At The Point Of The Pencil; Such Heavy Lifting Of A Little Twig

for Denis Baron and for my students thinking creatively about their word adventures

At first I can't get beyond blocks and mental static to spot my favorite pencil

lying right in front of me, it's quite thicker than a number 2 could be

After panic, frantic desktop scans, end rhyming, and internal sound jams

finding me, I have my little tail wagging and ready to bark in my grasp

Fingers twisting the shaft sharpen this idea inspection with knowing lead

gave way to graphite long ago (1560 to be exact), later came erasing words like memory

In fact, Summerian inscriptions date back to 3500 BC

making writing's recall five or more millennia long not counting what is lost

What is a pencil without caoutchouc? Language without a dictionary?

What is an author without his pooch lying loyally at everyone's feet

Are you reading all sorts of woofs behind the scenes?

X Rated because you know rubber comes from sticky ficus juice?

But rubber's remembered name is not caoutchouc (cow' chewk)

(god bless you) as it sneezes away pencil marks like silence

Unearthed ten thousand year-old carvings recently found sleeping in Syria

wake thinking up that could link art to underground writing history

Will what the pencil scratches now last as long or go grave deep? Is writing's

timeless scam what draws readers in as willing shills whose souls are only pencil strong?

This broad mutt's brand name is Quattro though it's really a Michaelangelo

in wood bleeding yellow, blue, green and red lead that must mix unpredictably

Into purple, brown, and orange marks alphabetically graying themselves

with lost direction and memory about where to go next in our paper world

The innuendo techno-dog waits just beyond his daily walk time pawing

at this poem and supposing to know the next necessary pencil and paper path

For now, let's nose sniff the future to gauge the shade of plagiarism

that each character and syllable might pencil as more civilized mind stealing