PHRASES I HATE

            Maybe “hate” is a bit strong, but there are some current expressions which I find especially annoying because they are so overused. Perhaps you have your own list too. Here are four that make me grind my teeth a little.

1. “At the end of the day…” I’m sure you’ve heard this one. It seems to have flared up a couple of years ago, and now everybody’s using it, especially on CNN. All I have to hear is a political commentator start a sentence with “At the end of the day,” and my ears shut down. For one thing, the phrase is filler, intended to launch a sentence while the speaker figures out what to say next. For another, it’s wordy. If you must use this phrase, then please file it down. I’d be happy if the offender shortened it to “In the end” or even “In the final analysis…”

2. “There’s no there there.” I actually liked this for a while. I found it clever and a bit witty. But you know, after 5000 commentators used this phrase, I began to feel there’s no there there. Whatever originality once existed has gone someplace else than there.

3. “Man up,” or “Why don’t you man up?” It used to be “Why don’t you be [or act like] a man?” But times change. Newt Gingrich used this during his latest campaign for president when he said one of his rivals should “man up” about something. This phrase seems to have faded from use recently, but never fear. I expect a surge of testosterone to bring some variation of it back.

4. “It is what it is.”  - Not to be confused with “Tell it like it is.” Recently, my dentist put my nose out of joint (say, wasn’t that once an overused phrase?) when he dismissed my polite complaint concerning a bad tooth by saying “It is what it is.” I wanted to reply, “How brilliant! How perceptive and profound! Did you figure that out all by yourself, or did you learn it in dentistry school?” What exactly does this cretinous statement mean? Is a cow what it is, too?

          Dear readers, that’s all for this time. If you have any phrases or expressions you personally dislike, why don’t you man or woman up and share them with us? At the end of the day, I have to know if there’s any there there, or if it simply is what it is.   

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Poems About Poems

Can you write poems about poems? Of course you can. Here are two poems I wrote long ago.

                                                            This Poem

                                                This poem is hypnotic.

                                                Watch these words.

                                                Your eyes are getting heavy.

                                                You are getting sleepy.

                                                You are beginning to feel at peace

                                                with yourself.

                                                Now your thoughts are a child’s.

                                                Now you are inanimate,

                                                a leaf on an iron wind.

                                                Now you are the first thought

                                                you ever had

                                                closing like a bud in snow.

                                                Now I am this poem,

                                                each word a reflection

                                                in your eye.

                                                You are my reader

                                                getting sleepy

                                                beginning to feel at peace

                                                with yourself.

                                                Ready to join me

                                                in my poem.                          

                                   

                              If God Were An Imagist Poem

                                                so much would depend

                                                upon

                                                a red god

                                                barrow

                                                glazed with heaven

                                                water

                                                beside the milky

                                                way.

--With profound appreciation to William Carlos Williams’ famous imagist poem “The Red Wheelbarrow”, presented below.

                             The Red Wheelbarrow

         

                                    so much depends

                                                upon

                                                a red wheel

                                                barrow

                                                glazed with rain

                                                water

                                                beside the white

                                                chickens.

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Please check out CONQUEROR OF THE STARS, Book 4 of the Inspector of the Cross series. –Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MXW1RFM  -  and

MuseItUp: http://bit.ly/2ibPOl4 

Read one of my novels for FREE! INSPECTOR OF THE CR0SS - This is book 1 in my series so if you haven't read it, here's your chance. Amazon: http://amzn.to/2jqq1Xt