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.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem