Since early May, BG has been my boon companion. Through ice and snow, she has always been at my side as we travel to the 7 Eleven for her coffee refill. I love BG.
Well, it’s that time of the year. Imagine my surprise when on our last visit BG picked out a special Valentine’s Day card for me! Of course, BG knows I have other human Valentines. For, of course, she has her own plastic suitors. But paradise is to love many things with a passion.
To celebrate the occasion we are republishing (BELOW) A Boy and his BG: A Love Story (visual poem)
While there is an inter-text, a sub-text, a pre-text, a con-text, a meta-text and a vor-text behind, beneath, below, above, beyond and within the visual poem, these are not now worth revealing. Besides, all “art” should stand alone on its own “merit.”
Some small background is necessary. Last May I purchased a BIG GULP (a giant container in which refills are allowed) at one of the Seven Elevens on Monroe Avenue. As I didn’t need volumes of sugary soda, I asked the clerk if I could refill with coffee. After consultation, it was determined refills could be made with ANY liquid — at the price of $1.61!
Incidentally, no other Seven Eleven honors this same promise. And when I see someone from “corporate” skulking the store, I do shy away from a coffee refill that day. Nonetheless, I am firmly convinced I am the only person in Rochester who “java reboots” the Big Gulp. (More on the debate 7 Eleven Corporate.)
Since then, I have repeatedly accepted the offer, now having made friends with the clerks used to my BG toting entrance maybe a hundred times. As well with city workers at nearby Cobb’s Hill with whom some early mornings I have shared my more than ample coffee. So, while BG may possibly be an unwilling subject in the visual poem — she’s yet to tell me one way or the other — she has performed some useful public service.
Also quite possibly the visual poem was influenced by just a little too much nearly free coffee.
Oh, you also met BG in Diehards and the Cobb’s Hill Tennis Courts
And in Yoga on and off the mat with Mel Thomas
And in Love and Hope in the Rochester Subway
A Boy and his BG: A Love Story (visual poem)
The Cobb’s Hill tragedy of an “invisible man” ten years later
https://talkerofthetown.com/2015/09/27/is-there-a-poem-in-this-tragedy/