WHITE NOISE

WHITE NOISE

The fans hum in the background
my sound track plays mostly in my head.
This poem has survived my news surf attack
I don't know where my thoughts were
but they are gone and are never coming back.
Memory and great lines seem to be enemies
scrawled on cafe napkins
without a nagging spell checker
like debris on violent and rough seas.
Upside down and sideways
I seem to always forget my poem book
these days
and am reduced to fevered
lines
from borrowed pen
and the waitress's bemused smile
as she waits for me to return it then.
She doesn't know that her fanny
is the cause of my temporary insanity.
She retrieves her pen and then jiggles and wiggles
away
unaware that she has definitely made my day.
The sun cleaves a bright white line
across my desk
as the pictures on my mental screen digress
to thoughts of time and rhyme.
The sound track degraded with
advertising clap trap
now it's gone
there is another voice
playing the keyboard
and echoing to the humming
in my ears.
The morning sun is heating up the studio
my just washed armpits are beginning to sweat
the fans doing little except blowing the hot air around.
Surreal is the sight and sound and smell
I'm here but then again I'm not
Is this just now, or some other special kind of hell?
I need to find a quiet place of choice
and escape the sight and sound of all the
pervasive and surrounding
white noise.
To escape to my dreams and fantasy
and escape the reality that's me
to sing with someone else's voice
that would be my hide and seek choice
to flee this mental grey
and live to fight another day.
The thump and hum from outside my window
unmufflered Harleys on the go
strangers on their way to who know where
and I don't much care
if they ever get there.
Damn, I make a killer coffee
and have passed though the stage of feeling somewhat ill
now I feel like me
singing in my own voice
I've turned the gain up
on me
and am no longer captive
to the surrounding
white noise.

JWL

Copyright John-Ward Leighton
19 August 2006
All rights reserved