even be jealous.

At Teavana, the customer is always right.

Teahouse of the August Moon.

Jittery? Unobtrusive?

I write as if I were there—which I am—

At Angelina’s, alongside the Tuileries,

the dark interior of the English tea garden.

A sole mover of general ideas.

High tables with high chairs, the comforts of home,

or at a business lobby.

For are we not doing our (laptop) business here?

I shall I apply myself—in my own way—

which is to say, only I am performing a necessary task.

nose to the glass; imported beverages

will the teahouses succeed? Catch on, I ask?

Imbibe, until all the seas run dry;

What else can I do for stimulation? (caffeine or tea)

tea leaves and granules settling in the bottom of a

teacup.

In years ahead, will the Teavana