A Poet's Old Age Should Be An Adventure In Metaphors
A Poet's old age should be an adventure in Metaphors-
Traveling to distant unknown shores-
Discoveries undreamed before -
Old Age should be the Age of Metaphors-
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Let's Leave The 'Poems' Without Metaphors
LET’S LEAVE THE ‘POEMS’ WITHOUT METAPHORS
Let’s leave the ‘poems’ without metaphors
Bare and stark and original
Quiet and sleeping and still
The soothing poems the calming poems
The poems that even in the middle of the night
Let us sleep.
Let’s leave the poems without metaphors
And go back to the simple words
And let them say all they can by themselves
Until they become metaphors too.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love.
Milan Kundera in The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Alley Rats
They were calling certain styles of whiskers by the name of “lilacs.”
And another manner of beard assumed in their chatter a verbal guise
Of “mutton chops,” “galways,” “feather dusters.”
Metaphors such as these sprang from their lips while other street cries
Sprang from sparrows finding scattered oats among interstices of the curb.
Ah-hah these metaphors—and Ah-hah these boys—among the police they were known
As the Dirty Dozen and their names took the front pages of newspapers
And two of them croaked on the same day at a “necktie party” … if we employ the metaphors of their lips.
poem by Carl Sandburg
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I Don't Know Why I Should Try To Write A Poem Now
I don't know why
I should try to write
A poem now-
There will be other times
When the Metaphors
I ordinarily do not have
Flow not easily in me
Like water lava
Like blood- thinned by aspirin-
All I have to do is
Keep reading enough poetry of others
And exotic metaphors
Will come to me
As if I were another person's voice
And nothing in myself
Real as my own.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Moderns
To many reading modern poetry more interesting the meaning in the metaphors they seek to find
They feel it makes their brains work that much harder that it is good exercise for the mind
Rhyme for their great brains seems that bit too simple it does not test their thinking power at all
'Tis not a poem to them if it seems simple and the meaning in it easy to recall,
Yes rhyme for them it does seem that bit simple and deciphering it to them is not a test
The hidden meaning in the metaphors is something that does seem to try them best
Rhyme poetry to them is too simple and far too easy for to understand
It has to be blank verse with dozens of metaphors for their interest for to command
They look on rhyme and bush poets as inferior their preference in poets and poetry they make known
On literature they air their opinions like it is said to each their own
Their poetry evenings do seem quite exclusive rhyme poets to read they never do invite
Their unmusical lines that are laced with metaphors to each other they do recite
They do not like rhyme or they do not like bush poetry to them it is of another time
And in their poetry evenings there is no place for the men and the women of rhyme.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Plain Cat
i do not have the mood
for tautologies
and dialectics
and metaphors
so a cat is just a
cat and the printer
is just another printer
and the bloody ink
is just the plain
bloody ink on those
literal floors
but i like your
idea of the cat calling
for a cat's nap ang
perhaps a little pat
on her back
cats too have
birthdays and
metaphors may
convert them
to wives and
concubines
cats and moons
struck and grinning.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Islands are metaphors of the heart, no matter what poet says otherwise.
Jeanette Winterson in Sexing the Cherry
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Poems Became Metaphors
The poems became metaphors-
They took off like meteors,
They turned into shimmering white almond tree beauty-
They danced-
They went home
They became sick and died-
They did everything a human being and a non- human being could try to do -
They were nothing and they were everything-
They turned the sky white and blue on its darkest day
And made the nights green-
Oh they were something else the poems when they became metaphors-
And still now,
They are rising up and going deep into a different universe,
No one not even the most quiet eyes can ever fully dream-
poem by Shalom Freedman
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There is no more reason why the features belonging to a picture should be distorted for the purpose of such imaginative suggestion than that the poet's metaphors should spoil his words for the ordinary uses of man.
quote by William H. Hunt
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Failure Of Rhyme
it i were to speak to you
in rhyme
and well thought of metaphors
it will take me
more time
and i do not have much of it
and i cannot possibly tell you
what i have within
completely
i have no dream of perfection
there is no such things as us
as perfect as a cup or a ring
and we will be at a loss at the end
not having said
what should have been stated so clearly
and spontaneously
as river and rain
or as dew on a leaf of grass
early dawn
when metaphors fail
when rhythm and rhyme stand aloof
along the boulevard without rails
the streams of our consciousness is always there
to save us
willing to adopt us in the form of a sacrifice
i am here now and
i am talking to myself
and since you are here not to listen
i reserve this
space for you for the future
for time that does not die
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Metaphors
She is like an angel, the poet said;
You compare and experience it.
She is an angel, the poet averred;
You fantasies and experience it.
Metaphors induce in readers’ minds
Fantasy, a superior taste.
It is in one’s fantasy that
One bringis ones sweet heart and enjoys
04.08.2011
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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The Poetry In The Heart Of Hazel
far in the hills of cancainap
she feels poetry like the winds of the mountain
like the forest trees
and she writes them line to line
each syllable keeps on dripping
like the raindrops from the
roof to her footsteps
i have read what she sends me
day by day through the internet
i could have told her that the metaphors
are still looking for her because she did not put them
i didn't. Finally i did not tell her. In her lines i have seen
how her heart is burning like the wildfires in the forest
and no kind of criticism has the right to put it off.
i know, perhaps after four summers, she and her metaphors
soon shall meet. And there will be a big feast.
A truce, perhaps between feeling and discipline.
Art is always a patient listener
and in such slow
touches and brushes it paints more beautifully
than the warm hands of reality.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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I read another poet I could not understand
I READ ANOTHER POET I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND
I read another poet I could not understand
The metaphors racing one after the other
The eternal thoughts taking on a new particular dress
Words and more words
Lines and more lines
Rushing toward meaning and beauty.
And in it all my simple not understanding,
My waiting to hear words that would return to me-
My understanding
That only by my own effort
By my reading again and again
By my willing to believe
Could I make another poet real.
But do I want another poet to be real
When I am a question,
And when there are already others real for me also?
Oh selfish little man oh poor poor reader-
Write your poem alone again
As if no one but you will ever be able to write
The poems which are real.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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To Mary Ruefle, poet
and since you're an
American Poet or
a poet writing in English
or however you might put this
in a cv which you'll surely
never need being unique
and therefore beyond all
job descriptions except poet
since you're, well, those things or
that thing
you may never have seen
a kangaroo (and in a zoo
they can't hop..)
but if you do you'll recognise it
when I say it - your mind
is metaphorically, and no-one
handles metaphors like you do may I say,
like a kangaroo - huge hops
off into the horizon of thought
with what in marsupial body-language
may be bounding, boundless
joy
a kangaroo which might in the world
of your poems which I can't hope
to imitate but I'll have a go,
be carrying a baby roo in its pouch with
its head sticking out
and a backward glance towards you
who one day will return grown-up
with a crumpled poem
in its own pouch
addressed to Mary Ruefle
mentioning in passing
immortality
poem by Michael Shepherd
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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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A Metaphor Is Easy To Make
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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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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A Spirit Of Poetry!
when a spirit of poetry decent,
it came
In a form of dove
When it came
Jesus became first poet under sun
And Almighty God
Was already, first poet over sun?
Using Poetry in poetic foam
Almighty GOD spoke through poetry
And he is a poet himself
Now his poetry is everywhere, and anywhere
We interact with poets
Words are like soil, are everywhere
Brighter that Sun
His poetic lights lead the way
When he likes
He will come
He will be in poetic foam
To Re-arrange poems
Schedule them in a poetic manner
On a judgment, He will met poets first
And secondly meet
Those who haven't written a poem
To Discuss similes, metaphors and personifications
Future of poetry is in heaven
poem by Jacques Sprenkie Mateya
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Mixed Metaphors
Fast and funny, smart and very nimble
is his mind, the poet thinks,
making what is complicated simple,
mixing metaphors like drinks,
until, becoming quite inebriated,
his speech begins to slur,
and, manic as a tom-cat that has mated,
his poems fail to purr,
and thoughts like literate lemming herds stampede
as fearlessly they dash
till, unrestrained by Microsoft, with speed
on pixeled screens they crash,
as slow as death and very sadly humbled,
like cats that have been fixed,
while, static as statistics, he has stumbled
in metaphors he's mixed.
Barbara Ehrenreich reviews 'Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything, ' by James Gleick ('Pantheon' in 'Think Quick' (NYT Book Review, September 12,1999) . She says the book is 'nimble, smart, often funny, and -best of all - fast.' She explains that Glueck says that 'we glom onto Diana or O. J. or John Jr. like a lemming herd in full stampede. Against all expectations, the collective brain that emerges from our ever-richer connectedness is turning out to be kind of dumb'.
9/15/99
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Visions Of Immortality
Traveling thru the realm of
time,
New diminsions of the mind,
Hearing drums, from distant
shores,
Bidding, come and explore.
Ever seeking, as I go,
The infinite, an open door.
poem by Heather Burns
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