My Pencils Get Way Out of Hand

My pencils get way out of hand. They squiggle their

bounty licentiously into crass wannabe art nouveau

swells – enough that they ought for a time to be banned,

and remanded to moderate hells: say, some carbon

equivalent of going down on one’s knees to scrub tiles

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in latrines. But there aren’t equivalents, really; unless it’s

what pipe smokers do in a pinch when they run out of pipe

cleaners: push a slim pencil by fractions of inches right into

the flue of a briar, distinctly as if it were scraping the soot

and the tar and the ash of a fire off brick in a hearth.

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But I don’t smoke pipes. And, gripes about how they

transgress notwithstanding, I’m secretly thrilled that they

not only don’t make a mess but go mad for kaleidogram

symmetries: that they joyously leap into all opportunities

to create unity they then divide into pleasing geometry,

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set up in balanced asides. Ergo, I grant them immunity

de la plupart des anciennes lois. They’re free to cause riots

of silly buffoonery now with impunity. As long as their play

offers symmetry not one whit less than Versailles. As long

as when I come upon them I cannot not sigh an “Oh My!”

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