Highlighter

Halting the eye a beacon shining bright
Barely controlling the way importance excites
Dull black and white are given flashy veneer
Forcing reading monotony to subside here
Figures of phraseology our sight ignite
Marginal notes a new notation invite
Midst of apathy new hues bring no cheer
Irritating color instead says steer clear
Florescent frays nerves of all but the uptight
Burning vivid boring words revolution incites
Not with transparently tinted lines of text
Pretentious weight of nothingness has us all perplexed
Please assign these dittos to be shredded next
Documents drop dead as all interest wanes
Data slides right out if it does not pertain
Futile lines minds drain with no chance to entertain

Colored Gel Pens

Flowing smoothly without hitch
Bright bold lines of all hues which
Bring the business gray world back
From the edge of the void of black
With vivid colored bows tangled into
Makes us ball-points ever after rue
With memories of ink thick and brilliant
Buoys our working souls up makes resilient
Coloring cryptic words with flamboyant tint
Creative juices stirring with upper-case print
Calling back the joys of sunny childhood
No adult fears and being misunderstood
Serious life and work leave no room for dreams
With colored gel pens my inner child screams
Out with angry rebellion and defiance
Tired of dull mindless docile compliance
With writing sword of bold strokes and bright ink
Full of wrath and ire until I begin to think
Of warm home tv and couch which would not stay
If I followed dreams and gave up the day to day
So continual monotony is broken
With colored gel pens as a rebellious token

Filing

Feeling the weight of endless dull forms
Tucked in folders stacked waiting to transform
Into neat alphanumeric array
Easy to find and information convey
Giving meaning to mountains of details
Slowly burying me without coffin or nails
Relevance is dead only order is left
With no meaning filing leaves me bereft
So A becomes Z and 8-A is 3-C
Since meaningless order seems so bourgeoisie
Until tomorrow guilt comes and obsession retakes
Rectifying all today’s glorious mistakes
More piles of folders and infinite forms
How long would they burn to keep someone warm

Clicky Pen

Clicking clacking always tapping
Nervous ticking never napping
In and out advance retreat
Pen nib always destined to repeat
Slide and click coming out snapping
Click and slide inside recapping
Itching fingers finding a beat
In a world no longer simply sweet
Tapping out stress clicking out cares
Troubles abound in comfy chairs
Creative ways to stifle primal fears
Doing little to nothing for years
Not living but existing
Slowly minds and bodies twisting
Suppressed wild natures start twitching
Trying to stop fingers and feet itching
Clicking cools the escapist yearning
Clacking fools the need for freedom burning
Holding the pen my fingers attack
Faster and Faster click clack click clack

The life of a piece of tape

Sliding off the roll sweet surrender giving
Smooth the flat side protecting sticky plastic
Now hacked off with a slight crunch forgiving
Separation because of sticking needs most drastic

Now alone and prepared to fuse and attach
Any surface or object destined to extend
Through attachment with another to catch
With adhesive to bind these soon to be friends

Starting with the strongest welding together
Two become one through translucent sheet slender
That gummy film makes seem as strong as leather
With tender touch objects left and right surrender

Alas time ticking by wears down the gluey finish
Adhesive becomes tired and surfaces move apart
Links are lessened and attachments will diminish
Gravity and weight make connected objects depart

Now alone without purpose and paste
Thrown out discarded with unseemly haste

Protractor

Stabbing the center and trying to resist
Pulling of pencil away from paper kissed
By graphite wending from beginning
Into perfect circular spinning
Perforated paper makes the center
Beginning becomes end and reenters
All one line now no starting point missed
Thickening in a never ending tryst
Always looking for the ever elusive end
Winding forever never a halt round the bend
Wishing endless circling is leading to a drain
Stop and lifted up until it begins again

Tack

Piercing the parts and panels of life
Holding the merest sheet with delight
Smaller but as harmful as any knife
Straight the jousting stick for a tiny knight
Repelling gusts of wind with a teeny prick
Penetrating walls deep with a mighty stick
Treacherous point biting like a tenacious tick
Until an unwary hand is injured with a nick
All fun puncturing and stabbing goes away
Sticky tape is used as a safer choice
Until a heavy poster with tape begins to sway
Mighty tack with sharpest point all fears will allay
Puncturing with glee and holding steady
Now is the time for all tacks to rejoice

Paper

Sweetly smooth it slips through my fingers
Dry and delicate it invites touch to linger
Cleanest and white ink and toner color bright
Ripped with ease baring words of right and might
Our nations and imaginations to feed
Contracts starve the poor from entrepreneurs’ greed
Greatest triumphs all recorded and darkest deeds
Covering us in past words that into the future lead
Naught is forgot with edges that cut wrong or right
Paper secrets that we’ve earned burn to light
Muggy sky over trees softly call to factory plant
Living wooded trunks would run away but can’t
Everyday surrounded by white and lined and punched
Before I get too enthused I should take an extended lunch

Paper Shredder

Humming with a mundane malicious joie de vivre
Eating precious paper with an appetite of greed
Not a single piece of personal data to retrieve
Sucking in whole sheets with impressive speed
Tearing into tiny tendrils reams of recyclable refuse
So many personal documents subject to abuse
Ripping all redundant and painstaking documents
With every mutilation there are more to forget
Destruction to feed the whimsiest of excuse
Devastation warms the blood and endorphins seduce
Deskwork and digital worlds make us regret
Simpler times of hunting and surviving on our sweat
Watching pure annihilation today is all we can do
To return to the ways of life our ancestors knew
Revenge is automated slashing our desires to subdue
Into veneer of civilization confined by taboos
Killing instincts hampered adrenaline contained
Shredding to drown out how all people complain
Not a single death has my criminal record stained

Sharpie

Silently shouting desperate words
Into abysses of papered pits
With colors that mark us out as nerds
Doodles show we can’t survive on our wits
Brightly showing our written words to see
Bold they brilliantly color reality
To survivable seas of murky blue green
They bare how we feel and not what we mean
Frustrations emotions are all colored out
Yelling without sound dreams we doubt
Drawing pictures of what we want to be
Every day saving drowning employees
From colorless voids that make them pout
Unsullied sharpie causes some hope to sprout

Lunch

Lazily approaching that luscious time of day
When fleeing from work and cares we all run away
From spreadsheets and phone calls and customer complaints
No miscellaneous problems or constraints
Running away from reality and reasonable
Lunch is the time for dreams unseasonable
Muscles relax and bleak reality is okay
With a drink that should come at the end of day
Helps darkest winter be the merry month of May
And no annoying coworkers today will I slay
Crazy comes the afternoon but right now I forget
With yummiest morsel and customers unmet
I will not throw my dreams away with quiet time to sooth upset
I will not start a fire, no . . . no . . . not yet

Box Cutter

Sleek and shiny hard metal case
Pushing out slowly comes the slick blade
Slashing easily through any place
Material organic or man made
Everywhere it stabs leaving a trace
Any cutting endeavor will gladly aid
Even things it should not cut it can
Like fingers and wires and hands
Carving into desks names and dates
Threatening those who mention I was late
Having a box cutter in the office is so fun
But they should not be given to just anyone

Dedicated to Tater

Computer breakdown

Computers are curious machines when working
Creating all convenience to every need
Unlimited opportunities for shirking
Search for knowledge and fixated hobbies they feed
Our lives are easier but likelihood is lurking
Breaking down technical issue CPU bleeds
Where have all my friends and diversions fled
Gone are my email to friends and music downloads
Video blogs facebook and rpg games are dead
Hours of surfing no longer my mind erode
Could I go outside or read a book instead
No I’ll watch tv because sunshine hurts my head

Mouse

Rolling and track ball squeaking
Click left and right arrow always seeking
Cord the longest tail ever creeping
Movement stops the monitor from sleeping
Small and compact ergonomically dainty
Navigate all places webwide and more
Highlighting playing rpg and painting
Reaching into space mouse’s arrow soars
Guiding flesh hands into virtual feinting
Electronic hand grasps into the farthest war
While at home smooth plastic sees no dead
No life it becomes part of me clicking
Seizing all knowledge worldwide to be read
Reads zilch sees and knows naught from picking
Everywhere been but nothing gained or sticking
Digital hand but this mouse has no heart or head

Electric Pencil Sharpener

Whirring whirling shaving the wood
Mutilating the mutinous stub
Murderously sharper all to the good
Clear line graphite onto sheet rubs
Slowly descending into the portal
Hole of dark death to the unwitting dull
Shrinking sharp pencil is not immortal
Disappearing day by day thin yellow hull
Pinnacle of points the keenest lead verge
Snaps breaks wear down a stump now dead
Eaten away when will eraser merge
Lonely poor pencil life’s shavings shed

Answering the Phone

Receding into the evilest recesses
Ringing echoing repels my deceived ears
Pealing out rejection my mind assesses
How Edison’s device brings annoying here
With clanging and clamor the complainers
With drowning din the dearest are announced
To call every hour with simple no-brainers
If we were communists, they’d be denounced
Nightmares of my opening shpiel defy me
Kindness in my happy voice makes me wince
If I shouted ‘What’ maybe they’d let me be
No I prolong treating each cretin like a prince
Until receiver down and horror far away
Back to the sweetly poisonous paperwork
Pending my release to enjoy the leftover day
No need to be kind but always a jerk
Unless ringing starts and chases to the end
Of sanity with brain stopped smile plastered
I think I’m talking to friends

White Out

Whither wandereth my hand
A mind of its own no thought or plan
Now all these mistakes seem to stand
Unacceptable to the compulsive scan
Now blanking the glaring goof
White covers the convulsing confusion
Concealing blinding stupidity’s proof
Perfection triumphs with compelling illusion
Cunning it makes all unblemished
Conceits and lapses all confuddled
Snow top glares atop the blunder
Sweeps under carpet all the muddle
Absolute accuracy will not be plundered
Today it would not be a misstep I think
To paint nails white instead of pink

Caffeine

Caffeine - a necessary office supply

A pop and a hiss and my day is improved
It starts a chain reaction that can’t be removed
The drug courses through me with happy abandon
Makes tension fade and futile bliss expand then
Angry people and deadlines become a background noise
With a serene faked smile I never lose my poise
Killing me softly the crazy pressure slacks
The thumping of stress fades and no longer detracts
From dreams of weekend plans and tv shows that night
Light of sun shines through and business world is right
All with a can from a vending machine, my eyes go wide
No longer do I feel each second like I’m dying inside
Puppies are frolicking somewhere and Elvis isn’t dead
All from a cup of joe my desk’s not a pillow for my head

Customer

Cripplingly confused and killing with queries
Kindly they call with not a single clue
Constantly they badger in an unending series
Of monotonous and never-ending avenues
Leisurely they lie and bewildered start to question
The means and methods that daily eat my soul
Stomach turns with seething passive-aggression
I dream of the revolution and which heads will roll
Patiently I prod them in gentle waiting voice
As their pea brains diminish with every newer choice
Impatience and anger I cool in an automated wink
Only ones that drive me to despair are those that cannot think

Slowly my dreams are dying
I feel them run away
Continual white lying
Ideals and hopes betray

Hole Puncher

Popping and punching preferably
Perhaps without any necessity
Proffering confetti perceptibly
While ordering forms for committee
Randomly returning to punching
Disco party confetti lost forever
Starts to remind me of chips crunching
As the day fills with redundant endeavors