On the editorial page of my local Sunday paper today I spotted a phrase written in similar fashion by two different writers with two different venues, one national and conservative, the other statewide and liberal. They were both talking about unchecked capitalism and the credit cards used so prevalently by shoppers. Their names are unimportant, but they both see one thing in the same light, one using the phraseology of "the spell of self-involved consumption" and the other wording it "the new worldliness of self-centered materialism." I thought this was a remarkable similarity and underlined them with a pen for Mary to notice as she sat reading and eating her cereal. She seemed only mildly impressed, and I needed to ask her if she was taken with it the same as I was. Apparently she wasn't; all she gave me were a shrug and a grunt.
Tomorrow I check in with the doctor for my semi-annual prostate exam. I've been through this procedure several times and can color the language in two different ways: a digital-rectal exam or a well-greased finger up my butt. Either way, I'm correct.
A poem percolates in my brain and has for some time now. It carries the theme of how things get said. Even though it is unfinished, it reads in part:
...where the newsman's words
have been rewritten,
weakly,
and I read them,
wondering,
is this what he meant
and knew to be the truth?
...where the words and style
of the poet
degenerate,
and its message deflates
to comply with standards
set by scolds and quibblers...
