Week of First Drafts - Saturday - Extended Metaphor

[bodkin]

Write a poem where one single metaphor is extended to represent the subject of the poem from beginning to end.

e.g. if you were (rather conventionally) using a river as a metaphor for time, you would pick out all sorts of further aspects of the river (ducks, eddies, bridges...) and make them also metaphors for other things relevant to time (people, impersonal forces of history, memorable events...)

A good example of an extended metaphor is the "All the world's a stage" speech from As you Like it.

--

As an alternative/extension write a poem that is about a clear subject, but does not mention it directly, and thus has to entirely use metaphor (or metonymy, if you want to be flash).

[Raine]

.

Seamingly a couple

Unshod and nude I watched you mannequin.
Your ticking loose, your form, sized.
We pinned in silver skeins; needled,
embroidering in time. I fine stitched
your gusset
And you appliquéd mine.

Later hemmed and pressed
we lay in cross-stitched tapestry.
Braided at the edges,
back-tack
and perfect finished.

But bias taped and blanket stitched
we button holed the facing;
hook and eyed the right side
And un-picked
our entredeux.

.




Revised ...


Seamingly

Unshod and nude
I watched you mannequin.

Ticking torn and form, sized,
we pinned silver skeins and needled.

Silk embroidered time as
I fine stitched
your gusset
And you, in collar turn,
appliquéd mine.

Later, hemmed and pressed,
we lay in cross-stitched tapestry.
Braided at the edges,
back-tack
and perfect quilted.

But bias taped and blanket stitched
we button-holed the facing;
hook and eyed the right side
and un-picked
our decorative
entredeux.


.

[bodkin]

Hi Raine,

I think is clever, but a couple of bits of terminology I don't know: entredeux, Manakin...

The latter looks up to be a family of birds, which doesn't seem to fit with the needlework theme, the latter is some sort of ribbon?

Not sure which was the original and which the revision, but I like the top one best as it is more compact and thus flows more smoothly.

Ian

[bodkin]

I might come back and actually do this exercise on a later day as today I have a stinking cold <sniffle>...

[Raine]

Thanks Ian, the second one was the revision but I'm going to fiddle with this for quite a while yet I think. I really like the concept and I'm enjoying playing around with the terms.
I've got another one on the back burner that's using the names of microorgansims: Salmonella, Listeria and Proteus vulgaris etc. Such rich sounds

_______________________

Tailoring Terms:

Entredeux: "between two" – In needlework terms usually a piece of lightweight fabric joined to another piece of lightweight fabric with a delicate bit of lace.

Manakin: A dressmaker's or tailor's dummy.


Take care of those sniffles, hope your feel better soon.


.

[Pauline]

I am an open book.
My pages may be yellowing
and a little creased.
I'm looking rather dog-eared
as I've been well thumbed,
but hey, I'm a bloody
good read.

[bodkin]

Manakin: A dressmaker's or tailor's dummy.

Surely that's a manikin?

Take care of those sniffles, hope your feel better soon.

Thanks!

[Raine]

Oh dear, how embarrassing! I've just looked it up and what I actually meant was 'mannequin.' I've been spelling that wrong for about forty years. Worse still for 20 of them I was a professional seamstress and highstreet retail haberdasherer.

I'll just do a quick edit and then I'll get my coat ...

[bodkin]

I think you were a bit unlucky there, manikin or mannikin seem to be alternative spellings of mannequin, but not manakin unfortunately.

Don't worry, you're not the only one, it still takes me three attempts to spell excersize, err exersize, err exercise...

And as for manoeuauevere...