Desk

Senior, Martin Mazurik, published in New York State English Council
"The Student as a Writer", for submitted poems, 1980

Desk

A desktop screams at you -
begging for a kind word,
a new coat of paint.

You sympathize with the desk,
but your subconcsious impluses drive
your pen's tip
through the old, brittle varnish.

The ink hardly comes out,
but you've already done enough -
a mark is made.

You've become one of them now -
you've changed.

From a learned schoolboy
to an irresponsible,
worthless, graffiti artist!

Still you keep scribbling;
hoping yours will be the pen
that draws a new Mona Lisa,
a new Shakespearean verse, perhaps.

You produce nothing,
more scribble appears.

Stopping- how childish to write
on a useless piece of furniture.

No Tolstoy or Shakespeare
would waste their time
trying to help this desk.

This one more mark should help ....

Marty Mazurik