Q PEOPLE ljtsM Churning out proverbs By Nancy Gummow The Intelligencer Intelligencer photo by Frank O'Connor Shannonville's Mark Leeming with book of proverbs. "An editor's red pen can be a knife through an author's heart," says Mark Leeming. Ouchr Talk about nailing the journalist on the head, or hitting someone right between the eyes. Oops! Those are cliches. A Shannonville author's first book "Life is an endless proverb" is about just that -- proverbs. More than 1,700 hundred of them, in fact. Like Leeming's favorite: "Democracy turns into anarchy when people abuse its freedom." Leeming, who farms when he's not penning proverbs, starting putting his thoughts on paper two years ago. He says he's always admired people who can write poetry. Poetry wasn't his thing but he found his channel of expression through proverbs. He calls himself a kitchen-table-philosopher, not an expert. "I am a simple, common man who has done a lot of hard and sober thinking over the past few years about society in general," he writes in the book's introduction. But proverbs have restrictions. Proverbs are usually one or two sentences, so they often don't saturate a topic. "They are simply meant to put one point of truth across with minimal amount of wording," said the 25-year-old. Some proverbs, because of their simplicity, might appear black and white in nature and sometimes people, he says, don't like to hear the truth. A devout Christian, Leeming says he takes his early teachings from the Bible including the book of Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. "I think a lot about where is society going; that's what my book is all about. "I try to make people really think there is no absolute." Books are available at Greenley's book store on Front Street for $9.95. Or you can order from Leeming at: P.O. Box 20033, Belleville, Ont.,K8N5Vl.