Stupid Pencil Maker -- Shel Silverstein

Guest poem submitted by Zarine Ninan:

(Poem #892) Stupid Pencil Maker Some dummy built this pencil wrong, The eraser's down here where the point belongs, And the point's at the top - so it's no good to me, It's amazing how stupid some people can be. -- Shel Silverstein

It was really nice to see Silverstein getting his share of glory on the
Minstrels list a couple of days back [1], so here is another absurd one... I
for one simply love his work because it is so ridiculously silly. It just
makes me wonder if he is actually fatuous or a true genius!!! I'd sure like
to believe thet the latter is true.

Those who have had the pleasure of seeing the illustrations that go with his
poems, would agree that they just go hand in hand with his work.

I do regret that I never had a chance to read his work when I was growing
up, but that only gives me an incentive to go back to my childhood, where
even the simplest & most boring facts of life required over-the-top,
seemingly impossible explanations... And of course, these are exactly what
Silverstein offers.

-Zarine.

[1] Make that a couple of months, actually; see Minstrels Poem #845, Recipe
for a Hippopotamus Sandwich, by Shel Silverstein.