Poetic Metaphor

If poets couldn’t softly rave

With balm of dreamy metaphor,

Or with ghostly insignia wave

A wispy, ethereal semaphore;

If they were not allowed to verse

In parallel allegory,

Or feed a simple and very terse

Parable to a flagging story;

If poets couldn’t liken things

With spicy home-grown simile,

Find similarity that profile brings,

Or attributes’ mirrored affinity;

If poets couldn’t boring statements enhance

With a questing probitive analogy,

Or at least, an unfair resemblance,

By bold use of magicology;

If poets couldn’t their musings compose

In filmy terms of translucent gauzes,

Nor gather harvested elements of those,

Their most emotional heartfelt causes;

If they couldn’t but craft together

 Spinning gilded gossamer thread,

Join with touch those wisps of ether

Born from mystery in their head;

If poets couldn’t accent and impress

Their lines with punctuated rhyme,

Or distribute, mark points of stress,

Articulate in syllabic time;

Couldn’t find a deft manner of motion

To silken and billow poetic flow,

Nor emphasize with torrid emotion,

Set roller coasting in word show;

If poets couldn’t sing lilting song,

Heart-felt, undying romantic love,

Tenuous references, right or wrong,

To tenderly soft ubiquitous dove;

Nor dance on formative lexical set,

Twirly light steps of woodland fairy,

Nor paint of curved rainbow palette,

With hued strokes yet tinted airy;

If poets couldn’t stylishly do

These marvelous linguistic things,

Their musings would be only few,

Sans lift of joy, strength of wings;

Poetry’d be virtually denied,

A drear monotony of droned text,

Senseless machine user’s guide

Telling rote what‘s needed next.

Worse! Works throughout history

That we now consider great,

Ignored, without their mystery,

As renditions that barely rate.

Aesop would truly be a fable,

Homer’s Iliad, like Odyssey,

Loses “great adventure” label,

Beowulf dead – ninth century.

Holy Bible would undoubtedly

Be bland, an uninspiring book.

Koran would be worth hardly

Taking an extensive look.

Readers of the Talmud fortunate

If they don’t go to sleep and fall.

Kama Sutra just smut to hate,

Rubiyat’d bore readers all.

Remove poesy from Shakespeare,

From Bacon take poetic largess,

Entire works would disappear,

Fade in oblivion’s crevasse.

Mention Byron, Shelley, or Keats,

Lowell or Sandburg – Frost too,

Make audience squirm in seats,

And voice utter confusion, “Who?”

No, we thrill that poets have license

To spin tales with a bell and whistle,

Reading garners best recompense

When poets in freedom pen their epistle.