SMELL OF PENCILS
I reek of pencils.
I smell of pencils.
I collect pencils—
thousands by now.
My first, a drawing pencil,
French: Conté, forest green,
an HB. Hone from cedar.
Smells like incense sharpened.
Shavings fill the sharpener.
I throw them on a fall fire,
a burning pencil smell—
of pine resin or old mold.
The lead doesn’t smell like
lead. A mix of graphite
and clay, its burn can stink
of sulfur, paint impurities.
Between my finger and thumb
this French pencil rests, like Seamus
Heaney’s squat pen rests, digging
potatoes with his father.
Cold smell of potato mold,
perfume from soggy peat,
stench of rotting roots too long
in earth. I’ll write that.
PENCILS
One of my hobbies is collecting pencils. I seek a certain kind of pencil—drawing pencils that are enameled and have no eraser. These are commonly known as the type of pencil that artists use to sketch. I use them to write, often in Moleskine notebooks. The highest quality pencils are made of cedar wood, and the fill is a mix of clay and graphite. These pencils are “graded” in terms of hardness (labeled “H”) and blackness (labeled “B”). The H scale runs up to 7, as does the B scale. These scales have been the standard for pencils made in Europe. Note that pencils labeled HB are frequently used— they represent the “go-to pencil”. For comparison, the American scale is strictly a single numerical scale, with a higher number indicating more hardness. In the US, the most common pencil grade is a No.2 (e.g. the popular yellow Ticonderoga), which translates to an HB on the European scale.) I have something like a thousand of these artist pencils, from all over the world. I could tell you more, but I’m sure this is more than enough for now.
PEAT
Peat, in the bog, looks like
a BBQ grill brush or an SOS
pad, light and porous, a thick
rectangle. Peat’s not turf—
turf has grass on one side.
Peat’s dug in squares, looks
like Legos, stacked.
Burns smoky, but clean,
with a welcome smell.
PENCILLED LINES
Veins map pink territories
like graphite streams
flowing to a Xanadu.
I’m watching your hand— its pencil, its deaf
circles blackening the page before you,
the black less dense with that Swiss-made type F,
rich wild offspring of the No. 2.
Not just a pencil, it’s a writing tool,
the Swiss-chocolate of pencils, silver
Caran d’Ache, with its hexagonal ferule.
Bet you’re scribbling a scented sonnet.
Wait.
It’s sure
not sketching. You are writing.
Could be it’s a list, a reckoning of some sort, a summing…
Now you leave. I see the notebook cover:
Calculus scribbles – long way from clover.
—About the Author—
Mike Lewis-Beck writes from Iowa City. He has pieces in American Journal of Poetry, Alexandria Quarterly, Apalachee Review, Aromatica Poetica, Big Windows Review, Birdseed, Black Bough, Black Coffee Review, Bluebird’s Scribe Review, Blue Collar Review, Bluestem, Cider Press Review, Columba, Cortland Review, Chariton Review, Eastern Iowa Review, Ekphrastic Review, Frogmore Papers, Guesthouse, Heavy Feather Review, I-70 Review, The Inquisitive Eater, MockingHeart Review, Pennine Platform, Pilgrimage, Pure Slush, Rootstalk, Seminary Ridge Review, Southword, the tiny journal, Turtle Island Review, Trollopiana and Wapsipinicon Almanac, among other venues. He has two books of poetry, Rural Routes, and Shorter and Sweeter, by Alexandria Quarterly Press.
*Check out Mike’s other AP contributions HERE!