love and thick metaphors

by Kathryn Koromilas 

i.

if i pull a thick
metaphor
out of a thin
hat, will you bring your ruler?

ii.

measure this:

i slide down the curve of your spine and whisper Silk Smooth Paper
(thickness of metaphor, 385 gsm)
i tap the skin there, press keyboard-button bones
(size of metaphor, Lucida Sans 14 pt, Bold)
and make the word dapple
–i’m about to express how your skin is the sun peeking through the trees as
seen fragmented on bare geography–

iii.

someone said it’s all about contraction; making a smaller simile. For
example:

the long version:
Wait, wait for me, will you? Adventure tells me I have to go. I’ll be back.
Stay. Like An Obedient Pet. Stay. And if you close your heart to all the
others, I’ll come back Like A Treat, Like A Fat Chicken Biscuit.

the short version:
Be my Penelope.

iv.
Aristotle didn’t speak of thick or thin, just metafora–
giving you a name
taken from someone else–

You are my Ted
(as in Hughes, Poet-Man-God; height of metaphor, over 6ft tall),
my Sweet
thing (as in John or chocolate, weight of metaphor, 90 kilos or 250 grams,
respectively).

Diomedes didn’t speak of size, either; but of shifting
meaning from proper to improper, for the sake of:

a. beauty (your dappled sunlight smile warms my brow)
b. necessity (i frame you, my dappled-red Picasso, in the tortured gallery
of my mind)
c. polish (your whisper, dappled promise of early afternoon in the park)
and d. emphasis (the dapple-drawn puzzle of your heart)

v.

sometimes i’ll speak metaphors you won’t notice, so familiar
by now (you’re my Araki bud; my red
my red my red my red my red
rose; will love ever
bloom in the desert of your heart?),
they must have been vivid
once but they’ve shriveled;
melted fat into thin common bones.
Death does that.

vi.

watch me pull a thick metaphor
out of a thin hat, call me poet
and love me for it.

[This poem won 2nd place in the IBPC Poem Of The Year 2003]

Judge Dan Kaplan said:

A creative, playful, intelligent piece that uses the page well. The voice is engaging and confident, brash. The sections give the poem a regenerative quality, the poet displaying her/his wit in take after take. Excellent word choices in places (“bare geography”) that make the images pop off the page. The use of other elements like numbers and various units of measure add a satisfying visual element. -Dan Kaplan

[Before winning the above this poem came first in the monthly comp - April 2003.]

Judge Mark Yakich said:

This is one of those metapoem poems that works pretty well
until the last section (vi.) which isn’t necessary — strangely enough
it’s better to end on “Death does that” rather than the “I’m a poet and
I know it” line. In fact, I think the last line might read better “Life
does that” since, as it were, the thrust of the poem is about how
metaphors reiterated too many times become worn-out, glassy-eyed
things. All that said, I like the “Fat Chicken biscuit” and the “Lucida
Sans,” though I’m sure some readers won’t. -Mark Yakich