“What the Pencil Writes” by James Laughlin:
Often when I go out I
put in my coat pocketsome paper and a pen-
cil in case I want towrite something down
well there they arewherever I go and as
my coat moves the pen-cil writes by itself
a kind of gibberishhieroglyphic which I
often think as I un-dress at night & take
out those papers withnothing written on
them but strange andmeaningless marks is
the story of my life.
(From The Collected Poems of James Laughlin, 1935-1997, edited with an introduction and notes by Peter Glassgold © 1995 by James Laughlin. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. Photo by Oscar Cortez)
The Dish 