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In the steps of Rumi 88: Metaphor

Simile – what looks like something else –
that’s a fun game for the senses,
for the mind: oh look Dad,
there’s a scarecrow in that field
that looks just like a man, does it
really scare crows?

Oh look Dad, there’s a beggar in the street
who looks just like a scarecrow,
I wonder if the same crows
see him too?

But metaphor – ah, that’s something else:
explanations don’t quite explain it:
you see something; it brings to mind
something very different; maybe
you just forget it, pass on; maybe
you’re a poet, and you think,
that other thing casts a subtle light
on this first thing, I’ll see if others
find the same.. and, sometimes they do,
sometimes they don’t…

Metaphor brings the whole universe,
world upon world, to the mind:
you could write a poem full of metaphor
as long as the circumference of the world,
and when you’d written it out, you’d find yourself
right here again just where you were.. but
what a lot you’d seen on the way…

We’re so used to some metaphors
because by now, they’re shared,
written into language (lucky the people
who inherit languages such as these,
they’re born into poetry…) :

take ‘bread’: you walk past the baker’s shop
in the early morning when the air is clear –
or better, go in to buy your breakfast rolls:
the smell couldn’t be more wonderful,
more promising.. the bread’s so delicious,
and best eaten today..

ah yes, ‘daily bread’ – that becomes a metaphor
for all that each and every day brings –
waking up, new thoughts, new experiences,
all that brings life to life…
that covers so many subtle things…
where does it all come from?
that’s for you to say…

Sometimes it seems that the whole world
is a metaphor for something…
for what? For its own unity,
for its very creation,
for that which we call God,
for our very self?
that’s for you to say…

Metaphor. When you meet it,
does it make you think of
English class, another boring
poem, another boring question
to answer as you chew your pen –
‘What does the poet mean when
he speaks of, lies like oyster shells
to be penknifed for their pearls? ’…

or - does it fill your heart with joy
as if someone had given you
a golden key to a secret garden
which is all you ever hoped for;
more than you could ever imagine…
and yet you recognise
it’s all really just yourself? …

In the corner of your room
there's a little girl curled up
in a large armchair, reading a book.
Don't disturb her.
The book she reads with all her self today,
may never read again, doesn't need to -
is a metaphor for
all she needs to know today
about the world, about herself;

she finishes the book,
closes it thoughtfully,
looks up at you;
she knows herself
a little more today.

poem by Michael Shepherd
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The Poem Is A Metaphor

THE POEM IS A METAPHOR

The Poem is a Metaphor
It means ‘the world’
It means ‘all that there is’
It means ‘the soul’
It means ‘our deepest feeling’.

The Poem is a Metaphor
It is more than what it just appears to be
It takes on a life of its own
It says more than it can define itself as

The Poem is a Metaphor
And it itself does not understand
Where it began and how it will end
And whether or not
It should always be rewritten.

The Poem is a Metaphor
And we too are metaphors
That will vanish one day
When all the real Poems
Pretend to still be here.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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Poetry as bread - In the spirit of Rumi 28

Poetry is like bread – daily bread,
like ‘Irish’ soda bread, best eaten on its day:

In the bakery of the heart and mind,
the baker’s woken early before dawn,
refreshed and clear of purpose, full of the day’s promise;
brings air to flour, moulds and shapes;
as the sun rises, so the bread.

Here it is, warm from the heart,
smell it – this is the smell of goodness, isn’t it?
Touch it, both crisp and soft by turns;
taste its goodness, beauty, truth, its very being;
this is not yesterday’s bread, with which you toy
while waiting between courses, your head’s straying mind
in a thousand other places; this is here and now;
coming warm from the heart; eat it with your heart;

this is the heart’s nourishment; tomorrow it may serve
tomorrow’s mind; today, it is your daily bread,
your nourishment – this poem, warm from heart to heart.

And when you've eaten it - the bread has disappeared -
only your satisfaction remains, beyond all sense;
as these words, already staling on the page,
exposed to all the wanderings of the mind;
only the love that they were made with, still remains;
this, is your daily bread.

[from a metaphor in Rumi's writings]

poem by Michael Shepherd
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Is letting go a metaphor?

what is letting go -
letting go of grief?
the serenity of letting go?
(must be a bad metaphor)
losing represents letting go of control

I need to understand this 'letting go'
is it a metaphor for facing the inevitable?
breathing as a metaphor for living
'the practice of pruning wine vines'
is that a metaphor for letting go?
surrender. reaching towards the future
if you'll excuse another bad metaphor...
'the last of the sand is pouring...'
onion metaphors are stripped down to the core
letting go is a metaphor for acceptance
is acceptance a metaphor for failure?
'The freedom of letting go'
that does sound grand

letting go is not for the faint-hearted
my hands and heart are tired from letting go
so many times over

examine why metaphor is not
a substitute for the literal

letting go is
a metaphor
for goodbye

110709

poem by Terri Turrell
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The Poem Is A Metaphor/ For Whatever The Poet Needs It To Be

THE POEM IS A METAPHOR / FOR WHATEVER THE POET NEEDS IT TO BE

The Poem is a Metaphor
For whatever the poet needs it to be-
It need not know its own name
Or its destination-
It simply may suddenly appear
And take us to a place we’ve never been,
To a connection we never would have found on our own.

The Metaphor is a vehicle of transport for the Soul
And he who spells it out literally
Grounds it.

Why then oh why is this where we all be?

poem by Shalom Freedman
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Making Of A Poem

What's a poem?
It's a metaphor, it's a metaphor,
What's a metaphor?
'It is a device for seeing something in terms of something else.
It brings out the thisness of that, or a thatness of this.'

How do I write a metaphor?
Think of rain as the cry of the heavens,
Think of love as a rose,
Think of burning candle as the agony of a lonely heart.

How do I piece together metaphors?
On a moonlit night, I see my love reflected in the moon's silvery light,
Holding her tight, I smell the fragrance of jasmine tonight,
Adoring her smile, I see the beauty of monarch butterflies,
Staring in her eyes, I see the oasis of love in my high desert lonely life.

How do I write a poem?
I love her but have not a spoken a word.
You have the inspiration, put in some romantic words.
On a beautiful moon lit night, I wonder who is prettier,
When I look at you, I forget about the moon.

Knit together love, loneliness, fear and tears of heart,
Into a beautiful tapestry of emotions and feelings that mask your heart,
Stitch some metaphors, make it a heartwarming comforter.

poem by Jay P Narain
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Seeking Metaphor

Metaphor’s the soul of poetry:
this incongruous instrument of speech
with which we say one thing,
when we mean quite another:

I wish that Shakespeare, its greatest English user,
had coined a truly English word for it –
or perhaps, those blunt and foursquare Anglo-Saxons
who came before; their words as hand-hewn as are spades –

the word comes from the Greek, and means a transference;
‘My lord, your transference is apt and shrewd…’
no, even that’s but transferred to a Latin stem,
‘carrying across’. Too late to seek some native word –
a ‘thoughtshift’ or a ‘mindmatch’ then?

We wear it down, and make it less
by thoughtless grabbing at the candy-jars
upon the shelves of sweetshops of our speech,
as if to mimic poetry that we haven't earned..

but at its height, a metaphor shines like new light;
bringing together, two images so disparate
and making of their neighbouring, a moment magical in memory
as if we’d never seen the world so brilliant
or so revealing; moments when the mind’s a god,
and life itself a metaphor; a glimpse
that somewhere, two things mentioned meet
under the astonished, single gaze of eternity itself..

Metaphor’s a holy sacrament: one should never dare
to use it without some faint echo, of a moment clear recalled
when that which one refers to, came dazzling bright into the mind
as life transfigured to another world,
time lifted to the timeless;
the radiance of the world’s first day,
Creation, in itself, one glorious godly metaphor..
and nothing ever less than one.

poem by Michael Shepherd
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For I Am A Metaphor

'For i am a Metaphor

For i am free as a bird

wiser than wise itself

brighter than a sun gama ray

FOR I AM A METAPHOR

for i love like the word

think like einstein

dream like Martin

FOR I AM A METAPHOR

For i smell like success

Achieve like achievers

and soar like number 23

FOR I AM A METAPHOR

for i deliver like mailmen

determine like focus

and prosper like underdogs

FOR I......AM.....A METAPHOR'

By: Kottrell Johnson

poem by Kottrell Johnson
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Wires

Wires

I was fourteen
when our literature teacher said:
‘For today’s homework
you have to write a poem about your arms’.
The next day I stood up before the class and recited:
‘My arms are like very, very long wires
with which I can embrace the whole world.'
The teacher said: ‘Very good, great metaphor’.
He died peacefully
just a few years before the Wireless Era.
Lucky for him, he escaped the struggle
of all these wireless things,
even wireless loves.
Meanwhile, I mourn for the death of my first great metaphor.

poem by Ndrek Gjini
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Poetry Is A Metaphor

Poetry is a metaphor
For beauty
For deepest feeling
For light
For all kinds of dreams we may not know the name of-

Poetry is a metaphor
For life at its most intense

Poetry is a metaphor for Poetry.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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0003 Reborn Metaphor

I was born to be a metaphor;
Darwin, embarrassed, did not talk of me;
I did not fit into his scheme of things; I,
knowing secrets of the tears of things,
while he used his fine mind
(which is, so obviously, beyond the physical)
to deny that world, the metaphysical..

To be a metaphor
you need to know your place;
stay around too long, you lose
that vital force; no one believes
in the unbelievable – when there’s no mystery,
that’s the end of metaphor for man.

Better choose a quiet place,
some corner of a foreign field
only to be found in mind,
do the necessary – a few dry leaves and sticks
to lay false trail – and the semblance of a nest; you,
a place apart..

The desert, then, was easier; Egypt understood;
the sun rose warm
on the eggshell of pure thought;
Greece, appreciative, then found a name for me;
a whole race followed in my rise;
Rome was, how to put it, unoriginal;
America called a dry town, in an arid zone, after me;
may yet know me, nested in my cruellest magnificence,
ash and twisted steel and concrete, office equipment;
I a metaphor, awaiting a new birth.

poem by Michael Shepherd
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There Was A Poem About Poetry

THERE WAS A POEM ABOUT POETRY

There was a poem about poetry
Written by a poet whose name was hidden within the lines-

The poem about poetry
Became a song in the night
And a distant metaphor
For the incomprehensible journey that is life-

It became anything it could be made to be-
Love,
A world of a kind,
A mystery,
The holy sounds of light far far away -

All the poems we know are like this,
In the darkness they say one thing
But in the light in the light
Oh how dark and deep and far and lonely they are-

poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Language Of Poetry Is Metaphor

The language of poetry is metaphor
And irony and ambiguity
And beauty-

Beauty is the language of poetry
And metaphor and irony and ambiguity
And irony -

Beauty is the language of metaphor
And poetry without beauty
Is like poetry without metaphor
Like poetry without simile-

Poetry is poetry
Like beauty is beauty
And metaphor, metaphor
And language language -

Ironically
Without themselves they are something else
Or perhaps another variant of themselves
Ironically.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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Hiding Emotion in Metaphors

I'm sitting here wondering
can i hide my emotion through words
writing in metaphors
when really its all plain
I'm broken
easy enough to say
but what does it mean
I'm in pieces
i don't work anymore
I'm broken
who says that to explain emotion
except a poet
finding metaphor for emotion
does it mean I'm sad, yes
does it mean I'm torn, yes
what does torn mean
torn like an old rug
torn like a dollar bill
ripped to shreds, broken
who needs a metaphor to explain emotion
when its laid out in front of everyone
my eyes are swollen
my body is bruised
my words are silent
my smile is fake
its all plain and simple
laid out like a flashing sign
i am broken
even though my emotions are plain
i still have to explain through metaphors
because people don't look for a simple answer
they look for the secrets people tell
is she holding back tears
is her smile today real
I'm broken
but people don't look to see me
they look to find emotion
encoded in this poem
hiding my feelings
in this metaphorical language
because people don't look
i am broken

poem by Audrey Marie Kay
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The Poem I Did Not Write Today

THE POEM I DID NOT WRITE TODAY

The poem I did not write today
Will never be written.
No one knows what it is
Or where it is
'How it can be? ' is another question
No one can answer.

The poem I did not write today
Never went away
It is always here with me and with you
It is the same simple poem
Written over and over again
In our everyday minds.

It is the poem of love of life
The poem of happiness
The poem of belief in God
And in the goodness in the world to come
It is the poem which believes too that poetry will help save the world.

It is the good poem
The happy poem
The poem I did not write today
Is the poem my life is writing now and always
And with you it says
‘What a miracle it is that we are here
reading and writing
and loving life as we do’.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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In Search Of Metaphors And Images To Express Yourself In A Poem

it is the expression that matters most.

it is the relational flow from the writer to the reader
the bond that is created anew, just like an ordinary conversation
one fine day.

why can't poetry be simple and direct? that is the question that poetry
asks

to itself, in itself.

the poet in us can be lost because of so much demands for the absurd,
this metaphor fits, this imagery is perfect, what is it?

you do not accept the sun and the moon and the stars.
cliches of their poetry. You do not show compassion for his feelings
of being abandoned

simply because there are no images that tickle your senses.

even if he jumps with joy, you do not relate to his joys
simply because the images are bland like
burger without the black pepper.

it is enough that one bleeds, one wants a listener, one wants to open
up to the world
Like a bud turning into a flower

(oh forgive this lousy metaphor
i am not a good poet somehow at imaging
at imagining.
Am not a camera.
My eyes are clumsy at details.
And my ears are not sensitive to sound of
beautiful words. They even hide behind my head under my hair.
And there is no compulsion for high highfalutin
Ivory towers of similes from the gods and goddesses of
Literature)

Why can't poetry be just an expression? Just that. A dialogue.
This one, this monologue.

It is enough that you write from the heart.
It is enough that you are true

(oh forgive me, can i be really
true to you? Do i have to be naked and tell you that i am beautiful?
Do i have to master the art of metaphorisms
to be your poet
for the night?)

Or is it that poetry is simply our hiding place
From this world of pain?

Or our chapel for our prayers
Or our playground where we can be children again?

I am tired of squeezing my brain in the quest of the perfect metaphor.
I have read what they have written.
I pretend i like them. They sound so well.
They must be poetry. Real poetry
Those that garner plaques.
Prizes from the jury.

Honestly, I do not understand a thing. Those poems of my idols.
But I read them just the same.
Hoping that I am in and be counted as one of the stars in those
Metaphoric Heavens.I watch every meteor that drops
to the ground. Their tails.

I am not a star. I am just a pebble.
And it is enough for me.

The poem says, just write me.

Don't squeeze your brain to have metaphors
To draw the images.

Just be yourself, and for God's sake if you have something to say
Just say it.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The lake of metaphor

and perhaps I came to poetry too late
to dive, a slimmish youth,
innocent as youth was or is
into the rich waters of the lake of metaphor
fed distantly by mountain springs,
welcoming in its wateriness,
chilling too like a demand for respect,
welcoming and chilling as a life;
a few strokes and already the green bank
and pile of crumpled clothes discarded
quickly distant, and here
in the middle of the lake, the sky
has opened out as if it were
some rival to a mountain-top

and the hands press against
the resistances of language, the palms
flat as between praise and surrender,
cleaving a passage to the depth
and then the shore of metaphor; and
emerging, the sunlight
catching the sparkling water droplets,
the skin shivering but invigorated,
the mind full of life
like a poem rich in metaphor.

Older now,
waiting as in the paintings of Saint Jerome
at his desk walled in by books,
pen poised, eyes uplifted,
spirit, rich, yet
mind not full, but waiting
for the grace of metaphor
like the brushing of a white dove's wing

poem by Michael Shepherd
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Poem Written at Morning

A sunny day's complete Poussiniana
Divide it from itself. It is this or that
And it is not.
By metaphor you paint
A thing. Thus, the pineapple was a leather fruit,
A fruit for pewter, thorned and palmed and blue,
To be served by men of ice.
The senses paint
By metaphor. The juice was fragranter
Than wettest cinnamon. It was cribled pears
Dripping a morning sap.
The truth must be
That you do not see, you experience, you feel,
That the buxom eye brings merely its element
To the total thing, a shapeless giant forced
Upward.
Green were the curls upon that head.

poem by Wallace Stevens
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Metaphor lives a secret life all around us. We utter about six metaphors a minute. Metaphorical thinking is essential to how we understand ourselves and others, how we communicate, learn, discover and invent. But metaphor is a way of thought before it is a way with words.

James Geary in Metaphorically speaking (2009)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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His Poem

i read his poem today,
a disciple of
I don't really know
he will not tell
but this i can say,
i follow every thought
every metaphor
and it is like i am being
pushed
to the labyrinth of the
large and small
intestines of a
chicken,
i know how is it
to be a gizzard,
i survive all these
blind curves
until i bump upon
a closed door
like an opening at the
end of the tunnel,
there is still no light
only lots of
shit.

One thing,
last word, i like the
ride of the
roller coaster
which brings me
back to my
heyday
my youth
which i may say
is paramount to his

nauseous, really.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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36

a metaphor is easy to make
and so easy to recall

remember the cat's feet like a fog
leaving softly the harbor in the city?
remember a misery that jumps like a flea &
bites you and you cannot sleep
and you say life is like that
a flea

remember
you think of time as a growing child
a man,
a wild man running and chasing
virgins that must make most of their time
because
time is a-flying and
the rose that blooms today
tomorrow
may be dying

remember time in a bottle

remember life like a fruit fly trapped
trying to figure
out how to escape
and you say life is like that
a fruit fly

remember death
like a woman sleeping in her chambers
closing the curtains
and you say
death is like that
a mere closing of a curtain

just like that

remember how
loneliness is like a steel tunnel
you get in there,
some birds hover and fly away from you
you get in there,
and there seems to be no light visible
at the end

loneliness

life is like that

you see
metaphors and dissect every vein
every artery
every bone and
cartilage of
these metaphors that you
say do not exist
in prose

, , , , , , , , , , , that you say do not exist in my prose

mine is not poetry
mine is a poverty of poetry
and you claim
yours is the basket the cornocupia of true poetry

good for you, you are the prima donna
of this
dance
this quibble in poetry

it does not matter

give me some metaphors
about poverty, discrimination, meaninglessness,
purposelessness,
non-being, the metaphysics of early death
a being-in-distress
an addict
a streetchild
a battered wife
a cruel father
a hypocirte priest
an embittered professor
a disgruntled student
give me some metaphors about
corruption, lying presidents, secret killings

you are the master of metaphor
you are the queen of slave
metaphors

so be it.
make me a poem to the strictures of metaphor
give poems a strange face
a hybrid of dog and man

make them read and not understand
delude them
give them illusions
confusions

make them baffled, submissive, uncritical, uncomplaining
complacent,

bewilder them to your secret,
derivative and too personalized
metaphors

and you are happy
they do not understand a thing

and they will believe that you are God.

for those that we do not understand
we call it mystery
we call it metaphor
we call it

unquestionable.

let the oppression stay.
let the discrimination live in the metaphors that
you have made.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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