A Taste of Coffee

A taste of coffee and a love of poems is where my life has brought me. Living in a language I couldn’t speak until I was sixty is where my life has brought me, through the grace of others.

With age, my favourite part of ‘In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz’ is ‘mix pictures of the mind.’ That is what happens in friendship, that is what happens in love. A taste of coffee and a love of poems. Otto Klemperer never referred to the singers in the operas and oratorios he conducted as singers. He referred to them as artists. And so they are, and so are we. Euripides writes that nothing is so foul that it isn’t washed clean by the sea. Time is like the sea, the sea does not move, tt does not go for walks, it does not turn in circles, all movement is within it.

To one who knows he is unclean – me –that has become important. In a world of gratuitous evil – animals don’t make bombs, animals don’t pervert language –in a world where compassion is at the bottom of Pandora’s box, one is grateful – I am grateful – for anything.

Alicia Viguer-Espert, born and raised in the Mediterranean city of Valencia, Spain, lives in Los Angeles. A three times Pushcart nominee, she has been published in Lummox Anthologies, Altadena Poetry Review, ZZyZx, Panoply, Rhyvers, River Paw Press, Amethyst Review, Odyseey.pm, and Live Encounters among others. Her chapbooks To Hold a Hummingbird, Out of the Blue Womb of the Sea and 4 in 1, focus on language, identity, home, nature, and soul. In addition to national and international publications, she is included in “Top 39 L.A. Poets of 2017,” “Ten Poets to Watch in 2018,” and “Bards of Southern California: Top 30 poets,” by Spectrum.