October 25, 2004, I stopped at Tully's for my morning latté on the way to work. They knew me pretty well, and I almost always ordered the same drink that we had decided to call a triple-berry latté. I don't remember if I had started asking for nonfat, no foam and no whip at that point, but they put one squirt of blackberry syrup, one squirt of raspberry, and one squirt of cherry. "Triple berry" was much less of a mouthful than having to say all that, and the baristas were familiar with it. In any case, as the machine was whirring that morning, the barista said, "Airplane." That was a bit unexpected! She was surprised to find out she had said that out loud, and explained that it occurred to her that the machine sounded like an airplane. I commented that it seemed she was saying words at random...then realized that sounded like a song title. So I told her maybe I would write a song and put it on my first album. She liked that. I wrote the song (well, poem), but I haven't recorded an album yet. Maybe someday?
[Side note: A few years later I would start counting calories and discover that daily morning lattés are not the best idea if you need to lose weight. Now I only have them occasionally, generally once or twice during pumpkin spice season. I still drink coffee, though, black.]
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| A project for a graphic design class a few years after writing this poem. I translated the poem into French and made a poster based on the visual poems in the Futuristic style. "Cracked" is the title of the font. |
Airplane
Miniature Schnauzer
Oh the joy of saying words at random!
Indubitably
Scrambled
What a way to chase the blues away
Just saying words at random
Meow
Anemone
People look at me like I'm strange
But what do I care?
I'm saying words at random!
Spiffy
Brazilnut
It's so fun being easily entertained!
Which leaves me just one more thing to add:
Xylophone!
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As mentioned in the caption above, I translated the poem into French for a design project a few years later. Following is the French translation:
Mots au hasard
Avion
Schnauzer miniature
Quelle joie de dire des mots au hasard !
Indubitablement
Brouillé
Quel moyen magnifique de chasser les idées noires !
On n'a qu'à dire des mots au hasard !
Miaou
Anémone
On me regarde comme si je suis fou
Mais ça m'est égal
Je dis des mots au hasard !
Épatant
Noyer d'Amazonie
Que c'est amusant d'être facile à divertir !
Ce qui ne me laisse qu'une seule chose de plus à dire :
Xylophone !
