Morning Coffee, Alec Derwent Hope Poems,Born in 1907 in the Snowy Mountain region of New South Wales, Alec Derwent Hope was a prolific Australian poet and satirical writer. His father was a minister and the young Hope spent his education at Fort Street School for Boys in Sydney and then moved on to take a BA at the nearby university.
After winning a scholarship, Hope found himself heading to England and a place at Oxford University though his studies did not go as well as he expected. He left Oxford with a third class degree and returned to Australia in the early part of 1931. Hope trained to be a teacher though it was a while before he decided to settle down.
Morning Coffee by Alec Derwent Hope
Morning Coffee
Reading the menu at the morning service:
– Iced Venusberg perhaps, or buttered bum –
Orders the usual sex-ersatz, and, nervous,
Glances around – Will she or won’t she come?The congregation dissected into pews
Gulping their strip teas in the luminous cavern
Agape’s sacamental berry stews;
The nickel-plated light and clatter of heavenReceive him, temporary Tantalus
Into the Lookingglassland’s firescape.
Suckled on Jungfraumilch his eyes discuss,
The werwolf twins, their mock Sabellian rape.This is their time to reap the standing scorn,
Blonde Rumina’s crop. Beneath her leafless tree
Ripe-rumped she lolls and clasps the plenteous horn.
Cool customers who defy his TrinityFeel none the less, and thrill, ur-vater Fear
Caged in the son. For, though this ghost behave
Experienced daughters recognize King Leer:
Lot also had his daughters in a cave.Full sail the proud three-decker sandwiches
With the eye-fumbled priestesses repass;
On their swan lake the enchanted icecreams freeze,
The amorous fountain prickles in the glassAnd at the introit of this mass emotion
She comes, she comes, a balanced pillar of blood,
Guides through the desert, divides the sterile ocean,
Brings sceptic Didymus his berserk food,Sits deftly, folding elegant thighs, and takes
Her time. She skins her little leather hands,
Conscious that wavering towards her like tame snakes
The polyp eyes converge…. The prophet standsDreading the answer from her burning bush:
This unconsuming flame, the outlaw’s blow,
Plague, exodus, Sinai, ruptured stones that gush,
God’s telegram: Dare Now! Let this people go!
