Douglas Gilbert on metaphors in poetry. This is a wild random start. I don’t know how far this can go, if at all. Actually it’s had a lot of quick on the spot editing and rearranging done too fast to record as drafts. So this I suppose isn’t really draft 1 but as many as 5 minor drafts. Adding the name was a last minute addition — the all “you” ‘s was a little vague and impersonal.
All the Metaphors Are Dead
by Douglas Gilbert
What’s to be done, Emily Luna
if all the metaphors are dead?
You are the prettiest scientist I know.
I dare not compare thee-you
to a flower or say thee-you
are a star or pull the tides of love
like the moon or
shine like my sun, because
The twentieth century
and before has
taken the flowers,
the trees, the moon
the tunes and the stars
Shakespeare and their
ilk and elk have
horned out
all the dilemma horns.
Only the ancients
in their ignorance of science
could have thought heaven had
a location among the stars, but
there’s only other planets
with their own
Hollywood studios
and lots
Maybe, a guy
on a primitive planet
somewhere
thinks Heaven is
located near
our star that
we call the Sun
(I wonder what
he calls his star)
Anyway,
fly me to your heart
so I will circulate
to reach your soul
though it could be
beyond
your pretty brain I’m told
(saw it in a cat scan photo
and I know you like the cats,
know you like your dog star)
So, Emily Luna
you light me up
when I am
a dark matter
You are my
light energy
that drives me
searching for
my heaven, but
contrariwise
I have found
my heaven
in you.
Chloë 