#pencils
I’m the princess of typos
a mistress of mistakes
the duchess of defects
a lady of lapses
the empress of errors
Let’s keep things informal
you don’t have to bow
I carry as many erasers
as the law allows
From now on, you can call me ‘Your highness,’
unless they start dusting off the guillotines.
My written French is, at best, imperfect, I make grave mistakes.
Mixing up things like my é (aigus) and è (graves).
“Without the mistakes,” the TA shrugged, “you had one of the highest marks.”
“Baiser-moi,” I whispered, disappointedly. I thought I’d written a solid paper on omega balances and oxidative stress measurements.
Now that I’m in med-school
I’ve so many things to learn.
Did dinosaurs like doughnuts?
Do squirrels tell nutty jokes?
But it’s Sunday, I’m not learning anything today.
I am, in fact, languishing in free-hours.
It’s an unnatural scene - no pencils, no books,
no studying student’s ***** looks.
Pencils are having a heyday, in Paris, this year - they’re finally chic!
I’ve always been a pencil girl (did I mention typos?). I know everyone says that now but it’s true, I swear. Making the Girl Scout Sign
“Agh! I need a pencil,” someone said in class, just yesterday. I pretended not to hear them and griped my #5 mechanical-pencil a little closer and tighter.
.
.
Songs for this:
The Spot - Your Smith
Decide to be happy - MisterWives
.
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🎄🦌 It's that time of year - Here's a Christmas Playlist 🎄🦌
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_16.mp3
Nov 15, 2025
Nov 15, 2025 at 10:36 PM UTC
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.
Dec 15, 2021
Dec 15, 2021 at 9:39 AM UTC
~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.
Jul 14, 2018
Jul 14, 2018 at 3:56 PM UTC
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.
Nov 12, 2018
Nov 12, 2018 at 11:11 PM UTC
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.
Nov 2, 2018
Nov 2, 2018 at 12:51 PM UTC
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
Nov 8, 2017
Nov 8, 2017 at 8:31 PM UTC
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.
Sep 25, 2017
Sep 25, 2017 at 11:47 AM UTC
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
Sep 21, 2017
Sep 21, 2017 at 5:13 PM UTC
Pencils have voices
some are wheedly.
Others, warm, ripe,
Fruit. For hearing.
Aug 2, 2017
Aug 2, 2017 at 10:52 AM UTC
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.
Jul 6, 2017
Jul 6, 2017 at 9:32 AM UTC
I love pencils
Every tiny stroke tells a story
But never shares the glory
We are nothing but pencils
Jun 13, 2017
Jun 13, 2017 at 3:57 AM UTC
You were once vast, large and never lied
Stretching far and reaching high
Now you are a wooden twig
Pulled away and Broken by a pig
The pig who didn't care for what used to be
the magnificent tree
who sat in my yard by the garage and the pool
In which, you had rule,
over all those tiny sapling oaks
who now look up and mope
Because trees are limited and rigged with beehives,
but many see that as the loss of their wives.
Apr 24, 2017
Apr 24, 2017 at 1:57 PM UTC
Silkiness trickles down my calves
Pencil protruding from a puncture wound
Yellow woods, stained crimson
Oh…. Nothing there
Eyes travel over blooming hair
Grassy greens into a sky blue
On a sticky afternoon
I’m glad she didn’t notice
The pencil finally ends its dance
And the figures start to breath
Penciled eyes blink, sweet mouths curve
Please talk to me
A slender figure dancing on the trees
Right outside my window
What a curious way to entertain me
Why don’t people see?
I hallucinate there’s a world around
With people crowding all around
I imagine some asking, pleading, begging me
Muffled voices murmuring.
Wake up darling.
Be alive and speak
That’s why it’s only a dream
Apr 21, 2017
Apr 21, 2017 at 5:28 PM UTC
I collect pencils
Small, used and worn
They sit in a box on a shelf
They are reminders of stories told
Companions of bits of my moments
which have faded from mind
but are found on paper
spilled from pencils
Aug 1, 2016
Aug 1, 2016 at 6:41 AM UTC
My pink mechanical pencil
Is sitting right beside my computer
The brand and lead size
is worn off, from all the use
The eraser has been changed
Countless times
There is graphite dust
in a few places in the grip
My other pencil
the same but purple
Lost its clip
I wiggled my pencil too much
Which is why the purple one
Is out of order
When I'm bored
or anxious
I'll pick up my pencil
Spin it, wiggle it, open and close it
Take apart
and put back together
Anything that can be done to my pencil
Will be done
Thanks to my constant need
for motion
Jun 1, 2016
Jun 1, 2016 at 2:32 PM UTC
god stood by me, he hid in my pocket like a piece of amethyst
when i ran he turned into the forest to envelop me
his spirits became soft grasses, scented woods and colorful flower
The elderly woman in her garden in the early morning before the sun rises too high. She never sprays chemicals to get rid of the snails, instead she works and plants for and around them. This garden is to celebrate life, not to take it away. The wooden fence bordering her property is low and unoffensive enough to allow through woodland creatures who are never shooed away for taking a walk or a bite through the herbage. Perhaps she is atoning for a life of death and destruction. Or perhaps she is a saint.
They enjoyed things like making forts out of sticks and blankets and cardboard boxes and dressing up and going to the opera.
Memories, fresh like a wound.
Sometimes something so small. Going to the post office. A slideshow of post offices in my life. The disinfected paper smell, the lines of people waiting to mail a package, the solid colors of the interior, gray, black, white. A scrubby short haired black carpet, well worn.
I turned into a set of wings made out of crayon or colored pencil markings. As if pushed and pulled by the wind I stunned through the air, waving in the sunlight, pencil dashes of red and blue and purple. Like an animation from Reading Rainbow.
Thrown and tossed about like a lightweight wale in the sea. An enormous behemoth of grey and blue leaping like a kitten among the waves. It should be terrifying and would be if its teeth were any larger or sharper and if there was not such a happy gleam in its huge eye.
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 10:49 PM UTC
The eraser erased my bad habits
While the pencil drew in new ones
The glue stick glued on a whole new face
As the scissors cut away my background and past
The ball point pen then made the changes permanent
While the colored pencils shaded in my body
The calculator changed my way of thinking
As the sharpener grazed over my rough edges
Finally, the ruler
I had to measure up to your standards
Now me and you
We walk, talk and think the same
Two moving as one
I don't even know who I've become
What I was before
You've changed me more than you'll ever know
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 11:18 AM UTC
I hear a motor
In my head,
Cranking, moaning,
Turning, turning...
Nearly dead.
I have an onion
In my head;
Has it a seed
I can embed.
So I keep
Peeling, peeling...
I have a pencil
In my head,
An HB2
With blunted lead,
Scratching on
A blank cortex,
Itching to put
Thought to text.
Scratching, scratching...
I have dough
Inside my head,
Needing kneading
Just like bread.
When it's baked
Sliced and spread,
I'll serve it up
Outside my head.
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 10:01 AM UTC
Line them up like candle sticks
There, in every empty frame
Quiet, aligned, they greet me home
No two ones the same.
I came in from the bitterness
They fought their way on through
Blades and pines, the wilderness
More lines, yes, they speak too.
Are they notes of senselessness
That speak of wintry boyish grief?
Clearly, when the tears are long
The lead is ever brief.
I came to cry the voiceless song
Of terrors vague, but bleak
To beat my breast in poems plain
Intended hugeness, meek.
Dusted ‘long the desk far edge
The shavings are as ****** things
The grey won’t bulk, only defend
Both placate my rememberings.
Get these bards out from my head
The depth into, foolishly repenned
Confirmed in life as substanceless
--One to the window again.
Failed pillars of the balm I sought
Look there! The thoughts I had to lame
Cut from sweet youth, dumb and aloud
Deaths all lying silent, in vain.
Those faint shades of negate-gone
Drop down from the general tear
Left to cradle th’abundant soul
In silent tongues, songs left to bear.
Sep 10, 2014
Sep 10, 2014 at 11:06 PM UTC
The wisdom of the ages
falls deaf on silent ears,
when those of 'better' knowledge
lack in better years.
The words they speak are naught but verse,
a pretty, failing void;
They barter time and trade despair,
and on ignorance are sold.
They traipse about with jaunty stride-
merrily nonchalant-
flinging thoughtless wording
like an idiot savant.
To all those who have viewed them,
they are deemed to be unfit;
For who would suffer morons
when they have but half a wit?
In truth, they are our future,
but 'tis a future that I'd fear;
Too many of this generation
talk and will not hear.
They crave with desperation
a life too dark and harrowed,
for live lived in deprivation
'tis a point of view too narrowed.
They do not seek a power inside,
instead, they seek a chalice;
in which all the world's a stage-
but 'tis a poison breeding malice.
Oh- I weep!
for the years that lie ahead-
my brain rebels in horror,
my heart bleeds, raw and red;
The youth are turning old enough,
the future is uncertain;
and all because the high schools
treat education like a curtain.
"Behind this doors, labeled number one,
we have a distant future,
where minding manners, and respect
will make you kind and nurtured;
where all the pathways open up,
and you've made a great success;
...Or pick door number two,
and make life, now, a mess."
Of course our cock-sure young ones
will pick the latter door-
for partying, and breaking rules,
surely, there couldn't be more?
So to all the world, I say Nay!!
This is not the way for things to transpire!
What happened to change, and progress??
What happened to stoking the fire??
I won't support a mindless flock,
I will not suffer fools;
But most of all, I will not suffer
no education in our schools.
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 1:18 AM UTC