During the last ten minutes of class this week, the teacher had us each write a companion poem to one of the poems workshopped that day. Only one of the ideas in my poem is original — a gold star goes to anyone who can identify the literary sources of the other two!
Scientific Explanations
It has been suggested
that paper clips are larval
forms of wire coat hangers:
closets are always over
flowing with the latter
while the former seem
perpetually in short supply.
Some suspect that clothes dryers
also serve as portals to other dimensions;
fortunately the aperture is so narrow
only the occasional sock slips through.
Evidence suggests a predator
prey relationship between plastic
containers and their lids: their numbers never remain
equal over time, despite meticulous
efforts to balance them.
The Daily Compost 
Absolutely none.
Ideas, that is, about
what is not all yours…
But I like the poem. A lot. My opinion on this is that we must be from alternate dimensions. I always have too many paper clips; the larval forms in my dimension have a low survival rate. And thus I never have enough hangers.
This is exactly the kind of evidence we need to help unravel such mysteries! I knew your steel-trap scientific mind would see something others have missed. (Good haiku, by the way.)
Funny! You two. 🙂
The poem is great!
I may be able to fill you in on some of the possible reasons you have these questions.
Paper Clips
-they go out with that stack of paper you just compiled for a friend or co worker.
-because so few people pick up the one(s) they dropped, the cleaners use them to feed their vacuum cleaner
-MacGyver wannabes everywhere use them as tools
-it’s fun to try to twist them to a different shape before they snap
Wire Coat Hangers
-both sexes multiply by ten while nurturing their little paperclip larvae
-one is crafty and saves them for ‘something later’
-you’re secretly in ’15 year old love’ with your drycleaner
-more bending fun
Clothes Dryers
-an occasional sock prolongs life of the single sock
-an unzipped anything will find a way to hook itself into the smallest gap and become so twisted that it will become the star in its own cartoon story starring the Tazmainian Devil
-think they are cooler than a clothesline in the spring despite their energy sucking capacities
Plastic Lids
– FRISBEE!!!
I couldn’t put all that into a wonderful haiku or poem…EVER.
That is all for now, from what I sometimes think is a busy drop in center of sorts!
🙂 Pam
Wow! So much great information! You’re absolutely right that you could never fit all that into a haiku — but it might make a wicked fun haiku series. I think you’re really onto something with that MacGyver observation: Mac (and wannabees) may be responsible for all kinds of unexplained phenomena involving common household objects. Maybe they enter the house through the dryer portal in search of materials and inadvertently pick up a sock now and then, via static cling, on their way back out. You’ve given me much to ponder this dreary February day…thanks! 🙂