Creative writing: "Homeless Dog"

We were asked to write a quick description (5 - 10 minutes) in my creative writing class today. One of the prompts was just "homeless dog." Somehow, I was the only one who wrote with this perspective. There was one mailman, but most went with an omniscient narrator 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, here's what I wrote:

That man again. The nice one. The one who brings treats, and sometimes lets me sit in his car for a short time when it's cold out and the white stuff falls from the sky.
This time, he holds a long strip of chewy leather in his hand as he approaches. A toy? I'd rather something to eat, but it might be nice to have something to chew on between the man's visits.
As I lower my head for the pats, the man slips the toy around my neck. Huh?
Saying something about a vet and shots (sounds scary!), the man says "we finally have room for you at home. Would you like that? Huh? Would you like that, Snowy?"

The Storm

A poem about composition

The storm that is always Inside, raging,
want to catch a microsecond, photographing

The only way to capture the violent action
To explain it to another, to share apperception

Is to cut a slice of it, by writing
Engaging in composition.

---

Not exactly it, but definitely related:

I started mentally composing a poem or something yesterday about pictures of storms and this is an excellent picture. https://t.co/mIYkmAtHMh

— MTL (@MTL613) September 5, 2018

See also these pics from later in the day:

pic.twitter.com/xsgnuQzNzb

— MTL (@MTL613) September 6, 2018

On pens and power

Everyone knows that "the pen is mightier than the sword." This is, however, not true...or at least not the whole truth.

The difference between the sword and the pen is not quantitative (the amount of power of each); it is qualitative (the type of power). Pens may grant us power, but that is not what they're about. "The pen is mightier than the sword" implies that the only advantage that pens give us is increased strength, when really, the pen (and writing) gives us so much more. I remember childhood discussions about this phrase, in which we concluded that the greater strength of the pen was contained within judicial death sentences (and whatever a "license to kill" might look like), but that is not the strength of the pen. A more sophisticated view of the greater strength of the pen highlights the pen's utility in written arguments; changing minds, crushing opponents. And this, too, is not quite right.

The "strength" of the pen is not its value as a combative weapon -- to kill, or to crush your opponents in a debate. While these qualities certainly lie, latent, within the Bic ballpoint on your desk, these are not the greatest features that it has. The pen, to me, is about expression -- poetry, describing a sunset, emotion. Novels, fiction and non-fic, big ideas. These things are on an entirely different axis than the "might" of arms, and considering only the relative strength or weakness of various tools available to us can blind us, tragically, to the greater number of better uses for the humble pen.

I think that this misconception about pens and power is related to society's approach to strength in general. I think we all, individually and as a society, focus far too much on strength. But this wider discussion is, perhaps, a topic for another day.