Dark, Dark, is all I find for
Metaphor: all else were Contrast²
Our Lives pass at such Remoteness
From its Symbols, and its Metaphors
& Tropes are necessarily so Far-Fetched³
All Experience is, no matter how Real – only
A system of Metaphor for the Allegory Life is⁴
A general Thickness of Signs Superimposed and
Coagulated, occupying the whole Volume of Space⁵
Poetry’s impulse to use Metaphor is to Discover the
Correspondences of which the Sum total would be
Proof of the Indivisible Totality of Existence⁶
A Kaleidoscope of Endless Metaphors – and
Each some Vaster, Fresher Sense Explores⁷
A Roar: it is Truth itself Stepped among
Mankind right into the Metaphor Flurry⁸
‘T is the Substance that Wanes ever,
‘T is the Symbol that Exceeds: soon
We shall have nought but Symbol⁹
The Life of the Artist is simply
One Big Gorgeous Metaphor¹⁰
¹ Julian Randall, FLEX
² Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence
³ Henry David Thoreau, Walden
⁴ Charles Olson, An Open Road
⁵ Italo Calvino tr. William Weaver, A Sign in Space
⁶ John Berger, And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos
⁷ Hermann Hesse tr. Richard & Clara Winston, A Dream
⁸ Paul Celan tr. Pierre Joris, A Roar
⁹ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lady Geraldine’s Courtship
¹⁰ Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince