While trying to help deal with boxes and boxes after the second sewer deluge in my basement condo, I flipped through a book I had never really read: Thesaurus of Alternatives to Worn-Out Words and Phrases by Robert Hartwell Fiske, and I almost cried. There, in cold black and white, was a detailed criticism of what appears to be my writing style. I mean, golly ding!

For instance, “mad as a hatter” was labeled “an insipid similie,”; “make a conscious choice” is a “dimwitted redundancy,” and “close encounter” is an “infantile phrase.”

“What’s done is done” is a “quack equation,” and “Quack equations are much favored by montebanks and pretenders, by businesspeople and politicians.” Now that’s going a little far!

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GRASS: A poem

This poem’s supposed to be about grass, alas, and I don’t know what to say, but remember that I tried.

Green grass has earth worms in its hair. Under the sod, I’ve seen them there.

Salt kills grass and so does pee. I eat salt and it doesn’t kill me!

How does grass live after losing its head? If I lost mine wouldn’t I be dead?

Maybe it’s feet that the mower cuts off while the grass lives its life upside down.

Yes! Its hair is under the ground, so it must grow with its feet in the air.

So that’s why the lawn doesn’t move away… They cut off its feet so it has to stay.

But where do I grow, when taller I get? Does my stomach stretch or does my neck?

Dunno that, either.

(I know, I know–I’m not all the way back, either)..

Nan