Dependable

A poet, I, dependably,
Never have a pencil on me.
Creating then pent-up demand
For any pens that come to hand
Like pigs trapped inside a pen
(Not where a convict perforce lingers,
But the poke between my fingers).
I miss as well the ink’s good neighbor,
The writer’s pal: a piece of paper,
And belong to that exclusive clique,
Known in France as Club Sans Bic.
With neither pen nor scroll,
A model so without a role
(So unfurnished is my work desk,
My naked script is pure burlesque),
That I might be thought untutored,
Where I not by luck computered,
Although a famous poet didn’t think
Writing possible without ink,
(He wrote me, as a puzzling lesson,
On his pointless Smith & Wesson—
That clacking lathe that dares anoint
Entire sheets without a point,
Not a Montblanc’s golden tip,
But a smelted metal strip,
Bulbous keys which, instead
Of dye, are made of lead,
Whose graven spawn escapes
Into stark commercial shapes):
A nib is still the iceberg’s tip—
Cloning glaciers from a drip,
A mound that propagates a mountain
A trickle that creates a fountain,
And yet, although its charms are endless,
I remain completely penless.

March 29th, 2020
Kailua

May 23rd, 2022
Kaiholu