I Sleep With Pencil Lead in My Hand

January 2, 2009 by lamarhowell

pencil-lead

I have a piece of lead stuck in the palm of my right hand

It happened in 1967 behind my school

I often wondered if it would go to my heart one day and kill me

Now I use graphite – the harmless carbon used to lubricate machinery

It is not deadly, like lead

I write, not because I have a piece of lead stuck in my hand

not to be praised

nor to prove I can

not from lead bottom boredom

or the graphite can’t-help-its

or to doodle my brains out

not to release steam from a leaky brain valve

I write for meaning, truth, beauty

Alternately raw shocking

numbing graveyard-shouting life

I want to write the rigor back into rigor-mortis

Prayer back into the praying mantis

To put the leap back into the boiling frog

To draw condensation out of rolling fog

To light up the city with the electri-city

To see the things we all praise pitied

Not to worry — I will not jam my lead into your flesh

But I will take the sigh out of your synapse

and put the fight back into graphite

So, if you ever shake my right hand,

squeeze tight, pause

and know why I write.

on January 2, 2009 at 4:42 pm | Reply Bonnie

Thoroughly enjoyed this, Lamar!

Happy New Year to you!

Bonnie
on January 23, 2009 at 3:43 pm | Reply Tim

I got a piece of pencil lead (graphite) into the palm of my hand in the late 60s as well. I was balancing my pencil on my desk, held up in the circle of my finger and thumb, then lifting my hand and trying to lower it again before the pencil fell over. I was unsuccessful the second time…. The little gray tattoo remained in the base of my forefinger for many years. Recently I took a look at my palms and discovered that it’s no longer visible.

According to Wikipedia, ‘the black core of pencils is still referred to as “lead,” even though it never contained the element lead.’ Pencils were developed in England after the discovery of a huge deposit of graphite in the 1500s in Cumbria. The original pencils were sticks of graphite wrapped in string or sheepskin. The graphite found in the rest of the world is lower grade and has to be crushed to powder and reconstituted.
on January 25, 2009 at 3:01 am | Reply lamar howell

Thanks Tim. I didn’t classify this under “science challenges” or I would have researched it out. For literary purposes, I like to leave a little danger and dare in my writings. I’ve only heard that “they use graphite now because it is not dangerous like lead”
on May 26, 2010 at 12:43 pm | Reply Thivya

realy nice. you have put a nice pencil. useful information. thank you so much.