The Café Filtre

By Paul Blackburn 1926–1971 Paul Blackburn

Slowly and with persistence

he eats away at the big steak,

gobbles up the asparagus, its

butter & salt & root taste,

drinks at a glass of red wine, and carefully

taking his time, mops up

the gravy with bread—

The top of the café filtre is

copper, passively shines back, & between

mouthfuls of steak, sips of wine,

he remembers

at intervals to

with the flat of his hand

the top removed,

bang

at the apparatus,

create the suction that

the water will

fall through

more quickly

Across the tiles of the floor, the

cat comes to the table : again.

“I’ve already given you one piece of steak,

what do you want from me now? Love?”

He strokes her head, her

rounded black pregnant head, her greedy

front paws slip from his knee,

the pearl of great price

ignored . She’s bored, he

bangs the filtre again, its top is copper

passively shines back .

Food & wine nearly

finished.

He lifts the whole apparatus off the cup . Merciful

God, will it never be done? Too cold

already

to add cream and sugar, he offers the last

piece of steak with his fingers .

She accepts it with calm

dignity,

even delicacy . The coffee goes down at a gulp, it

is black

& lukewarm .

Source: The Selected Poems of Paul Blackburn (Persea Books, 1989)

Biography

Paul Blackburn is best known as a Black Mountain Poet because of his role as contributing editor and distributor of the Black Mountain Review: and his subsequent inclusion with the group in Donald Allen’s influential New American Poetry anthology (1960). Although many of Blackburn’s concerns with formal innovation were shared by such faculty members of the experimental Black Mountain College as Robert Creeley and Charles Olson, . . .

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