Milling Ideas Poem by Michael Pruchnicki

It ain't a fancy pants job, bucko,
but it is a good-paying job, you know?

It was my first job in the Clearing district,
working midnight shift at Brown & Kerr.
The old millwright wiped paint
from the three foot paddle.
He handed it to me.

Keep the paddle moving, see?
You got to grind this mess real fine.

The mess was paint thick as soft tar
that I had to ladle onto bronze rollers
that ground exceeding fine the goo
I hoisted with such effort from the vat.

It looked like a breeze, I thought
a couple loads and I can sneak
a coke in the locker room.

I didn't know then that I had signed on
as an apprentice in a back-breaking
craft that demanded all one's strength
just to empty that vat of paint.

The mill became in time a typewriter,
a word processor and currently
the monitor screen of an HP mx705.
The goo I lift now are words and images
stewing in a vat of imagination.
Just as hard to get the rollers
of creativity working that mess!