Chuck your documents and bills, your old love letters in
For I am your container, your waste paper bin
I’ll take whatever you give, and I won’t tell a sole
You can count on me, secrecy is my role

I come in all shapes and sizes, with lids and without
You can dispose of whatever you wish, of that there’s no doubt
What goes in the bin stays in the bin, shredded or not
Under a desk, in the corner, your garbage, I’ll take the lot

But should somebody come just to rummage around
I can’t be held responsible for what it is they’ve found
I only hold your papers and don’t know what is contained within
It is not my duty to judge if the papers reveal any sins

Every so often you empty me and the history for you I keep
But you have plenty to refill me, in fact more and more each week
To you I’m just a container, a vessel of no repute
But I’m a hoarder of your *******, of that there’s no dispute

If only I understood all that you lob
That would for me make a very interesting job
Perhaps I could figure out what is fact, fiction or sin
But I know my place I am just a trusty old waste paper bin

Paper, it even sounds cool
Remember Paper Mache at school
Paper is a versatile beast
Paper can be folded and creased

Paper can hold your chips and cod
Paper holds the words of your god
Litmus paper turns a different hue
Paper you use when in the loo

Newspaper to get all your lies
Paper comes in many a disguise
Paper anniversary first year gone
Blank paper ready to write on

Sand paper’s rough but smooths things out
Paper cuts, paper tickets from a tout
Paperless office never to be
Remember paper comes from a tree

Rice paper, sugar paper, paper that’s embossed
Printer paper, blotting paper will absorb the cost
Carbon paper, gold leaf paper, cotton papers too
Origami, baking paper just to name a few

Paper for your love letters, notes to her indoors
Old discarded wallpaper to line your chest of drawers
Paper table cloth and napkins, paper plates and cups
Paper when your computer fails you, just for your back ups

Paper planes, Christmas decs, sticky labels to remind
Envelopes and stamps, paper roller blinds
Wrapping paper for presents, to make someone’s day
Fivers, tens and fifties, to help you pay your way

Paper mills keep turning, magazines and books
Paper muffin cups for bakers and for cooks
Paper bags to shop with, bunting to celebrate
Fancy tissue paper, paper to laminate

Paper for all of mankind, paper pocket diaries
Paper trails and shredders, papers for your enquiries
Paper in the wastepaper bin, paper piles so high
There’s nothing like a piece of paper 1,2 or 3 ply

The black ink pours in
The white page is pure gold
Wisdom seeps through
Transforming the lives
And the knowledge speaks
To the people in every fold.

The pen scratches across 80gsm
whiteness polluted by thoughts
translated into ink stains

guided by some unseen hand
I sometimes write things
even I don't understand

Grease
Wagon
Paper cups,
Hot chips and sauce;
Sticky fingers dip in for just one more...

My words make sense in my head.
But not on paper

The shiny blade cuts
Running with the blood of the forest
We must have trees for books
To pass on knowledge
And political ethics.

So we destroy the world
Telling everybody how bad it is
To destroy the world.

This morning I awoke with a cluster of words resting in the palm of my hand, my fingers tracing their gentle form like the decades of a rosary. On the tip of my tongue a song, a story, a fable of experience, existence, and eternity lay dozing.

There I floated between my inner and outer worlds, an exquisite confluence of wakeful consciousness and drowsy carelessness, until daybreak shook the last of sleep from my tousled dreams and my verses disintegrated like dust into the ether. It was at that moment, when the cool breeze through the open window intervened and the thrum of traffic in the distance drew me out from beyond the covers, that I lost my poem.

I know it will return: as droplets of rain on window glass, or as threads of loose cotton on a frayed cushion cover, in the rhythm of a lazy Sunday afternoon, or in the sigh of the ocean’s flow. All of these are mesmerising in their effect, some intangibly soulful, others enticingly tactile. All are enough to quiet the chatter of the quotidian mind and allow the delicate operations of the creative imagination to reign.

Only then, will I attempt to commit my words to paper...and you shall read them here.