My Desk
author: Brad Spear
posted 30 October 2009 in Poetry
2 comments / tags:
As I sit here at my desk,
Pushing papers to the side,
Think upon it’s mess grotesque,
Won’dring how it got shanghaied.
Bills and books and old foolscap,
‘pon the surface do they lie,
Now atop them rests a cat,
Looks at me with orange eye.
Once I kept a desk so clear,
Ev’rything was in it’s place,
Polished wood to hold my gear,
Books were stored in their bookcase.
Try to clean it now and then,
Pay the bills and foolscap trashed,
Something though, I do not ken,
Morning comes, again it’s thrashed.
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Comment by Karen on 20 March 2010
like it very much.
what is foolscap? I know I used to know, but don’t remember except that I’m pretty sure it’s not something you’d really have on your desk
Comment by Brad Spear on 21 March 2010
Strictly speaking, foolscap is the name for a 17″ x 13.5″ paper sheet, for the “fool’s cap” watermark once used on such paper. You are correct this wouldn’t normally be on my desk. However, folded in half, or “folio foolscap,” this gives 8.5″ x 13.5″ pages, very near what is called legal-size in the U.S. This has led to a slang use of foolscap to apply to legal-size sheets, which I have used from time to time for the last 35 years.