Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Friday Happy Hour Poem (and, a True Story)

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The latest in a long tradition of parodies of the poem “This Is Just to Say,” by William Carlos Williams. This one, written by my dog—and most journalistic. —DM

***

This Is Just to Say, by Eddie

I have eaten

the chicken shawarma (I think it was)

that was on

the picnic blanket

and which

my owner subsequently made me understand you were surely

eating

for dinner with your very young daughter, when I ran over from playing with the other dogs in the middle of Smith Park because I smelled something good, and ransacked before you and the little girl knew what hit you.

Forgive me

it was delicious

so moist

and so savory

Not Made for This, Not Raised for This, Not Trained for This, No Good at This

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I set out to be a writer,

Not a soldier.

My dad felt that way in 1944,

When he was a radio officer

Doing technical communications work 

That was at once beneath him and beyond him,

“For the duration.”

I feel the same way, writing “on communication,”

During these times in America.

Only my technical skills are needed (though not much valued).

My moral judgment is an unneeded hindrance here,

“For the duration.”

When I shoot, I either draw fire

Or cause the other guys to dig in deeper.

When I don’t shoot, I should be

Court marshaled, for cowardice.

Well, that’s war for you.

The other day in a trench I got frustrated 

With a fellow soldier who wondered boringly

Why conservatives “don’t vote their interests.”

I said, “You pride yourself on voting against your interests

(paying higher taxes, for ostensibly noble reasons). Why shouldn’t they?”

“I’ve never thought of that before,” he said with a look of shock

That I returned, realizing it was the first time I had communicated something 

In about two years.

And enemy soldiers? “Communication” with them

Feels like those stories from the First World War,

The soldiers calling a Christmas truce,

And singing Silent Night

Across no man’s land. 

A Sadder and Wiser Murr

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These were some notes my colleague Benjamine Knight took during a staff meeting in the summer of 2015. If I remember right, the “controlled fury” was what I was going to bring down on a consulting prospect who was ghosting me.

I’ve seen a lot since then, in business. And I’ve since written that “ghosting is a crime against humanity.” And am still tempted to call out ghosters publicly—I’m thinking right now of someone with whom I had a super sanguine Zoom call about joining one of our membership groups, but who then ignored all of my follow-up emails while spewing happy bullshit about their institution all over LinkedIn—and ask them if their parents brought them up to act like this.

But “fury,” I’m glad to say, is no longer the word. Sadness is more like it.