It seems that humanity's psyche is one
that seeks to deny all those things which are fun;
preferring instead to make war and oppress,
our sheep-biting ways are the cause of much stress.
Yet how we malign the poor innocent dog,
comparing its work to our sad catalogue
of treacheries, subterfuge, lies and deceit—
a slanderous grab-bag we lay at its feet.
For never did canine through greed or through spite
in malice go looking for someone to fight.
Behaviours they've learned have all come from the pack,
where instinct dictates they must learn to attack.
Supposedly we are much smarter than they,
accountable for our deeds come judgement day;
so why are the kings and the queens in this plot
a violent, self-absorbed, arrogant lot?
There's no need to look to our comrades with paws
to find wicked acts, without reason or cause.
I must have missed something, I guess I'm obtuse—
forgive me for asking, but what's our excuse?
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Author Notes
Image by Chuan Chew - CC2.0 licence - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
Today's word: sheep-biting (n.) treacherous, underhand behaviour.
My much-treasured Christmas present for 2017 is a book by Paul Anthony Jones: "The cabinet of linguistic curiosities". Each page contains a descriptive story about some obscure or archaic word. It occurred to me it would be a fun exercise to try and write, each day, a poem featuring the "word of the day" from the book.
The use of the word sheep-biter to describe someone who is treacherous comes from a dog who is tasked with herding sheep, but bites or nips at them -- much to the chagrin of the person who gave it that responsibility. This poem questions the appropriateness of the term.
I'm getting a bit tired of my new book. I do like it, and it has some great words. But it seems to me that it has far more than its fair share of entries describing offensive character traits, or undesirable actions. These are fairly common themes in my poems anyway, so I hardly need encouragement to do more of the same. If you're hoping for more "rainbow and butterfly" words - so am I!
Thanks for reading.
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