Ode To Metaphors

Here’s a twain of siblings so delicate— The tenor and its weary vehicle, Similar are, nor yet so disparate O lady, art not thou so fickle? In seeming sameness struts lady contrast, Harmony jars to sing in unsure doubt, Oxymoron shows a cynical pout, Obscure ironies whilst little light cast. Gambol ling as proxies, some sign-symbols, Try hard to match ‘sleep, a shadow of death', But fail to break down bulwarks of old walls, From whereso might fount the poetic faith. The whole hinting of part, part of the whole; And few know O lady Metonymy, What sets apart ye from Synecdoche, Yet, neat-picking does rob poem her soul. A poet’s not a spring, shocks to absorb, Nor yet a punster he is out to shock, A planter of paradox in vague orb, Nor yet one, pundits often put in dock. Beware, poets might few metaphors pick, But zero in on befitting apt word, The Muse at high O happens when to hick! Ye’d better stay as art, O thou rare bird. O ye poem, by nature art thou fickle, Fains if forced metaphors can ever tickle, So, lady, let my Muse, a freer hand, E’en if she were to lead to arid land. _______________________________________ Some critiques and academics analyse poems in the manner doctors diagnose patients— on faults that ail, focussing little on patient as a whole. ‘Life is but a walking shadow', (Macbeth). Here, ‘life' is the tenor, and ‘walking shadow' the vehicle of the metaphor. But metaphors can also be used without knowing their precise grammar and definitions. ‘Sleep as an adumbration of death', said Robert Frost, but one can use the signs and symbols without knowing them accurately. Symbolism comes natural to a good poet. The poetic devices like paradox, understatement, hyperbole, and irony can come to the poet's command without him knowing their technical names. Further, there are people fond of ‘paraphrasing' a poem. Now, this is something beyond me. Why need one do so and put a piece of verse (and a thing of beauty) unto prose, and kill it in the process? Ode | 04.08.2008 |