I found a ream of white shiny paper
Bent at the corners, messy, forlorn
Scattered on the floor among my things
Covered in sheets dirty, tattered, torn.
I found a ream of white writing paper
Ready for drawings, rhythms, and waste
I found diversion where I wasn't looking
I found impediment to poemless days.
There's a sharpened pencil in the bedclothes
And a spate of books on the mattress
I make a desk where I can recline
Marking the top sheet by force of necessity
So much white space cries out for something -
As long as it's not too nice for experiments
Or too ugly or messy to defile even further:
A comfortable middle-class sea of white.
I found a ream of white typing paper
Spilled to the floor, then gathered, then stacked
This room was mine once, and I've reclaimed it
And all the things in it scattered or lost.
I found a ream of white shiny paper
Just like I wrote on in this very bed
Under this light and upon this pillow
with a lot more ideas coming to me.
I couldn't write fast enough on white paper
Now. It's a river of dreaming,
Calling my hands to fill all sides
with the ghosts of my artistic reckoning.
I found a ream of 8.5 x 11 paper
Or maybe it found me, similarly unclean.
We repossess each other without tenderness,
but with memories of holding love.