A desktop screams at you --
begging for a kind word, a new coat of paint.
You sympathize with the desk,
but your subconscious impulses 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...
Martin Mazurik, Age 17
Grade 11
Alexander Central School, Alexander
Joan D. Ansbrow, Teacher
