Supply Cabinet

It takes a bundle of Mardi Gras beads

to get the fancy photocopier

to flash anyone; it has fax machine

complex, dial-whining, always lazy,

seemingly useless, it never works

when you ask it to, or when you prod

the damn beast, in hopes that

a little bit of cooperation

is not too much to ask for today.

The stealthy file cabinets are in league with the waste bin to defeat the innocent telephone.

There are paperclips in every crease

and crevice, in the cuffs of a pant leg,

in a wallet, in a cup, behind the desk.

in earlobes—paperclips make bad

earnings, the hole is simply too small.

The proud ink stamp is determined to become a waterfall.

You were probably a raindrop in your past life, it has been told,

not a raging Mississippi river,

but it keeps trying to overflow

like the muddy banks before it.

The stapler is always jammed

with expertly poised yogi staples

who used to frequently consort

with the dull scissors, before the

dull scissors went on sabbatical

to the back of the drawer divider,

probably visiting with the message

pads and post-it notes that fled

the rampage of flipbook doodles,

screaming, We were never meant

to suffer this kind of humiliation!

A deal has been struck with

the power-hungry computer monitor,

not to beat on the plastic casing

in exchange for its promise not to die

until slow Friday, when typing is trivial.

Tufik Y. Shayeb's poetry has been presented in numerous publications, including Muzzle Magazine, Pedestal Magazine, Restless Anthology, The November 3rd Club, Lifelines and The Good Things about America. To date, Shayeb has published several chapbooks and one full-length collection titled, I'll Love You to Smithereens. In 2010, his manuscript, entitled All Janked Up Zombie Suit?, was chosen as finalist for in the Write Bloody Publishing annual submission call.