My pens
will usually
never linger.
They fly
like crows
from tree
to tree,
cawing out
short signatures
of guilt.
My cheap
plastic pens
move from pocket
to your
handbag and then
they’re lost.
I kept this blue pen
from the hotel
where we
saw the sun
swallowed
by a hungry sea.
And this pen
consumed my bank account
like a match
igniting bush-fires
of my childhood
village.
I draw doodles
on the back
of a receipt
for a box
tightly tied
with red ribbons
of apologies.
I wait and
drink my coffee
where doodle flowers grow
The forget-me-nots
are like drumsticks
that hammer
impatiently
for yet a sunset
for my pen.
From WIkimedia Commons
Today at dVerse Form for All, Tony teach us to write an Ode in the style of Pablo Neruda. Come join us at 3PM EST.
—
November 21, 2013
Björn Rudbergs writings 
Ah, to celebrate the pen — so helpful to us in writing and sketching without using a computer. I really like how you covered different pens and different uses, and that phrase about the hungry sea swallowing the sun was superb.
Thank you… I think you will see some wonderful other uses…
Finally someone shows pens love. 🙂 However, I am a pen snob….very funny about the ones I buy. I love them but they have to feel just right.
Pens just slip through my fingers…
I would cry a bit if I lost some of mine.
smiles….very cool….i lose and find pens all the time…if i am ever without one, it is not a good day…ha….cause just then i will need one….pretty cool those pens that remind us as well of the places we were and the memories attached
Yes.. those pens just come and go… that’s how it is… 🙂
Very nice ode to a very useful object! I also draw doodles, especially when I listen to other people during a meeting.
Indeed… doodles are important for my sanity sometimes
Love this. I used to have several very nice pens in my corporate life. My prized pen now is the one I got in Paris last year. Hoping I never lose it.
Prized pens are a waste on me… the inexpensive ones do the job.. (though I have a desk one to sign with at work)…
A pen is a worthy object about which to write an ode. Pens do have the power to consume one’s bank account very sneakily and subtly. There is might in such an innocuous looking item! One must take care to beware. (Ha!)
Never leave it to the pen to decide…
haha… i love this.. love how some pens remind us of some places.. i usually never lose my pens…they kinda stick with me…haha… and so small they are, so powerful they can be..
Fab-u-lous Bjorn. There’s nothing more ordinary, more commonplace for us as writers, than the humble, cheap biro. At last it has received at least some of the recognition it deserves.
I love the lines about the hungry sea consuming the sun and the pen consuming your bank account; these days we don’t even need pens for that.
I love what you did with the pen, doodles and flying like crows ~ I always lose mine everywhere ~ Yes, waiting for that sunset to strike the pen, ha ~ Happy day Bjorn ~
Your pen is def mightier than the bored, and since I write everything with a pen first, and blue pencil it in ink before I type it into a document on the computer, pens & I are compadres in compassion, buddies in bathos, friends in frenzy. My brother-in-law collects pens, so everywhere I travel I gather them for him. I own three pens handmade by veterans I used to work with; they are gorgeous.
For poetry, I must have my pencil. I did enjoy your ode to the pen though.
This is great! I had such fun reading it. I could picture each line clearly. I’m a pen collector. Even thought I tried very hard not to walk off with them! lol
I wonder if Mary got you. 🙂
Personally, I am not able to stick to a sheet of paper …
Pens have invisible legs and a life of their own! I enjoyed your fun ode 🙂
Pens don’t linger for me either. They’re fond of playing hide-n-seek. Loved your ode.
“move from pocket to your handbag and then they’re lost.”
I get accused of this so often – I’m totally innocent. No, really : )
Very nice! I lose my pens all the time too! I want to know more about that box with the red ribbon. 🙂
Always a companion despite competition from the keyboard as a modern tool. Well said Bjorn!
Hank.
I couldn’t live without one, really. Great, fun piece 🙂
Plastic pens and cheap earrings are never lost…only expensive ones. Liked your ode!
So creative! Who knew a pen could inspire so much. Well done, Bjorn 🙂
Bjorn,
Enjoyed the journey of the pen..why is it I can never find one in my purse when I need one???
One can’t help think that this object of affection and affliction (those horrid checkbook reigsters!) has the aura of the soon-to-disappear, the cachet of a totem soon replaced by something digital. Heavens, where would we be without our pens! Great ode …
Did you know pens are the larval form of wire coathangers?
Just the sort of pen I like too:) My doodles are always flowers whilst I talk on the telephone.
ABSOLUTELY engaging! …and WHO does not have a “favorite pen” which seems always evasive? Amazing what quick reads are these odes. And you embedded some lovely lagniappe-type to each stanza;
checkbook, vacation hotel, etc. So I go now to search my wife’s purse…for my own FAVORITE pen. Thanks!
This is now my new favorite of yours. Many of my pens travel exactly as you say, but I love the added glimpse into the narrator’s history.
You have a very active pen and this is super clever– I especially like the earlier stanZas re your bank account — all those brushfirea–and your relationship– the handbag, the hotel. The receipt and all the doodling are terrific too. There is a wonderful following through here that is very much like Neruda and gives a beautiful context to the object. I think you have two typos in the last stanza maybe– the period in the wrong place and I think hammers should be hammer. I hope you don’t mind my mentioning this– I feel like you won’t as I like the poem much. K.
Oh thank you so much – now it’s corrected.
Lovely, what places a pen can takes us…and all the different types I find them everywhere.