Reading and Making 'Metaphor Poems' by Simile & Rhyme
Video Readings from In Vitro, Section IV:
Pilgrim’s Progress
Sophomores’ Pool Party
A dozen boys, in dripping knee-length shorts,
behind them skinny girls, bikini-clad —
all barefoot — sprint downhill. The race aborts.
The tarmac, sizzling late June sun, forbade
and quickly detoured their “olympiad.”
They sit in clumps on neighbors’ cooler grasses —
hot-footed sheepish lads and social lasses.
On Tiptoe
On tiptoe towards the mirror every dawn
the little man with little chin takes care,
near his goatee, lest he look woebegone.
Too light a stroke leaves too much stubbled hair;
too bold, and he may leave some chin quite bare.
Thank god that he has lots of perseverance —
essential to keep up a man’s appearance.
Estate Planning
A man works hard to fill his life with gold,
or, writing books, with feeling, intellect —
perhaps with kids to care for him when old.
By these he seeks control, strives to perfect
his power, make it so it runs unchecked.
And, late, perhaps, he’ll come to see that knot
of character he’ll both take — and lay to rot.
Thumb of Prevailing Thought
1. In a Crèche?
Those tape recordings — standard protocol
for patients in hypnosis age-regressed —
leave little doubt untutored folks recall
details of times their learning can’t suggest:
The undergarments they and parents wore,
odd cooking pots and pans, the hearth or stove,
strange proverbs clothed in now-lost metaphor,
the shapes of wagons their prior dads once drove . . . .
A toddler who recalls his own past lives —
where do they come from? How are they so fresh?
Echos of past lives which each birth revives!
Tots don’t just fabricate them in the crèche.
The toddler’s mind — “daydreaming” in abstractions —
relives, through “Zero Point Field,” past lives’ actions.
2. One at a Time
To master them, a tot replays these lives
though parents brush them off as “cutesy-poo.”
They fret to think his blank-slate brain contrives
illusions that could leave a residue.
It might impair his grip upon what’s “real”
when he goes off to college, takes a job,
gets married, brings the grand-kids for a meal
of char-broiled steaks with fresh corn on the cob . . . .
Our knowledge of the universe (both out
beyond this planet’s grime, beyond its thyme,
and in the solitary mind’s redoubt)
advances slowly, one death at a time —
if musing thus makes all your reason leery,
look closer at the Zero Point Field theory.
3. Prevailing Thought
The put-off toddler stows away each hurt,
takes hard the put-downs of his cosmic view,
identifies with parents who subvert
him with a world-view they believe is “true.”
As “socialized” by school, then academe,
most growing youngsters thumb prevailing thought,
which, rationalizing, gives pretend-esteem
to brains and psyches it consigns to rot.
How can a young adult let go his thumb —
shriveled pink thought, that treacly antidote
to risk of open minds — and overcome
this forged-flesh choke-wad strangling him full throat?
He’ll need to spend most of his Earthly time
in seeking wisdom’s freeing paradigm.
Her Muscatel — and Bread
For G.K.J.
Whenever he would visit her
she tasted freshly on her lips
the spindrift where they met, a spur
to friendship — and apocalypse?
Trained a marine biologist
like her, he seemed a gentle soul.
They needed no psychologist
to see shared values, and shared goal.
On hands and knees in ebbing tide
they’d be delighted with a shell
they had not yet identified . . . .
He was as sweet as muscatel —
but if he should suggest they wed
would they be equals breaking bread?
Hieroglyphs in the Binnacle
A prospective bride sails another sonnet to the groom.
We’ll launch our marriage soon — as long staunch friends
who’ve raced the near-white spindrift seas thus far,
and by the binnacle we’ve made amends
despite the well-frayed jib or splintered spar.
When I’m with you, the sun is brighter, rain
more sweet, and facing cold my heart beats warm.
Our special moments, highs and lows, profane
and sacred, spare us — still — life’s chloroform.
My sweet, I’ve one last fear to lob to you.
A patriarchal union (it must be
that still) of man and wife — then, parents, too? —
may mutely rend our friendship with ennui.
Will we still read true feeling’s hieroglyphs?
Or will we founder — and float up, two stiffs?
Persimmons, Pseudopods and Such
Which is more worthy to live by?
Romance (a dreamland in my head)
or groin-gland instincts close to thigh?
Which makes the richer planting bed?
Plus, my reptilian brain’s a gland.
So’s limbic. Neocortex too.
(How easily glands get out of hand
deciding what is best to do.)
More, mind’s non-local, linking heads.
Its resonant pseudopod projects,
and “vibes” with other ’pods whose spreads
(invisible) each intersects.
So, Head? Groin? Mind? It’s hard to say,
given how glands all interplay.
When stared at from behind, I turn.
The starer’s ’pod directs my eyes.
Our eyes now touch by sight, and yearn
for more, or none, and mobilize
according to intent I read
as he or she acts well, or odd.
A friend? Or not? My “brains” accede
as starer calls — or turns, faux pased . . . .
Back when naïfs we learned to peer
upon our world from cheeks of down —
’til, sunk with puppy love (or fear),
we’d play so brazenly we’d drown
in mirror-pools that served the throne
of Estrogen-Testosterone.
Now I’m “grown up” — what is grown up?
No ad man eats unless adroit
cajoling me with training cup
to juice the glands he would exploit.
Testosterone fuels auto sales.
Estrogen seeks out “buys” for women.
But glands dry up as we furl sails
and munch our rock-hard green persimmon.
Persimmon-bitter, culture’s ’pod
projects against both yours and mine
from birth to death. Although a fraud,
it’s common . . . and thus seems benign.
Its pseudopod can make us ashen —
though it may school us in compassion.
THIS PAGE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION. Please return later. Thank you.
To continue, click on the image on this page, or here: In Vitro: New Short Rhyming Poems Post-9/11.
Or, click here: Get it at Amazon.com.
Home
IV Headlines
IV Book Reviews
What IV Readers Say
In Vitro: From the Back Cover
In Vitro: Synopsis
IV Videos Section 1
IV Videos Section 2
IV Videos Section 3
IV Videos Section 4
IV Videos Section 5
IV Videos Section 6
Contact the author: leejamieson "at"
Comcast "dot" net