plumes

boredom sets in.
segments of painted lines
turn from
yellow to white
solid to broken to double solid.
radio stations break on the beach
i scan the ripples repeatedly.
the web produces no relief
status updates keep me in a lull
silence follows a text sent to a friend
attention moves
to the outside world
i stare out the semi tinted window
peak into the mobile homes
of fellow travelers.
i wonder what's going on in their universe.

unsaid

poetry
does not make it
to the paper screen iris.
it is not what you read
or listen to from mouth to ear.
it sits
hovers an inch from the poem
in between the lines
and molecules of a breath.
poetry resides in the unsaid
lurks around corners
and waits for the audience
to feel its presence.

A Note

What gets you by? Everyone has their way (or vice) to get through life, the work week, the weekend, drama, and the many voices in your head. Years ago, during my playing with fire stage, I melted a crayon with a lighter. A drop of color landed on the window sill and it fascinated me. It reminded me of paint and the color glowed. A couple of months ago I bought a box of crayons and a pack of canvas boards. I've been experimenting with color combinations, melting techniques, and avoiding burning my hair from the heat from the oven. These experiments have unleashed a wave of creativity and I look forward to the next time a crayon liquefies. I'm on a path of finding what makes me happy, what gets me by, and I noticed most of these things come from my childhood; when life was "care free". We use various activities to escape reality and it allows us to shake the weight of the world off our shoulders. Like everything there is a flip side. A problem arises when the thing that gets you by morphs into something that stops you from getting ahead. Life has sense of humor.