Life is better with the right words.
Today is my birthday and you know what is weird.
There’s something so odd (though it’s just as I feared).
I’m one whole year older though muchly the same.
I have on an old outfit and I’m called the same name.
When I woke up this morning, much to my surprise,
I had the same ears, nose, mouth and two eyes.
That by itself would have been a bit strange,
But I swear I could not see even one single change.
The scratch is still there from my scuffle with Saul
And I still line right up with that notch on the wall.
I counted my fingers and sure enough, like my toes.
All of the digits are lined up in rows.
I know it seems silly, but I truly thought
I’d wake up a bit different, but I guess I did not.
When I complained to my father that nothing had changed,
He just started smiling, “Son, you must be deranged!
Why would you want to change all that is awesome?
Blooms shouldn’t be in a hurry to blossom.
Changing takes time, a lot more than you know.
You can see something grown, but cannot watch it grow.
Time is your friend, but he will not be rushed,
Rooted or muted or silenced or crushed
One day you’ll stare in the mirror and wonder
How time tore through your life as though lightning and thunder.
When that day comes, you’ll know just what to do -
Squeeze your eyes tight and remember this you.”
Then he pointed at me and he gave me a lift,
With this perfectly unparalleled incomparable gift.
He taught me a trick – how to travel through ages,
Like I picked up a book and then flipped back the pages.
You can never go forward, but you can always reverse.
“Come over here,” he waved, “and we can rehearse.“
Then we remembered, one or two years from before.
Then after those memories we remembered some more.
My daddy showed me that tomorrow’s not here,
But today is right now and will soon disappear.
When I look in the mirror, I don’t mind what I see
Because today is today and today I am me.
You know I don’t like Mac N’ Cheese.
Will you make me something different please?
Pizza or pasta, peas and potatoes,
Tacos or turkey, tofu and tomatoes.
Hamburgers, hot dogs, fish sticks or fries,
Sausage or soup or spaghetti surprise.
I’m really not picky, but I want something new.
You say I like it, I swear that’s not true.
Wait… what’s that you say? Ice cream for dessert!
Oh, what the heck… Mac N’ Cheese never hurt
My puppy started doing something, it startled both my eyes
I walked into the living room and much to my surprise
He was on the Internet and he was surfing all around
His tongue was hanging out, his tail was bouncing on the ground
I said, ”Hey Barkey, whats the deal? Youre breaking natures laws!
You’ve got a keyboard and a mouse, both right beneath your paws!
How can you use a browser…wait… how can you even read?”
”Well, it is a little difficult,” Barkey then agreed.
“I had to start out slowly, by learning all my A, B, Cs
And once I knew ’em fluent, I started on my 1, 2, 3s
I covered all the basics and then I got advanced
I started out on YouTube and soon I was entranced
Now Im checking email – Flickr, Facebook too
I can do a million things that doggies arent supposed to do.”
It was then I noticed as my knees were starting to get weak
That Barkey wasn’t barking. Nope, my dog was full of speak
“So whats next for you, buddy pal,” I was dying then to find
My canine had already detonated out my mind
”Well,” he said, paw on nose,”I guess its time to share
But I think its best if you sit down, so please pull up a chair.”
As I sat down Barkey started barking out his plan
(Maybe the most amazing thing since at least the dawn of man)
“I have a lot of thoughts up here,” he pointed at his top
And no matter what I do, well I can’t get them to stop.
So Im gonna do something thats never been done by a dog
I’ve registered a domain and I’m gonna start a blog.”
Chuck the bird was not born sad, even though he knew no mom or dad.
He was always happy, night and day. Chuck loved to waddle, swim, and play.
Chuck was nice to everyone. He was kind and warm, like morning sun.
The other fowl were cold and cruel, but Chuck never lost his happy cool.
They puffed their wings and flapped about with whispered clucks and quacking shouts.
Often loud and rarely nice, the birds jeered him once then jibed him twice.
“You silly bird, you’ve such bad luck. You look just like a chicken duck!”
It was true that Chuck looked strange. But he did not ever wish to change.
His feet were webbed just like a duck and he did say quack instead of cluck.
He swung a sack beneath his bill which should have shook his iron will.
It was ruby red (like a rooster’s sack) and freckled all over in patches of black.
His feathers were white like a grown up chick, but waterproof and kind of thick.
The birds would laugh, then laugh some more, careless in an unkind war.
They kept on going, never done. They never stopped, but never won.
“Words are just words,” Chuck would say, as he made the best of every day.
“They can not hurt me with harmless air. If they’re over here, I’ll play over there.”
They never shook him. Chuck ignored their cries. And all their empty, jealous lies.
The ducks in the pond would not let him play. The chicks in the coup clucked, “go away!”
Chuck raised his bill and quacked, “That’s fine. You have what’s yours, I’ll have mine.
These opposite ends both feel so mean, I will play in the farmland in between.”
The cows were happy, they said “hooray” and “moo” (so were the rest of the animals too).
The pigs said “oink!” and raised their snouts; the sheep baa-baaad with happy shouts.
The whole farm thrilled at its new luck, now that they could play with Chuck.
He was always happy, so much fun. Pleased to play in rain or sun.
He liked Duck Duck Goose and other games with made up rhymes and silly names.
The other birds grew jealous fast. They said, “Hey Chuck, you know, it’s in the past.
We did not mean those things we said. We love your slightly different head.
Come swim with us. Play Hide-N-Seek. You can be our star this week!”
But Chuck was pleased with his new crew. They were nice to him, and funny too.
They never judged or laughed at Chuck. They never called him “Chicken Duck.”
“Thanks, but no,” Chuck said out loud, in a voice that made the barnyard proud.
“You never let me play your games. You laugh at me and called me names.
But I’m the one with all the luck. I really am a special duck.
I have friends who think I’m great. We love to dance and celebrate.
They do not care about my face, or how it seems so out of place.
My friends love me for who I am. Exactly how I feel for them.”
Seasons came and seasons went. Chuck’s good cheer was never spent.
He bounced in the barnyard every day as the birds all watched from far away.
On their own sides, in their own muck, no matter how they quacked and clucked,
Or waddled round and ran amuck, they never got to play with Chuck.
Wonderful stuff, 4 days a week. Sign up for free updates. Click here.
Of course I do not want a bath, even though I have a funk
That reeks so bad, my mom is sad. She just called me a skunk
I want to play with Bobby, but he bounced away from me
I tried to play with Trina, but she scrambled up a tree
I thought that maybe Joseph, wouldn’t notice I smelled bad
Because he inherited halitosis from his hairy dad
But when I went to talk to him, he up and ran away
So I guess I’ll need to take a bath if I really want to play
Wonderful stuff, 4 days a week. Sign up for free updates. Click here.
Syllable soup is not sour or sweet
No chunky vegetables and no floating meat
There are terms and expressions, from message to motto
Enunciated nouns and verbs with vibrato
There are plenty of adjectives and probably some slang
At least if you’d like your syllable soup to have tang
Would you care to make some? Anything goes -
Gather ingredients and write them in rows
Mean what you say and say what you mean
To create quintessential communication cuisine
Let’s get our soup started, the syllables are hot
Decide on your words then fill up the pot
Now start the stirring, let the flavors all change
A good hearty soup should have sounds that are strange
But you must be careful – do not over spice
Words should enhance, invite and entice
Though all words are free, some do have a cost
Sometimes they’re not simple, so the reader gets lost
The stovetop’s the page, the chef is the writer
Who chooses the words to make stories burn brighter
Syllable soup is a scrumptious delight
When the cook stirs in all the syllables right
Never too many and never too few
Make the syllable soup that’s inside of you
What’s that you say? You’d like a sample?
How about instead I just cook an example?
Seems fair enough – sometimes once we see
Then our hearts and our minds and our spirits agree
Let’s start with a word that’s been pummeled to pulp
Drop it into the soup and get ready to gulp
You may have had a teacher who said, “said is dead!”
But said is not dead, it’s like butter to bread
Or syllables to soup – I’ll explain what I mean
Your teacher just meant that “said” shouldn’t be seen
Said is a word which has only one sound
No matter how you inspect it or spin it around
Yet how many ways can you also say said?
There’s at least a bajillion bulging outta my head!
Speak, utter, voice; pronounce or reply
Your hero could exclaim, or opine or cry
Or maybe declare, recite or disclose
But a rose by another name, is still just a rose
When you find yourself looking for the perfect ingredient
Don’t settle for the one which seems most expedient
There is no substitution for that one perfect word
Which will get the page read and your stories all heard
There is music to language, each word has a beat
To get you nodding your head and tapping your feet
Each word has a sound, whether they run short or long
They are notes in the verse of a sentence’s song
Choose each one wisely, place them all in a group
Then share a savory spoon full of syllable soup!
Sign up for free updates to Writer Dad by RSS or email and make sure you never miss any Syllable Soup!
I don’t like poetry.
At least I always thought I didn’t.
Turns out I was wrong.
Despite my love of song lyrics, I’ve never read straight poetry. And though Cindy owns several, in all my thousands of books I don’t believe I have a single poetry book which doesn’t bear the name of Shel Silverstein or Dr. Suess.
When I first started to write, it was children’s stories which ran through my mind and landed on the pages. The first one I wrote was called, “The Magic Money Tree.” Cindy had asked me to write a short story about money. It was a fun prompt, yet writing it in normal language seemed somehow… boring. I had the title and an idea of what I wanted the story to be, but I wanted colorful language to match the vision in my head.
One afternoon, while the children were resting and I was alone with the dishes, this line did the mambo in my mind:
Frugal Francis lived alone with her spendthrift mother, Wasteful Joan. Who spent their money (every dime) on useless products, all the time.
The rest of the rhyme rained in my brain like a sudden shower. I literally had to dry my dishpan hands and quickly grab a notebook. I felt an undeniable high, a spark in my brain I’d not felt before. I shared the story with Cindy that evening, then wrote another, and another, piling poems until I had a portfolio packed full enough to pitch an agent.
These are exceptional, the agent said.
I was happy.
Then I read the rest of the email.
Unfortunately, I am tone deaf when it comes to children’s stuff.
The agent told me I could use his name, then referred me to one of the nation’s largest agencies for children’s authors. The query section on their website was scary, two things in particular:
You may only query one story and We sign approximately three authors per year.
The site also said there would be an eight week wait for any sort of response, and that their volume of submissions prohibited them from responding to the majority of queries. I chose what I thought was my strongest piece and waited the required two months.
I heard nothing.
Crushed, I finally emailed again. A few weeks later I was told something I will never forget:
Your vocabulary is too rich for children.
I did not blame the agency. An agent’s job is to sell what publishers are buying. A publisher’s job is to sell what consumers have a history of looking for. Yet I saw this as sad commentary nonetheless. At the time, Cindy and I were still running our preschool. I was reading those same rhymes to a group of toddlers each day, some of who memorized them and recited them back by heart – all without the benefit of illustrations.
I realized I did not have the heart to query my work only to be told that the children of today could only handle language at its most elementary. I immediately decided to develop my own audience, determined to grow it to a size that would render a publisher superfluous.
Writer Dad was born one week later.
I stopped writing for children and started writing for grown-ups instead. Soon, I forgot about my rhymes.
I don’t like poetry.
That old thought returned and for some reason, it didn’t go away. Not only did I stop writing in rhyme, for the longest time I was a bit embarrassed every time I did. It wasn’t until mid-way through last year when I finally realized how much I actually enjoy writing in rhythm. I love the way it makes my brain work. It is entirely separate from any other type of writing I do.
Writing rhymes is like writing songs with music that only I can hear.
I decided to nurture that part of my inner writer, and soon revisited rhymes I’d written a year before. The old ire returned – the vocabulary isn’t too rich for children; it is the sort of vocabulary which turns children into lovers of language and pushes them to explore a world of words beyond the all too simple readers which are handed down to them with little expectation that they could ever want or need anything more.
Syllable Soup was born.
I now have about fifty rhymes finished, with a page count growing thicker all the time. I’m not sure when the book will come out, as Dave will probably fly from Florida and punch me in the teeth if I add anything else to our schedule, but it will be coming someday.
In the meantime, I’m excited to share my Syllable Soup with you. The first one’s tomorrow!
Sign up for free updates to Writer Dad by RSS or email and make sure you don’t miss a thing!
