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Starbucks Villanelle
Will someone call an order for Elaine?
I have a bunch of stuff I need to do.
The wait today is driving me insane.
This one dude wants a pinch of sugar cane.
I can’t believe he’s holding up the queue
Will someone call an order for Elaine?
I’m standing here and all I feel is pain.
My legs and feet are slowly turning blue.
The wait today is driving me insane.
Barista, please, I’ll gift you some champagne.
You don’t want me to leave a bad review.
Will someone call an order for Elaine?
I ain’t the type of person to complain,
But it’s not like I asked you for a choux.
The wait today is driving me insane.
I want to drive a fork into my brain.
It cannot take this long to make cold brew.
Will someone call an order for Elaine?
The wait today is driving me insane.
.
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Matt Hsu is a Grade 12 student at San Francisco University High School.
Wow! A fabulous piece of writing, Matt, and so relevant. Plus it just trips off the tongue with its guffaw-inducing energy. AND, such a difficult form!
‘I want to drive a fork into my brain.’ Magic!
If I may, that word ‘cold’ jarred a bit. Perhaps ‘a’, instead.
Thanks for the read – you’re a natural, methinks!
Cold brew, popularized by Starbucks, is made over many hours because the ground coffee is never heated, but soaked in room temperature water. It’s supposed to create a distinctive flavor and maintain all the nutritional benefits of coffee beans that are lost to high temperatures. These are reasons that make it a fashion statement, as Joe S. notes below.
And Matt, your poem makes excellent use of the villanelle form to express the frustration often brewed at Starbucks when customers make specialized demands and staff take their time in performing the simplest tasks of service.
A very nice villanelle, Mr. Hsu, and quite funny.
Starbucks makes the worst damned coffee in the United States. It’s overheated, bitter, and barely potable. I don’t know why all those idiots are waiting on line for it, other than their delusion that drinking the stuff is a high-class fashion statement.
Matt, Hilarious and so true to life. Give us more!
I won’t go so far as to describe Starbuck’s coffee as the worst but I will confidently opine that my friend David’s coffee is the best!
This villanelle is a much better way to stay the day than Starbucks! Such a pleasure to read — the humor and the poetic skill shown are both wonderful!
Thanks for all your kind comments guys! I’m so glad you liked this fun little poem!
Well, I don’t drink coffee but I felt as if I was standing in line, getting bitterer by the moment…. is bitterer a word?
Great poem, thank you Matt.
I am a huge fan of the villanelle, and your up-to-the-minute subject matter, together with the witty way in which you convey it, elevates the form to lofty heights. Very well done, indeed, Matt! How could any poetry lover pass by a villanelle with a title that promises so much?… it also delivers.