
Drawn with Pilot Pen V5 (aka Pilot Precise Extra Fine) on office pad. August 3, 2010.
The Man with Many Pens
by Jonathan Wells
With one he wrote a number so beautiful
it lasted forever in the legends of numbers. With another
he described the martyrs’ feet as they marched
past the weeping stones and cypresses, watched
by their fathers. He used one as a silver wand to lift
a trout from its spawning bed to more fruitful waters
and set it back down, its mouth facing upstream.
He wrote Time has no other river but this one in us,
no other use but this turn in us from mountain lakes
of late desires to confusions passed through
with every gate open. Let’s not say he didn’t take us
with him in the long current of his letters, his calligraphy
and craft, moving from port to port, his hand stopping
near his heart, the hand that smudged and graced the page,
asking, asking, his fingers a beggar’s lucent black,
for the word that gave each of us away.
More poetry from the New Yorker
I confess: I am weak for love pens and other writing instruments.
I have had a fascination with pens (and office supplies) since I was 4, when I would help organize my mother’s supply center at work. I was very scrupolous 🙂 In college, buying pens at the Varsity Store on Campus, or better yet, at Mathison’s, was therapy. Above you see my sine qua non pen.
And, one more thing for today: my blogsister Ghadah at PrettyGreenBullet gets an A.

Ghadah Alkandari. Isograph and Marker. Hand Exercise from 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' (Aug.2,2010)
Wow. I’ve always felt that buying stationery and pens and all those art supplies was exactly how you worded it, “therapy”! I have only met a handful that have admitted they felt the same way, as obsessed with all those minute details of how you hold a pen and how it changes and affects your writing and the list goes on and on. sweet post, friend.
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Thank you for the view Dasha! I love your paintings. Great work. Oh I have a post for you too: don’t go to san francisco 😉
https://sketchbloom.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/paper-goods/
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As you might know I can identify with this…
“no matter where I am there’s always enough time to buy a pen”
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I would rather buy pens than food…any day!! It’s really bad 😛
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i have always wanted to start a stationery shop…that way can live with pens an pencils and colors and stationery…nice post
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We have a name in Italian for this: Una Cartoleria! My favorite place since I was little…and it carries school books too……
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