Sound Off

I sit in my silent room.

No noise except for the whisper of wings on the window.

Flit flit flutter fly, go away butterfly.

I sit on my still kitchen stool.

The absence of sound is so sonorous.

Like a nervous or starving stomach,

the percolating coffee pot gurgles and pops a puff of steam.

The tick-tock clock metronomes my minutes.

I need noise to work!

I sit in Starbuck's sighing sipping some espresso.

My pen pauses poised over the pale passive paper.

I close my eyes. Open my ears. Open my heart.

Shoop tinkle jangle the door opens.

A gaggle of giggling girls.

A trio of teasing teen team members.

A wild wailing waif and it's musically murmuring mother.

Loud laughter here. Determined debate there.

Tink tink tink stir the coffee. Sssssslurp.

Cha-ching! 'Here's your change, sir.'

The whirring whine of grinding beans.

The whoosh hiss fffsst of steaming milk.

The staccato sibilance of beverage orders bellowed.

Caramel Macchiato. Salted Caramel Mocha

Cappuccino. Frappuccino.

Cafe Latte.

Repeated with a Latin beat playing on the radio.

This is my kind of symphonic cacophony.

As warm and thick as foamed milk,

The poems slip and plop onto the page.

'Speech is silver and silence is golden', they may say,

But the sounds of life are pearls and diamonds to me.