Jitters
performed by Drought Buoy (Gunnar Biggs, Terry Sprague & Brandon Cesmat)

Click Drought Buoy to see  "Jitters"
at The California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

Ah, the sound of the coffee maker in the morning.
It’s a good sound. I feel better just hearing it,
smelling the spirit of caffeine on the steam 
makes my heart’s pitter-pat go 
pitter-pitter-pat-pat. 
But there’s nothing like the first sip
to give me the jitters.

One of these vibes has got to be right, 
the thunderclouds of my brain bumping,
the lightning shivering down my arm
and words flashing onto the white page,
the black letters acknowledging their source.

If one cup is good,
two’ll be twice as good.
I sip my second cup and accelerate 
on my morning commute down the highway, 
black like my coffee.

Jitter past distractions
Jitter over edges.
Jitter talk. Jitter listen.
Jitter back from ledges.

Mid-morning espresso break,
come back and jitter rumble.
Take a large Coke for lunch,
all afternoon the pages tumble.

Double the beat of my heart
and live twice as fast
double the beat of my heart
and divide my life by half.

The job jitters,
the job jitters.
Slow me down in the cocktail hour with a gin and bitters.

A Note on Process: Although "Jitters" looks like a poem, it began as an improvisational exercise between a dancer, a bassist and a poet. Whether or not it should ever have been reduced to text and revised is a good question. The preferred version of "Jitters" is in performance, as Drought Buoy created it.