CALGARY A PENCIL LAND
CALGARY A PENCIL LAND


Once in Calgary pencil land
Lived pencils and erasers
And shavings and sharpeners
As sharp as pointy lead heads
The ministers of Calgary
Of snow-capped mountain peaks
The Staedtlers Pencil Tips
And Pencil Nibs Apsara’s
Of the blue and bold beautiful century
Skies, Skyscrapers, and rivers
Lands and cities
Its rich diverse and cultural heritage of Panoramas
Once the happy pencil point
King Natraj and Queen Camelin
With his many princes Floras
And charming princesses Doms
And their Musgrave Pencil Tip slaves
Came to the conclusion they had to have
A pencil dance competition
Maybe even a pencil race
Of all ethnics and colours
Or all races and erasers
Sharpeners and sharpening
As quick-witted as black lead
As clever as crows at their pointy beaks
Bluebonnets and necks are so sweet
With their scrawly scribbly earthworms
In their scrawly scribbled nests
Of twigs and dead pointed leaves and
Black and white pencil bracken shavings
Of shaded trees upon straggling boughs
Shadows zig-zagged their crow perches
The sunshine arrows dispersed
The day was announced as a great big holiday
The skies were etched with shading black
Dense clouds gather upon
The bleak snow-capped mounts
As snow began to fall in clumps
Each is different and unique from everyone
The pencils raced on canvas sheets
Drawing snow-capped peaks to coal fledged bullet trains
And buses that ran on electricity
Up the flora and fauna of the blundering
The heights of such a magnanimous city
Even jungles and wolves
Abounded in nooks
With lions and camels just spreading
Their hooks and talons
Hoping to grasp the fancy dress competition
That the pens of lead took the lead
And pencils of buttering heads took heed
Seemed to convey to stick-figure masses
As they would begin to race riot ahead
On the papers
That lead points propelled an array
One intellectual pencil head
Wearing a scholar collar of a graduate degree
Was so small as it used up all its sketch
To participate because it possessed all wisdom
That every pencil tip yearned
To amass in the century of Calvary’s heritage
The little hermit of hermitage
Looked so small yet pompous
And Heady all the way started to wink at the rest
In the line of those who competed with him
There was one so tall
That almost touched the skies
Looked like he was never written at all
On paper Bligh’ a blighted knave
Maybe all the hearts of a Princess are red and rosy
On his sleeves he displayed
Even one so fat and heavy
Looked as if he’d fall like a leaning tower
Of Pizza already
He loved drawing pizzas and towers
Of ovens with bakers and Sous chefs of Calgary
Already was the muscular head pencil point
Ready for some action and delicious soufflés
He was so muscular and looked as
If he could charge with the horns of bulls
And batter like a ram
As he was tough from a China shop
And drew porcelains and art
Called Still Life
Right from vases to plates
Even spoons and forks
And was one champion Vincent of Arles
To commemorate his feats of surprises
In painting and sketching to this day
In the Museum of Lourdes
Further several pope heads and bishops
Gathered around to see the participants
And bade them good luck
On their journey
Of fancy dress and sketch
Beyond boundaries taking into limits
Architectural, drawing, photorealism
Cartoon, geometric, hatching, pointillism
Scribbling, sketching,
stippling, line drawing
Grids, meshes, bars and stripes, Anamorphic
Doodling, caricature, and spectacular periscope
Called Perspectives
Even portraits, scumbling and abstracts like
Pablo Picasso inventions
Contour, scribbling, hatching, tattoo
And fashion illustrations
Race without cheating
As the bullets were shot from a pencil point
It broke unfortunately at its joints
Yet the fancy dress race continued
To squeal with laughter and applause
From the pulpits at the side
The pencils raced one by one
On their canvases mounted upon easels
With wit, humour, strength, and appeal
Some broke nibs and some of their points
And couldn’t proceed any further
Whilst the one who raced ahead
Was the muscular steed
As it was foretold in the Gypsy ball
Of fame, luck, and fortune
For fancy dress races to one and all
This muscular lead of lead
Was beyond breath and beyond mark
Get set and ready to go
By the bullet pen
His name Faber-Castell
And such were the parodies
Of the pencil land of Calgary
With snow-capped tips
Of mountain peaks
Snowflakes of different shapes
And sizes of etchings
They buffered as they fell
As light as featherweight champions
Atop Skies, Skyscrapers and rivers
Lands and cities
One could imagine
Beyond beliefs
All lived happily in Pencil land
Though withstanding bickering and animosities
Its pencil nibs and pencil tips
Flora and fauna
And the muscular steed
Took off again on his pen-tip voyages
To Kilimanjaro white mountain
Its volcanic snow-covered peaks of Tanzania, Africa
Instead of feathers and quills along the way
The Yankee of Doodling
Jotted down dashes, the snow and sleigh
His mark is like the Super Santa Claus
Of idioms, crosswords, and fair play
When he took off and disappeared on
One of his fated missions to conquer
His youngest son a tall strapping lad
Faber-Castell ghost copycat replaced
His shoes and silvery gauntlets
Riding a leaden black
Pointy pony of conundrums
And a black-bearded goatee so long
In lovely jigsaw puzzles
And joint the dots only
Pencils related to stoic students of Superior
Grace who wished to win like him
The Battle of a Fancy Dress Parade!
Brett my son
Do compete with Staedtlers
Even to display your pointers
With antennae’s
You’d turn into a dashing butterfly
Or an alien creature
From Mars
Or a stag with horns to display
Y’see drawing is a talent
That Graphic Artists
Revel on computers
With pencils that blend imagination
Purely from mouse pads
So never say a pencil is obsolete
As art is unique in whatever sphere
You fashion
Maybe even out of clay
That God-fashioned required an outline
For the first humans Adam and Eve
He sketched on paper
Believe it or not only with a help
Of an imaginary invisible Pencil
Of course, made of lead!
Even the colts, fellies and snake
That wrapped and coiled around
The old Apple Tree of Knowledge
For Truth and Wisdom
Seemed a curse or bane
To all the kingdom
To choose their pencil bit
Of loss or fame!
And make it a wonderful story
From wood and lead~
One-legged Soldier and Ballerina
Of Hans Christian Anderson
Beautiful Faery Tales
To remember till eternity
My good son Brett!
Till my next story, I pen
Rather quill I mean out of my hood
A pencil of lead