Commander Riker

Works saxophone and Starbucks

Centuries early

Batter bold,

Fried golden woman behold.

Fried is only a letter away from friend

Friend when a letter?

Fat and meat must refrigerate; I was told.

You are fat and meat; I was told.

“The thickest skin is fried chicken,”

Thinks this chicken woman.

“Sexy isn’t crispy; it’s cold

Real cold.”

Out I slide the metal refrigerator shelves,

Feeling metal my selves.

I fold heels to butt, knees to chest,

Thighs to my stomach fold. 

What butt?

But nature at her joints cut.

Mycology cries for attention, “Mold!

Come mold!”

Iowa welcome

Melting my emergency

Car deodorant

Your raw words: butter,

Flour, eggs, salt, yeast, water

Into the oven

Sacrificing small lives for art at 400O

In the heat, butter creates air

Texture is born

Pastry                       

Air             Pastry

Air            Pastry                        Air

A pastry of a poem

Good morning moon

“Metaphors are a bad habit,” the professor says.  “We are chefs throwing bacon in bad recipes,” I write in my notes.  “I think in metaphors,” I think.  I’ve read papers on the pedagogical importance of metaphors.  I wrote my senior thesis on the power of metaphors.  It is such a shame Susan Sontag is dead.  Dear Susan, are you turning over in your grave yet?

What is a metaphor?  Or are we talking about all figurative language?  Similes are logically weaker than metaphors, does that make them better or worse?  Then, there is metonymy defying a definition stronger than association.  Synecdoche is a kind of metonymy; the part representing the whole.  Chemistry is the study of synecdoche with respect to any other field.  I think metonymy is the fast lane of thought.  The height of poetry is the wild linking croissants and my imaginary older sister. 

Function follows form is the lesson of the semester, I suspect.  So the problem with metaphors is that they are the converse.  They are meaning heavy.  They are heavy.  This professor likes light language and dark thoughts. What if I resist?  What will this course do to me?  What if no one appreciates this rant? 

I’d rather jump an unfamiliar horse over a fence with my eyes closed than give up my metaphors.  Metaphors equal life for me.