October 24: White Noise, Blocking, New Poem

I find that I spend most of my work day trying to block the white noise of my environment.  I'm surrounded by people I don't want to be surrounded by, and I get a little tired of the chatter of the business office.  For instance, at the moment, I'm sitting with my iPod in my ears yet again, my back to everyone, counting down the seconds until I can clock out.  Maybe I'm just a misanthrope.

The poem I wrote this afternoon is about white noise and my need to filter it from of my head.  I've become quite adept at it.  Most of the time, I don't even need my iPod.  I can simply turn some mental switch in my head and be alone.  Even people I don't mind talking to become background static.  I don't know if I'd call it a gift or a survival technique.  However, it makes busy days in the workplace tolerable.

This post is not a bitch session.  It is an explanation of the inspiration for my poem.  I haven't decided if it's any good.  It's sort of inspired by the collection of poems Faulkner's Rosary by Sarah Vap, which is stunning, agravating, mystifying, and beautiful, all at the same time.  My poem, on the other hand, may just be mystifying.

Saint Marty is no Sarah Vap, but, as always, he's doing the best he can.

White Noise

It’s always in my ears

            Thrush and blue jay in the forest

Fills the air

            Indistinct as grains of sand

The way winter afternoon fills

            Radio.  Handel?  Zeppelin?  Kanye?

In the palm of a storm

            Horn and siren, freight truck

With fat, silencing flakes

            Voice, sharp as January

I absent it, let it quilt my day

            Shit man, shit call me

Until all I hear through its

            Phone, insistent as labor pains

Silence is what I choose

            News of Libya and Iraq and Pakistan

To hear.  White

            A new planet, expanding.  White

Bread baking in my oven

            Fist of hurricane tearing up the Milky Way

Birth of a new planet