Metaphors in Poems

Metaphors in poems give power to poetry. They open up the mind to new ways of looking at things. Look at the following examples.

The Sickness

When the weight of the snow
Is taken by the sun
The grass springs skyward
With the simple force of life

I am the grass
When the weight of myself
Is melted away
By the truth of the moment.

But I catch myself
Always catch myself
Become myself once more
To write such words as these.

Dull reflections of life
Of experience beyond language
Of joy which is killed
Always killed when spoken.

And I've caught myself again
A contagion spread by words
And poetry appears like fever
A symptom of disease.

Obviously, one could simply say that words (or the ego reflected in them) can be like a disease, or that poetry can be like a symptom of some illness. These might be useful metaphors to use when looking at some of the problems of relying too heavily on language. But to put these ideas into a poem makes them hit the reader with more force. Poetry appears like fever...

Life

I had stayed in the theater
Watching - right to the end
This movie that I hated
This movie that bored me

What can I say?
Except...
I had already paid
The price of admission

This conveys the sense of a man as spectator in his own life better than simply describing the idea. The title may be necessary for us to understand that this is a metaphor for life, but once we get that, the line, "the price of admission" is perhaps as thoroughly depressing as it is meant to be. That is the power of a good metaphor in a poem.

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