Green Paper Dreams
He made his first money being a paper boy,
tossing the newspapers onto people’s front porch
He liked getting the perks ...
milk and cookies, lemonade,
apple pie ... the whole works
But he loved getting the tips,
the extra paper coins to fatten the money clip
And with each job he got growing up,
he always felt his bank account didn’t have enough,
wasn’t quite big enough
He loved to dream green paper dreams
Sitting on the porcelain slop jars, he would dream,
sitting on wooden stools at out-of-town bars, he would dream
Sitting in leather seats on train porter cars, he would dream,
sitting next to plastic body C-list Hollywood celebrity stars,
he would really dream
But his mother Dorothy told him wise things ...
She said:
Boy-o, you’re sure to slip and fall,
chasing down that Yellow Brick Road
Running your life in the ground
chasing after fool’s gold
Don’t let the glittering chains shackle your soul,
Don’t let the love of money
take you somewhere you don’t wanna go
I know the color you dream,
but the color of life is more than the color of green
Now he loved his mother, almost as much as he loved his money
But he didn’t love her reproof as much as the green
For that forest color paper,
he’d do just about anything ...
short of being forcibly separated from this planet green
But life has a sense of humor, y’know
Drab gray wasn’t the color he envisioned
for his fortress castle
Also, orange wasn’t the color he had planned on
to stock his wardrobe
And green envy, nobody had for him
in the place where he was at
Having time marked off, ten more years to go
He still dream green paper dreams ...
getting his hands on it,
rolling around naked on it
He still dream green paper dreams ...
his thoughts of them are hidden
between the mattress seams
Copyright © Freddie Robinson Jr. | Year Posted 2017
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