The Coward By Jay Passer

I got a coffee at the WeHo Starbucks 

You know the one right by the cusp of Beverly Hills?

took a complimentary shit in their bathroom

(the code is 98765 in case you’re wondering)

But there was nowhere to sit down

besides the music playing inside being annoying as fuck,

outside a hobo’s smoking nasty-ass smelling re-rolled generic cigarettes 

with my leg acting up a chair would be nice

to sit down and whatever,

enjoy my coffee? Isn’t that a thing?

On the sidewalk by the Pavilion’s parking lot I stood by a pillar

contemplating the sheer insignificance of reality 

when an enormous butterfly flitting about the blossoms of a canopy of purple bougainvillea 

caught my eye

Yellow tiger-striped, awkwardly fragile

I stepped closer for a closer look at

something real or straight from a brought to you by this or that’s conglomerate documentary 

But not unlike the fluttery critter’s life My experience was cut short

by some multimillionaire driving a brand-new Bentley

demanding the parking space 

where I was standing

I wanted just then quite badly

to hurl the scalding coffee in his face

it would’ve brought me joy,

sociopath bliss perhaps

But instead 

I walked away

avoiding jail for yet another day

The poetry and prose of Jay Passer has appeared in print and online periodicals, magazines and anthologies, in subterranean basements and men's room stalls, cave walls and space shuttles, since 1988. He is the author of 15 collections of words, symbols, diatribes, missives, isms, schisms, rain drizzles and blood fizzles. A cook by trade, he's also dabbled in daubs, photo-montage, reverse Feng shui; while failing at mortician's apprentice, news butcher, and criminal savant. Passer's most recent chap, Son of Alcatraz, was released in February of 2024 from Alien Buddha Press, and is available on Amazon.