I love writing.
As with other writers, sometimes finding the right word to formulate a sentence is difficult.
Those words and I, sometimes we don’t know what to say to each other.
We call each other things we don’t understand, and the dictionary befriends us both—the common ground for us not to fight as much, but you should see us when we’re in a tiff—
When the words come together and combine in numbers, showing themselves unified—
A sentence…standing in full view for any reader to see and be read, but it is I who is miffed. They don’t jibe quite right; the meaning isn’t punctuated.
That’s when I have to become a sentence killer, which means I have to throw a perfectly great sentence out because it doesn’t fit with the flow of what surrounds it.
Those thorny sentences really get me, and the words love to poke fun at me.
They taunt and they tease, but I control and steer, and sometimes I just let them free—
What can be said, what shouldn’t be said, and the facts…here’s something to nosh on—
naschen, german word, meaning to eat on the sly, turned Yiddish nashn, which we now use in our daily lingo to mean snack—
And as I eat my snack, which I love to nosh on, I must say, well, chew on this:
Discarding great sentences, as writers must often do, is like taking the juiciest piece of my favorite meal, and throwing it away.
I have this funny thing happen to me when I do. When I mash up my sentences as I often times do, and throw out the ones I love, I somehow mash up two songs from Talking Heads: “Psycho Killer” (Versions: 1978 and 1984) and “Wild Wild Life.”
The two songs change up their rhythm depending on what I write, but it goes something like this:
Sentence Killer
You throw me out
Like frustration
When I’m the one
That stood out
But somehow they are the winners
Qu’est Que C’est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa
Sentence Killer
Run run run run run run run away
In this wild, wild life
You write me out
Talk me up and then dump me out
Spit me out on mountaintop, having a wild wild life
Wrestle with the best of them
That taught you how to imitate
Emotions are woven, hooked between the structures
I can’t hear them, but they speak
In my brain, in the peace of mind
They unfold in this wild wild life
I’m a real live wire
Qu’est Que C’est
Sentence killer
Run run run run run run run away
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa
Turbulent and troubled children
Hearing not what they say
They fight to be in position
To give the unspoken words
Meaning in this wild wild life
Go run run run run run run run run away
They want control, they want to be
Folded in and wrapped under
The dialogue we speak
But you never, never know
What they will say in this
Wild wild life
And there you have it, while I nosh away
On a carrot stick
Or a frito-lay
In this wild wild life
Sentence killer, you have control
Of this wild wild life
Qu’est Que C’est
Go run run run run run away Now run run run run run run run