The poetics of rocket surgery

& an original poem, "Bad American"

In college, I became obsessed with malaphors, or the mixing of two idioms for comedic effect.

Speak of the devil’s advocate.
Does the Pope shit in the woods?

I kept a running list and spent hours scouring Reddit for new recruits. This is, of course, what all the cool kids were doing.

The idea was to weave them into conversation to see if anyone would notice, but I was too shy to pull it off. So it became a game I played only in my head. When someone with a clipboard stopped me to sign a petition, I thought, Sorry, generosity killed the cat.

When a professor droned on, I reached for, Don’t beat us over the head with a dead horse.

I had a special affinity for the more criminal ones, like If I say burn a village, you say how high, or A bird in the hand is worth killing two with one stone. I’d imagine closing an email with the vaguely concerning, If you can't beat a dead horse, join them.

Eventually, I was in too deep. I started forgetting what the real idioms were. I’d have to catch myself before saying, “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”

Even today, it sounds perfectly natural to say, “You can’t teach an old dog to bark up a new tree.”

Now living in a place where I don’t share the native language, I envy making mistakes on purpose. It’s hard to break the rules when you’re still learning them.

So with this poem, I’d like to take a moment to get it wrong on purpose again.

Malaphors to add to the list, anyone?

🐱
emma