that pencil
was decisive as an arrow once
but soon I noticed
it was always a little short of sharp
but maybe
but who can say
anyway I persevered
and every scratch of the way
there was that pencil
unsharp ever
barely shy of blunt at times
anyway I persevered
now look at it
all chewed up like an argument
nobody won
Image: Chewed Pencils by Arthur Williams, published under a Creative Commons  Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license.