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Anais Vionet Dec 2021
I get a little look from the guy sitting beside me.
I find I’m tapping my pencil to the cadence of the rain
I give a little “sorry” head nod and he goes back to work.

Hhmm.. I’ve chewed up my pencil again.
It looks wood chopped or shark mauled.
Maybe I should quit university and invent flavored #2 pencils.
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2018
~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
Ruby Tuck Nov 2018
I'm sitting at my desk after a math test
And on my math test, I really tried my best,
But now, thank god, I get to rest
And play with my colored pencils.

I feel like it's been so much time
since I've written in colored pencil rhyme,
But I find, it really is sublime
Writing in something other than monochrome grey.

As I sit and gaze at my pencil collection,
I am realizing that it has turned to obsession,
But there are twelve colored pencils for three stanza perfection,
So, for poetry's sake, I guess it's okay.
I actually did write this the first time in colored pencils after a math test.
Ruby Tuck Nov 2018
19
19
dictionaries stacked on the shelf near the blackboard
19
papers i have lying on my desk
19
thoughts inside my head
19
people sitting around me
19
threads lying lonely on the floor
19
pencils scratching
19
florescent lights bearing down upon my weary eyes
19.
i found the number 19 in the "words" section of the website and decided to write about my class. there are, in fact 19 people in my class, which is pretty cool.
She's beautiful
And young
But she is afraid of love
She wouldn't want to cry again
Since her dear one ran away

You loved her
But she's not who mama wants ;
She's yoruba.
You can't look at her anymore
Ever since you rose her belly up
And left to marry Amaka

The girl is sad
She is tired of life
Not knowing who to confide in
Or share her pain with
Because you too don't care
Just like her only dear


You are busy biting her skin
With the stigma you show!
She's just a kid
And should be in school, we know.
But you led her on to this road
You told her not what she should have known
You thought children of 'adays know
But look...Ola is now one month old


She feels bad
But you're now a father
Why not be glad?
No.. You still fear her father
And not anymore in love with her
You bring her fresh tears
But shower Amaka with care
And look... Your baby is fatherless
Or without a father's care?



You may have broken her,
You all...
But not her beauty
For inside her lies preciousness
Like every other girl child
And take her as your pride
Even though she's not your heir
And don't break her heart
Even if  you stopped to care
oh! not to throw her out,
If she has ever erred
Oh child,
Show care.





...........................................................­



©Uzor
The girl child, like other children, is precious to the society especially the family they are born into.


Children are gifts. You don't mould them to be what you would want them(selfishly), but unfold and nuture that uniqueness in them.  

Paying 'attention' not only to our children, but to those that feel unloved amongst us, goes a long way to saving that precious person that is a gift to the society.

Though broken, YOU are beautiful.


Thank you for reading, and for your understanding.
Lady Grey Sep 2017
The gentle slide of a pen
Is far more pleasing to me
Than the metal skRITCH ScreECH
Of a mechanical pencil.

I keep and treasure my pens,
As they are each unique
And hard to replace
While pencils are a dime a dozen.

Pencils are easily lost
And I’m always in the want for more,
For better
As though they don’t fulfil their purpose to me.

I dislike the infidelity of a pencil,
The fact that anything done can be undone with a stroke from the other end
Erased, just like that.
Unlike the reality of a pen.

Once something is set in motion with a pen,
There is no going back.
Hailyn Suarez Sep 2017
Pencil tips are like
Ladies hips
Gently swaying to the music
Gliding on frosted marble,
Drinking in the purity of
Rough parchment

Pencil tips are for when
ideas form words and
words form complexity
Scratching into notebooks,
Mountain peaks,
Translating concepts into
Mount Rushmore

Pens are too forceful
Permanent
Pencils can be erased
Just like every memory stored
Within a coffee can
In a homemade time capsule

The priest said God is pure
But when he made us,
He used pencil tips,
paper thin lines
Tracing and retracing
Imperfectness is perfect he said

Japanese paintings
Created with brush strokes
Evok-ing pictures of marvelous queens,
Cowardly jesters,
Mighty kings,
Elegant ballerinas, and
Alluring princes

Pencil tips created these fantasies
Dreams
Grandiose mirages fold and unfold
On top of tissue paper bibles,
Delicate taut skin

How do words create overbearing tears,
phantom heartbreak,
Jealous ex-girlfriends,
Infidelity infested ignorant *******,
breathtaking wedding bells?

Pencil tips
Written in University at Buffalo, while visiting my boyfriend, after loosing my first draft and having to start all over again.
SQUID Aug 2017
Pencils have voices
some are wheedly.
Others, warm, ripe,
Fruit. For hearing.
TS Jul 2017
I won't eat
I won't sleep
I won't brush my teeth

Instead I write.

I won't cry
I won't laugh
I won't see my friends

Instead I write.


Eating does not fill me. When I try to sleep, I toss and turn. No need to brush my teeth when I won't go outside.

Stories are my nourishment. I drift off to dreamland in prose. My soul is cleansed with antonyms and synonyms, similes and metaphors.

Crying brings no freeing feeling. Laughing holds no joy. Friends will soon just leave me and take with them my heart.

I pour my tears into a song to convey all that I feel. I laugh along with Shakespeare as he inspires every play. All my friends are pencils because they're useful and won't leave. And if one happens to skip away, break or reach an end; aisle 4, below the staplers, I can always buy some more.
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