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PMc May 2021
My pen is leaking
ink pooling into my pocket protector
the one I’ve had since before the new math
My uncle gave it to me – I remember
it’s got the logo of his insurance company on it.
that and, now the ink stain.

Ink running through the cracks in the pocket protector
leaking where uncle’s meat thermometer pushed through tight plastic
staining a once yellow shirt

Stopping by the dry-cleaner for pick up
the vendor says she couldn’t get it all out
but it’s better than it was.
Hands me a small plastic sandwich bag filled with strips of paper
the size of those you see on magnets
for fridge poems

“Don’t know where these came from” she says, “****** near ruined my dryer
spinning around there – clogging up the air exhaust”

words……
I whisper under my breath

From the ink.  
The words in the pen
would not go unnoticed.

I pay her – grab my shirt, my jacket, my tie
grab the baggie of words
in no particular order
thank her
and with the welcome bell’s ding
I head into the street
a very satisfied customer

****** pen is still leaking by the time I get home
It’s leaking tears by now
tears that fill the ink well of my memory
dip and scribble dip and scribble

Thoughts almost painful
long forgotten
or so I thought
Last days on Brunswick Avenue
knowing I would have to return to school
emptying that huge street-facing bedroom
I got a lot of miles looking out of those windows
if I wrote a lot
I don’t remember
Late nights, very early mornings listening to
the hourly chime of that nameless clock
that made up the entire downtown Toronto skyline back in the day

The words that dotted the paper sometimes
sometimes made no sense
my friends politely remarking
“That’s good.  I like it” were unhelpful

Further future desperation wasn’t far
just need a receipt or a bar napkin or
a box from a Big Mac ripped into 4x2x1x2x4
whatever I could get my hands on
just trying to appease the leaking pen
from getting too far ahead of my regretful memory.

IOUs, shopping lists, debits to society
love poems, goodbye notes, “I miss you”
they’re all there, we just have to remember what they are

Words write themselves.  
The ink, the tears
the blood, the fridge magnets
have already formed the words.
I am the one with the ideas
when I meet a new lover or
fall out of favour with an “ex” – yet again or
attempt to describe three shades of orange or
when I want to remember to pick up pickles

They are stuck in the pen
until I am ****** good and ready
with the roll of the ball-point
to see where the words land this time.

drip
drip
drip
Written as part of a pandemic poetry group from Jun 2020.  We challenged one another to various formats and "themes".  I think this one was to "write about writing".  Alas, the pocket protector and the insurance company are my doing.
Pum Sid Apr 2021
Pens
were made
to remind me
that I still have something
to hold on to.

Pages
do exist
to make me understand
that they lived
for me to continue.

Words
are there
to show to me
that I am not alone.

Poetry
has its own ways
of telling me
that I am home.
chang Oct 2020
there are days
i only feel like a burden.
someone who fills backseats
so that someone could be at the front.
and the weight of my own bones
are too heavy for a family name to carry.
heavy enough to crush a sorry girl.
my breaths are sometimes apologies
people refuse to hear.
im sorry if i am this way.
i wish i could be something more.
Susy Kamber Sep 2020
Writers choose pens that are inked with words.
The color of ink might be a peach colored verb.
The adverb joins in with a red that is flashy.
The prose is beginning to read somewhat ******.
The noun is thinking to mellow this down,
But the writer wants more from what has been found.
An adjective presents with its green colored hue.
Then gold trickles in making the vivid story true.
Yes, writers choose pens and words choose colors.
Stories then written,
For us and for others.
https://www.susykamber.com/
Ekphrastic Poetry Explores Art
Meysa May 2020
Pen
I am a writer and I've always known it.
Even when my feeble self-esteem conspired against my urge to pick up a pen.
I carried it around
like you carry relics
my pens.
Remained tethered to them.
I write now.
Perhaps because I am not a talker.
Anisah Mar 2020
There's dirt under my fingernails
There's pen marks on my hand
I don't know how they got there
I just don't understand
I'm curled up in a corner
My stomach is tied in knots
There's something crawling in my throat
I can't connect the dots
I've lost the feeling in my arm
From clutching it to my head
Crying up the distance
That they should have made instead
Faintly in the backdrop
They simmer in something mean
I wash my hand with soapy water
But the marks can still be seen
All I hear are glasses
They smash towords the floor
All I smell is putrid gas
From the night out just before
I'm getting kind of sleepy
And we're past the midnight mark
But it's difficult to dream
When the dreams you made are dark
But nontheless I'm sleeping
I move but make no sound
And I wake up in the morning
There's empty bottles all around
I don't know what happened to you
Because the laughter falls like sand
But there's dirt under my fingernails
And pen marks on my hands.

- Anisah Mariah
Alek Mielnikow Nov 2019
The pens I went
to bed with left
streaks of ink
on my sheets and
pillowcases. We
soiled these
sheets with
unleashed intimacy,
with authenticity,
with validation,
with imagination
and creativity.

And when we
finished, when we
had jotted thoughts
as clear as we
could, we drifted
off to sleep. When
I woke from my
dreams, I would look
at the product of
this conception,
full of pride.

Then I’d look down
and see the blots
across my body,
my bed, my sheets,
and chuckle at the
mess it takes to
create these darlings.


-
by Aleksander Mielnikow
(Alek the Poet)
If you're curious, the pens and sheets I use are BIC Atlantis® Exact Retractable Ball Pens on TOPS Docket Gold Writing Pads.
Anthony Pierre Nov 2019
In the weirdest turn of events that day
As a cop toting guns and pepper spray
I gathered an urge to pen my first ode
In my lunch hour, before hitting the road

To sirens and light of my precinct's space
not a stanza wrote, yet my mind's apace
the pen's the problem; confidence recede
Pondered a visit to a friend, indeed

Thoughtful I'm moving, this old clue I'd act
on Brooklyn's pen thief; kleptomaniac
acquired from him, an ink dipping quill
of Huia birds, still boxed with its bill

Case solved; on the back of the bill it hints
"Dear Mayor, pen's for poems; lead's for thugs."
A Peculiar Pen's Poem...still beating the street
N.B. Huia (pronounced HOO EE UH) birds feathers cost $10,000 a single pluck
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