The pencil just sat there.
Not being chewed, or sharpened.
Not on the verge of a great novel.
Unused. Unnecessary.
...
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This is a poem that not only makes me think, it makes me laugh.
The pencil is a tool that needs a hand to move it to create in this symbiotic relationship.Very sharp poem... a ten from me..
This is another short, sweet, incisive poem like Dear Reader. You have a very precise point you want to make and target it with admirable speed and accuracy. You don't make the mistake of using a Big General Statement which often fails because of its unwieldy size; you use small concepts from modest situations, which the reader can expand in her/his imagination. It's wonderful how you shape these vignettes to suggest much larger themes and then trust the reader to intuit the larger meaning.
That #2 pencil could be any of us who has a great idea but insufficient literary skills to articulate it. And so we have to rely on outsiders to help fill in the gaps of our lack of expertise and now our personal vision is being compromised by other people's take on it. Their ideas aren't bad but this is my show - they're helpers not shapers. But a deadline is coming up and I can't make it alone, so I have to trust them. It's so difficult to realize in reality the work which is so perfect in my mind! (It's a lot easier being a #2 pencil!)