Skip to main content

by Briggs Helton

1.Cheap pens are tragic implements, easily misplaced, forgettable. Buy a ten dollar pen shaped like a woman with complementary curvature. Engrave your initials in her.

2. Make invisible ink with lemons or urine.

3. Lick the point.

4. Pens with good grips grunt like Atlas.

5. Angels pluck their feathers, fill the calamus, and record our sins.

6. One radiant spring God held a dandelion, squeezed sticky, yellow juice from stem, and wrote the Bible on His forearm.

7. Words graven with an iron pen in the rock. Keep hidden desires in the pages of a hymnal.

8. I pray to see my pens in paradise, full of white ink.

Briggs Helton is from Wenatchee, Washington, and is the oldest of three children. Briggs was an all-state football player in high school and coached Timpanogos High School shot put, discus, and javelin for two years. He served a mission in Cleveland, Ohio. Teachers that have helped him write better include Mary Symonds, Lance Larson, Kimberly Johnson, Adrian Thayn, and Rick Duerden. Briggs married his best friend, Becca Fyans, last fall. Briggs is a Seahawks and Piero Searuffi fan. His is probably going to law school somewhere. His favorite poets include: Philip Levine, Rebecca Lindenberg, Elaine Equi, and Allen Ginsberg.