~for granddaughter Wendy on her first birthday~
mailman delivers a
a small bubble wrapped envelope,
an internet purchase made a long sometime ago
accompanied by an enjoyable, self-served and self-serving,
"you're a good fella"
pat on the back
a spurting act of the what-the-heck,
trigger pulling, self-pleasuring,
donating a few bucks to saving poetry,
****** in by a suckers click bait
sent money to the
keepers of poems;
they even give something
in return.
sensible pencils.
a non-rational purchase;
@ $6 dollars per leaded squib,
a wooden helping kiss rife with possibilities
all for a goodly cause
preservation band society poetic
this one-and-done impulse many weeks ago,
followed by an immediacy forgeting,
then, an eye stabbing,
a widening wow weeks later
upon receipt
of an unexpected 5 pencil's all poems poetry reciting!
5 pencils. No. 2’s,
on each a phrase,
a poet's name and their singular words parsed
(see the notes).
paired passages from five poets,
deemed and distinguished to be
commemorated-worthy
and
what's more apropos than a dangerous instrument of a
loaded leaded pencil,
that can be used to add to the
Ever Expanding Universe of Verbal Liturgy
("and I helped")
.
once briefly dusted off the top of closeted dreamy days,
my notions of acclaim gone, silly gone,
my only marks now are erasures,
tiny rubber sheddings on paper
that's my marker,
a minus mark of deletion.
may yet come the day,
one will one gather up the
many survivors,
poem fauns, all my orphans,
give them to the
Wendy baby,
first,
she to metamorphose those
baby squeaks and giggles,
weighty weightless poem noises,
clapping, waving, delighted and delighting, kiss-throwing videos and that milk covered face,
into her own living words
all these noises that makes even non-poets
smile ear to ear unabashedly,
nodding in delight agreement
to her own non verbal
original poems
:
perhaps
one day a little girl
will stumble on five pencils,
mixed in within fifteen hundred poems not particularly well hid,
between worthless insurance policies and other artifacts,
memoirs and pointless depositions,
hid between her older sister and brother's
crayoned keepsakes
with pointed newly sharpened pencils
the very same,
this,
his Wendy,
might add
to the grandpere's poem collection with
pencils begging to be used,
for they are generationally and genetically,
pre-poetically enabled,
weighting the old memories
with new ballast and new balance,
from new verbal babies
all of her own.
What happens to a dream deferred? Langston Hughes
Won't you celebrate with me? Lucille Clifton
Do I dare disturb the universe? T.S. Eliot
I'm Nobody! Who are you? Emily Dickinson
Where can the crying heart graze? Naomi Shibab Nye
poets.org