The Familiar

[dukealien]

The Familiar  My second track, on reading the title, was a witch's familiar (spirit)... after just familiar (things).


There is a kind of person who always eats nice break, contrasting with those who do not always eat
four eggs a day, who makes coffee for two
and always sets aside one half of the drink wasteful/well supplied
for all those mornings when he or she
could not be bothered to carefully weigh perhaps "precisely" for the rhythm, though that implies rather than describes the attitude
his or her beans and water. This person always sleeps  The business of the coffee is mysteriously descriptive - is there a familiar to be fed?
at nine, stirs at six, and goes to work no alarm clock required (g)
three hours after waking up. What do they do?  more precisely (second reading) how is he/she employed?

Stretched out on a table is a leather
canvas turning paler and paler "leather canvas " - starting to get unpleasant vibes here
as the hours come in. The chat begins
with that day's weather, then the crossword,
what comics are repeated,
before they go to the major reports --
what movies are hits, which stars to court --
as jars, then cabinets, are filled.  Okay, so they're scraping the leather into jars.  With whom are they discussing - the "canvas?"

At twelve o'clock, it's time for lunch,
at one it's time for tea. Always they heat
twelve ounces of water for their pot
of two teaspoons' worth of leaves rolled up
by some poor chap from China but not necessarily *in* China
and, without fail, they come to need
the toilet for right when they've done
with their strawberry jam and scones.  Whew!  Not Germany then.  Would have been metric units, anyway.  A bit early for British tea, though.

For evening leisure, sometimes they read
Beckett, but more often Pound.  veering back toward a fascist suspicion...
"More often now do I reflect
on the little garden kept
by two dear friends of ours, too often dusted
during our visits with tar and ash  a distinct air of Buchenwald
like a plate of Cafe du Monde's"
is how they hear the answer to

a simple "What's the time?"
"You know, the Jew     baffled, but suitably challenged.

Mmmm.  Deep.  I think.

Reactions above.  In moderate critique,  this plays adroitly on the (grammatically incorrect) usage of "they" for one person of unknown gender - slipping back and forth between the collective "they" and the implied lone (example) person.  A reader can even slip for a moment and think there are two people present in part of the day's activities.  Very nice.

The contrast between longer free verse lines in the majority of the poem and shorter lines in the quoted text is effective, setting it off in tandem with the quotation marks.

The mystery, to me (likely I'm just missing it), is resolved by the final line:  answering the implied question from the beginning ("what kind of person?")  I still don't quite follow what is being described, implied, or alluded to in the rest of the work, but it did make me think and react:  I could find anything from the Blood Libel to Ordinary Germans in it.

How to improve the work?  Metric units if you like - grams of beans, liters of water.  Perhaps surmounting rationing could be implied - that "they" don't need coupons and can get real (instead of ersatz)  coffee.  In fact, coffee and tea are a leitmotif that could be expanded.

That's all I've got.  A dark and stimulating brew.