The Luddite's Ode

A pencil weaves its winding way,
planned or not, between the lines.
The hand that holds, the poise controlled;
a poet writes, but thinks of rhymes.

What joy it is to write so well
without a thought of one's technique
Of putting marks down: uprights, arcs
that do the heart's own language speak!

The mundane and the practical
the pigeonholed belief endorse
But see not this, and that do miss
which plainly does not prompt discourse.

So now their word-processor's come
and banished all our pens and ink,
The pencil with its humble fill,
in favour of machines that "think".

For now one needs to concentrate
(and poets' words are dangerous)
Not on rhyme, for that's sublime
but miskeying's ridiculous!

SiKee, '93