Staple Remover

Ripping removing rending
Alligator teeth viciousness lending
Tearing to singleness sheets
Pulling away piles of neat
Groups parted and lone paper tending
To try to join again all gaps mending
Bound loosed and taking out the bind
Dittos let go uncertain what to find
Solitary pages now free
No longer us now a me
Lonely

Pens

Everywhere increasing
With no policing
Against penetration
Of every surface and location
Filling the world
Fingers clutching curled
Never releasing
Writing unceasing
Tapping and too many
10 for a penny
Disappearing every time
It should be a crime
Rolling around
Where they go confounds
Hands try to find
Later resigned
Then from nowhere
It rolls to the brink
My pen I snare
But it has no ink

Rubber Band

Stretching thinner tension increasing
Tighter until breaking point ceasing
Rubbery lax is now taughtly sprung
Toward my busy colleague my aim has swung
Pop and hitting ceiling until rebounding
Direct hit then a look and silence resounding
Then again stretching tight almost breaking
Intent seen in an aim with no mistaking
Return of instant karma with echoing snap
Flying through the air to give a loving tap

Stress

Stealing the sanity right out of my mind
Too much to do, I rush and fall behind
Speed essential and fine detail unheeded
Now is when all projects are needed
Customer’s complaints needing greeding pound
Loving heart and placid calm into the ground
Doing seven things and memory goes
Doing all I can no need to bite off my nose
Talking to myself in an uncontrolled mutter
Adrenaline voice on the phone starts to stutter
Stressed out in the dark place where no sun shines
Work running an unending circle of time
Spinning into unbelievable frenetic farce
Time running out, future and hope sparse
Reality loses hold insane laughter comes
Brain is dead and body is shaking and numb
Rushing without care in the apathetic zone
If it doesn’t all stop soon I will start to moan
Laying on the floor like a sick soufflé
Power phones will die or it’s time to run away
Men in white will come and take me from this pit
Or I’ll just up and yell real loud, “I quit!”

Scissors

Slicing the thinnest salacious sheet
When in the dark I don’t want to meet
Stranger running with scissors upraised
Staring straight ahead eyes open glazed
Hacking open packaging with glee
Slashing plastic and all remnants of trees
Severing strings and all manner of things
Destructive fantasies start to take wing
Excising cool calm calculation
Now harboring dreams of decapitation
For my clean sharp scissors lovingly reach
Thwarted wrath there has been a breach
Thief with my favored sheers did abscond
Does the filthy knave know how I’ll respond
Force and bloody vengeance will be mine
My sharp sheers will mutilate his spine
He’ll fall on the floor then start to whine
Graciously I’ll allow him to resign

Without scissors nowhere to go
I’ll go steal a pair from Joe

Heater

When thermostat too low is set
Past summer months I do regret
Even the fact of so much sweat
Brain clouded in cold now forgets
Shivering and shaking to keep cold away
Icy hands seem to hold me every day
Frost reaches into my veins to stay
Frigid hand on mouse my body warmth slays
Until the day a portable heater I bring
A great source of warmth for my hands to cling
Heat so great until my hands slightly singed sting
Then I just hover to feel the warmth of spring
Radiant warmth my body now feels
Through many layers that now can be peeled
Imagining a summer world bright and surreal
Where my heater never leaves me the winter to feel

Until at the end of the day heater turned off
Into the cold outside I start to cough

Bored

Staring blankly at my monitor screen
Hoping it will send me a message
Or turn a very bright flashing green
Clicking my mouse hoping for presage
Of what the remaining day will contain
Looming long loaded with time slow to drain
Pen’s end holding lips together in vain
Gravity lackadaisically dragging
Brain dead motor skills slowly lagging
Behind the absorbed face consciousness flagging
Redundantly shuffling piles of things
Dreaming of many an fantasy fling
Hopefully the telephone will not start to ring

Tissue

Taking an interest in all post nasal drip
Decidedly useful when a cough lets rip
Dotting the landscape with delicate caress
Taken from brightly colored box on my desk
Sopping up the icky mess with a timid press
Hiding from sight the swollen noses all grotesque
Stopping no germs but dignifying a sneeze
Hopefully we won’t catch the new disease


for tie-fighter

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