Metaphor. Poems | Examples

Modern Darkness

Modernland has legalized murder, they roll these streets
Billyclubs in tow, those weak are taped and tortured
Throw'em a gun and a bullet grinning through glass
As those who suffer pull the trigger, bang
Darkness isn't evil, the real monsters are people
Art is rebellion, they want Armageddon, life isn't Christmas
They decide who gets presents, I'm number one 
On the naughty list, then, some call it divine intervention
Others say entertainment, I say sacrilege to the manes

Premium Member soliloquy

               o pray …

should count we all the phrases fought
          there is not time with conscious thought
     sieved, all those hearts that poets wrought …

and when their breaths come laid to bed
          sweet then those dreams are softly bled
     souls lost thru time and stained to red …

               oh …

     how dear praise giv’n midst life … instead.





Copyright © 2025 Gregory Richard Barden

( photographic art of yours truly created copyright-free by the poet with Prism/Lightroom software )
Form: Rhyme


Premium Member THIRSTY PEACE WALLOWING

THIRSTY PEACE WALLOWING

In life’s wet streamings–
Sweat, tears, and painful peeing–
Peace wallows in thirst:-
Today’s warring wet waters,
Quenching greed’s evil thirstings:-
Form: Tanka

A good beyond the good

In a given context, when we isolate a situation from a viewpoint where we're standing, that we hold ourselves open to the possibility that there is a good beyond the good that we can perceive with our limited understanding.

Premium Member Desiring A Duet

My heart longs to have a poet
Willing to write with me a duet.


Premium Member Oh, I Was Wrong

Life is full of steps and stages
As we learn what it is to be alive.
And every stage is marked
By the recognition that we were wrong
About what it is we now know.

Like a box within a box
Or nesting Russian dolls
Continually we open onto a new world
A new level of understanding.

We talk of insects and crustaceans
Reptiles and amphibians shedding their skin
But we do it too, just more subtly and subjectively,
And as more evolved beings, continuously.

What is it we shed besides old dead skin?
Old dead ideas, outgrown, outlived
Making way for the new
Slowly changing the programmed self 
Into a newer version, gradually adjusting
Our identity
With software updates 
That continually need the bugs worked out.

When does this all end?
Never, Life says
With every new layer of skin.

(9/13/25)
Form: Narrative

READING FOUCAULT


         





RETHINKING FOUCAULT

Just as a verse comes from verses,
a song comes from songs...
Text comes from texts,
Everything comes from the whole,
nothing is just an extract
of what already exists and has...
Everything is in place... and just copy and paste...
Of course, transforming, assembling
the story to taste...
But the new fact doesn't exist
nothing exists new...
But there is knowledge,
the innate talent!
Archimedes, renowned scientist
exclaimed his Eureka!
upon finding the "solution"
to a complex proof,
in a general field or mathematics...
Later, in a less long-lived stage,
well before the calends
Shakespeare, the theatrical wizard,
confirmed this missing piece for us!
A non-blatant copy of the plagiarism
perpetrated disguised by
his abysmal talent...
Nothing is created, everything is copied
nothing new and so new
the genuine is old, ancient
everything comes from the one!
... ALEA JACTA EST
 ready! AND DONE "
Form: Burlesque

Premium Member down in up

will it up
grill it up
fill it up to brimming
swill to still those silly cells
drowned in what they’re swimming

press ‘em up
mess ‘em up
dress ‘em up with practice
a hoarder in its order
and thorned as any cactus

mock it up
talk it up
chalk it up to neurons
firing with mis-wiring
the receptors that they were on

hike 'em up
strike 'em up
spike 'em up your coursings
joy's in that sweet poison
tho it's life that you're divorcing

burn it up
churn it up
turn it up to 'leven 
bursting drums, but first it comes
and lies to you like heaven

smoke 'em up
toke 'em up
choke 'em up a-breathing
red, the mud, as thin as blood
to leave your angels seething

tighten up
whiten up
lighten up and torch it
melt the moon into the spoon
and soon you'll swoon to scorch it

wind it down
bind it down
grind it down to fill you
you won't miss
amidst your bliss
the sweetest kiss ... to kill you …

her sweetest kiss ... will kill.





Copyright © 2023 Gregory Richard Barden

( photographic art created copyright-free by the poet with GALA AI software )
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member chelle

sweet passion stirs

          those eyes of hers

               as blues and greens soft-weep

     and should their seas

e’er drown me, please …

          don’t save me from … that deep.





Copyright © 2025 Gregory Richard Barden

( photographic art taken from public domain at Picasa / FreePik )
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member crime of passion

"murder me"

she whispered ...
(lips pressed to my nape, nipping skin)
for her betrayal of husband and
family meant as much ..,
we both knew the sacrifices,
and we accepted the cost that instant,
then, and for the scandalous time to come …

she was lost in me - straddling, pressing
and I, lost in her
so rooted that I was becoming her in flesh …
in all senses …
nothing mattered anymore but
passion and its pyre
burning all in its torrid wake -
all that had mattered ...
'til then …

it was a horrid thing for her to say -
to place in such dire phrasing
yet it was ALL that I wanted -
all that I needed and cared to hear …
"murder me"
she whispered again, pressing down ...
"for I am nothing now ...

but yours."





Copyright © 2019 Gregory Richard Barden

( photographic art created copyright-free by the poet with GALA AI software )

Premium Member may morn

springtide …

blows a tender kiss
tickling blossoms on a plum branch
to loose their grasp, giggling
whirling and winding in
the sun like drunken, gilded pixies
capricious in their flight
a whimsical drift -
aromatic and elegant …
flawless, like the wishes of a child
floating to purpose, afar -
to alight on a dream
enigmatic, joyous, true …
as blessed in their journey as they
are in the order of their
exquisite design -
as charmed in their prospect
as they are in their
perfect, resplendent sacrifice …
sacred essence of being
lifeblood of existence -
the bright, brisk
glorious morning breath of
nature …

itself.





Copyright © 2022 Gregory Richard Barden

( photographic art created copyright-free by the poet with GALA AI software )

On Love

Oh no, I’ve fallen in love again
Why does this always happen to me?
Love is no bigger than a small apple
It reflects in the eye but beats in the chest.
What am I falling out of love with? 
I can’t carry every apple I see.

Still A Novice

I missed the target; So I took another arrow, pulled back the bow with all my strength, and aimed it at the centre. Thoughts of vengance blew it off course; I missed the target; So I took another arrow, pulled back the bow with all my strength, and aimed it at the centre. 
It would have found its home, if not for passion. I missed the target; Feeling unworthy but determined, I took another arrow, pulled back the bow with all my strength, and aimed it at the centre. This time I hit the target; By meausure of the arrows which lie on the ground, and the ones which hit the target, i saw my true level of progress. I saw I was still a novice.

Premium Member Nebula to Eye

                                                                    Nebula to Eye

                                                 Where stars weave though velvet sky
                                                        Is born a limpid nebula to eye.

thuh bard'z winter tale 'nightmare'

.

                                                         wool
                                                   twill weave
                                                    cardiganz 
                                                  harem pants
                                                        boots
                                                      hoodiez
                                                    aran coats
                                                        dents
Form: Epigram

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