How much coffee is too much coffee?

Sometimes, coffee accommodates lucidity and discipline, but sometimes it is a force of chaos. It really depends on your constitution. Drinking coffee is a bold act. It’s best to create an occasion for such things, and never get addicted. I like coffee best in the winter, at home, after a meal. One should drink it out of an attractive vessel whenever possible. One sip of coffee could be too much coffee. Do not abuse it. Fall in love and do not abuse that love. Love should be revered! Reverence is a delicate thing… As an experiment, I had an espresso this morning on an empty stomach. I went to the roof and read a scroll I’d written in the tenuous glory of June and it seemed ancient, a testament to a lost life built on faith and determination: easily dismantled with a swoop of darkness. Today, coffee is a force of chaos. The jets fly too low overhead, repeating their goodbyes like an addled mantra. Tomorrow I’ll have dandelion tea instead.

How much poetry is too much poetry?

When you read the first line of a poem and then stop suddenly as if stepping on glass and you stop suddenly because you would rather do something else, anything else, even walk several blocks to the laundromat barefoot in a blizzard with slippery plastic bags full of wet blankets and wet towels and soggy drippy diapers only to find that the laundromat is closed, when even that sounds better than reading the rest of the poem, then you know you have too much poetry. Too much poetry is when your eyes roll back in your head and you think the world is too much with us hell is other people what fresh hell is this human voices wake us and we drown etc etc THAT is too much poetry and I had that experience recently so I am speaking from recent experience. When it’s your own poetry you know it’s too much poetry when you start writing stories, which I do often. Too much poetry also is when there is a bullfrog in the pond, pigging out on all the lovely tree frogs, eating them ALL UP and then sitting there immobile and corpulent with his gorging and then all you get to hear is bull frog poetry because it ate all the poetry of the tree frogs, THAT is too much poetry. I recommend taking triphala, probiotics, and/or a good digestive enzyme, and eating a diet rich in fresh vegetables.

Photo: Caitlin MacBride