Pikake & Pearls: Helen & Randy’s Website

These are the poems I wrote on the airplane, to disguise the Word document i wrote the REAL poem in. They’re based on Noam Chomsky’s sentence, “colorless green ideas sleep furiously”, in other words, that one can write grammatically (and syntaxically) correct sentences, but have them make absolutely no sense.

I know, I’m a dork.

There once was a bear
There once was a bear,
Who had no hair
He scratched it all off, in a fit of itchiness.

There once was a bear,
Who really cared,
For a Ms. Bear, who wore a tutu and danced around singing.

There once was a bear
Which projected that fish would be extinct by 2050
Get it? The Bear Which Project(ed)!!

Bears that write poetry
Bears that write poetry
Almost never succeed
Because their fur gets in the way of their rhymes.

Chomsky’s Rabbit
I once met a rabbit that was a friend of Noam Chomsky,
Whom believed:
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
Lucky thing that rabbit dreamed aurally, in exoticolor.

A mongoose and a hat
A mongoose was wearing a hat
In the heat of winter
Because his feet often became very sweaty
After going to a slip-and-slide party at an East Boston loft apartment.

Airplanes and lollipops
An airplane licked a lollipop given to him by a pair of Gila monsters on vacation.

After proposing, I had one other special surprise up my sleeve: A special meeting with Joshua Bell, who had graciously invited us backstage to take a picture with him. I prepared a copy of the photo (see below), by printing and framing it. I wrote a short message on the picture frame, with the intention of giving it to Mr. Bell.

The Picture from August 2, 1997:

Backstage at The Shed

We were the first ones backstage, to greet Mr. Bell on his performance of the Prokofiev Concerto. He knew immediately who we were, and gave us a big congratulations. We promptly took several photos, and got a copy of our original photo autographed, before he had to rush out and greet his fans.