Here is a poem arising out of yesterday’s workshop. Ocean Vuong’s opaque words are written in blacklight ink. Don’t you have a UV light? Yeah, his poetry pisses me off. I admire it like I would a metaphysical wit like John Donne, but…poetic figures be damned. They are no better than lies, metaphoric lies.  This is not a bad thing as long as you know that, like propaganda, metaphors demand we follow the money.

 

 

WARNING! METAPHORIC THINKING OUT LOUD AHEAD!

Yes, the tools of the master can rebuild the house.

No, don’t bother waiting for some sublime thing.

No, I didn’t make the road by walking it.

Yes, grasses are leaves, not pages in a book.

No, the worm does most definitely not forgive the plow.

Yes, the map is the territory.

No, dying is not a wild night nor is it a new road. Neither is it an undiscovered country.

No, the entire world’s not a stage, only some of it is; and all the men and women not actors with their exits and their entrances, only some are.

Yes, the sun rises in the west, but it is not a drop of burning gold that slides nearer and nearer to a world’s sill.

No, god no, I am not a bird in a narrow cage nor does a cage make me sing.

Yes, I have come to a fork in the road and choosing one or the other makes no difference.

No, hope has no feathers, it does not perch anywhere. All songs end.

I could go on,

just like any fool

who thinks that metaphors

carry any weight at all.