We have a little puppy;
we call him Di di Mau.*
Always in a rush he is
to go somewhere, somehow.
He’ll tear around the table,
dash through an open door,
chase his tail, plague the cat.
Why don’t his feet get sore?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*The Urban Dictionary says di di mau is a direct
translation from Vietnamese words “go, go quickly.”
A delicate candle
affection is,
flickers in the blast
of harsh words,
glows in the tones
of loving ones.
An Exercise For Your Muse
Writers nowadays are urged to avoid overworked clichés. I’ve seen some writers come up with interesting metaphors and similes to replace the standard ones, but one must be careful that the new phrases don’t seem contrived.
You can say, “She was as angry as a picknicker when ants carried off the peach pie,” for “She was as mad as a wet hen,” but are you gaining? Instead of, “He was chomping at the bit,” you could say “He was like the guy with an appointment, waiting for a never-ending train,” but it’ll shoot up your word count.
At a writer’s group meeting one day we received sheets with old clichés or idioms. We were to pass them around and substitute something original to replace the old and overworked. In the course of sorting old papers I came across one of these this morning, so I’ll post it for you readers to ponder:
How would you modernize ‘He can’t see the forest for the trees’?
Some suggestions offered by our group:
The literal approach:
— He’s so close to the problem he can’t see the answer.
— Missing the broad point of view, he’s distracted by unimportant things.
— He needs to take a step back and get a better perspective.
The figurative approach:
— The fog is hiding the water.
— He couldn’t see the moon for the flock of geese.
Which would you choose — any other suggestions — or would you been inclined, in your own writing, to stick with the original since it’s so well know?
Monday Morning Musing
I was going about my morning as usual when I happened to check my SPAM queue and saw a title that caught my eye:
“If Feminists Hate This, It Must Be Good”
I didn’t open the e-mail, but I must admit the title IS thought-provoking. My mind immediately brought up various responses:
If feminists hate war, then war must be good?
If feminists hate child-abuse, then child abuse must be good?
If feminists hate drug-trafficking, and the sex slavery that often goes with it, then drug use must be good?
If feminists hate SPAM, then…
Ah, but… So much meaning hinges on the word THIS. Since I never read the message — which is undoubtedly an ad of some kind — I have no idea what “this” refers to. I just jumped on the title and thought, “Wait a minute. This is a false assumption!”
Rather than getting the complete picture, aren’t we sometimes inclined, as listeners or readers, to catch a few significant words and build our rebuttal on that?
“You said this, and it isn’t true.”
“She wrote thus and thus, and it makes no sense.”
“He carelessly asked for a dozen when he should have asked for precisely twelve!”
Looking back I blush to think of times where I’ve pounced on some short phrase and shook it like a rat, not listening for — or deliberately ignoring — the real meaning behind the statement. Yes, “Guilty as charged.” The speaker may have had a valid point but I’ve allowed one sentence to negate it.
Conversely, haven’t we all seen a child pick the part they wanted to hear and go from there?
Mother: “I don’t think you really should go along with them, but if you feel you have to do that I won’t order you stay home.”
Child to friends: “Mom says I can go.”
Another phrase comes to my mind. Over the years people have seized on this statement and taken it literally without ever exploring the context for the complete meaning.
Jesus said, “Judge not that ye be not judged.” (Matt 7:1)
These words from the Bible are frequently quoted, in fact they’ve become a motto for our times. They’re used to excuse a LOT of bad behaviour, to prove innocence of a sort. Usually comparatively speaking, like:
“Sure, I’m smoking pot, but who are you to judge me? You have a social drink now and then. Remember, the Bible says, ‘Judge not that ye be not judged’.”
Years ago I worked for a boss who smoked. Her sister nagged her about the danger of getting lung cancer. Then studies revealed that women who dyed their hair had a higher incidence of cancer. (It was slight, if I recall correctly.)
Well, the sister dyed her hair, so my boss justified her smoking with this ‘you’re just as wrong as I am’ approach: “My sister criticizes me for smoking, but she’s dyeing her hair. So who is she to judge?” Her argument didn’t affect her chance of getting lung cancer in the least, but it got her off the hook with her nagging sister.
In John 7:24 Jesus says, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgement.” Sadly, this sentence has never gotten equal billing with the “Judge not” line of thought.
In Matt 5:48 He tells his disciples, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
Now wait a minute! What’s this about PERFECT? Who can ever be perfect?
The only way to find out what Jesus meant by this statement is to read the book of Matthew.
Just like the only way I’ll ever find out what “feminists hate” and why it’s so good is to read the e-mail. But I’ve deleted it. I really don’t want to know; the answer is not important to my life.
Good afternoon every one. I decided on Saturday that, with what I have up this week, I’d take a mini-break from blogging. But now I want to ask your opinion on a little verse I plan to include in my book — in fact it’s from this verse that I’ve taken the title.
Going back to last week, I was working on my book, Silver Morning Song, trying to get it ready to be formatted as an e-book. I also had an event to prepare for on Saturday: our local Christian bookstore was sponsoring an event and I was given a two-hour slot at their writers’ book signing tables. This was for The Rescuing Day, the cover of which is displayed at right. (Details in the My Books section under the header.)
It was an interesting day. None of us who brought books had huge sales but you have to count it as an opportunity to get your name out there. I had small postcards made up advertising my book and also my blog; I handed out a number of these and sold a few books.
Now that is behind me and this week I have two heavy irons in the fire. I’m still going over my own book, plus beta reading a book on depression written by Pastor J S Park. So I shut off the e-mail notifications on “Blogs I Follow” to cut down on the distractions while I finish these two projects.
But now I’ve come to this one tiny poem, included in my first compilation four years back. It’s from this haiku that I got the title for my book of poems and short stories.
Silver morning dew
distills on silent farm yard
sleeping cat stretches
But then I titled it Silver Morning and upgraded it to:
Silver morning dew
distills on silent farm yard
sleepy cat stretches
songbirds herald the dawn.
And finally, for more connection to the title of the book, I may tweak the title and publish it like so:
Silver Morning Song
Morning dew distills
on silent farm yard,
sleepy cat stretches,
songbirds herald the dawn
with silver morning song.
So, which do you think sounds better the blue the pink or the green? If you have any opinion or suggestion please leave a comment. Thanks much!
