blue skies and pink slips
late afternoons
sitting at the desk
facing the side window in the sweaty efficiency
drinking mickey’s malt liquor
and banging on the smith corona
I hardly notice the oscillating fan impersonating
a little robot stuck on a floor board
can barely hear the radio putting out music
or airing another baseball game
outside
the neighbor’s black lab patrols the fence line
barking indiscriminately
blank pages
enter the rollers and withstand
a barrage of pelted bars
launched by levers by way of fast fingers
fanciful ribbons turning pure white sheets into
paperless dreams creasing and
folding and pretending to be airplanes
so many summers ago
I launched countless letters into the jetstream
some struggled to make it out alive
others fading with the setting sun
a few lucky ones breaking the outer atmosphere
only to crash and burn inside wire baskets
november two thousand fourteen
copyright j matthew waters
all rights reserved
jdubqca 
‘ turning pure white sheets into paperless dreams….’ This is wonderful, John,
Thanks so much for comment K, and for sharing on Twitter ;`)
Love it! Reading your words took me back to one our Australian writers, Banjo Patterson and his poem “Clancy of the Overflow”. There are Aussie terms and old time slang to overcome here but the reason I thought of this is because of the word images from around 2.50. You have evoked exactly the same feeling from a continent and a century away 🙂
Oops – link — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s27QP0QGv0
Thank you for the link and compliment, Archie – I enjoyed watching/listening to “Clancy of the Overflow” for the very first time. A wonderful poem indeed.
Brilliant scene-setting and narrative but the staccato palpitations beating out the product steal the show for me. Great work!
Thanks so much, Mike – happy knowing this one works for you!