What's a Metaphor?

Did you know that life
is made more tenable
by the simple use of a proper metaphor?
 When in the throws of trying times,
unlike a mirror's more pedestrian rhymes
this simple act of magical thinking
could give your psyche a fresh new inkling.

By combining distance with reflection
metaphors can alter one's circumspection.

My own diary is

artless yet elegiac; 

a place for synonyms
to mingle with verbs.

Suffice it to say

swapping

 "like" for "as",

has brought closure

to so many of my words.

You see
this way there's
less a chasm between
the implicit and the implied,
revealing a surprising comparison
between two things
rarely found
side by side.

For instance I liken my emotions
 to what I see up in the sky,
dark clouds equal frustration,
red horizons make my heart sigh.

I am guilty of thinking

(dare I leave it at that?)

surely an argument

can be made for favoring

metaphorical over literal fact.

Take the fundamentalist

searching for the ark

at the bottom of the sea

or mistaking Moby Dick

for the whale that swiped Jonah

right out of his family tree!

I confess

I'm desperate
to find meaning

in the world at large,

though I'd rather not
reduce the stars

to poetic constraints,
well, maybe just
Pluto and Mars.

On the subject of the heavens
I offer this word

of consternation:
I have found that

that which goes

unexamined

does tend

towards constellation.

So taking these thoughts

to heart

I examine their meaning

with glee.
Case in point:  though I am

the black sheep of my clan,

I'm neither black

nor am I a sheep!

Metaphors bring

the unrelated together,

I think you can plainly see,

it's how one conjugates a royal rift

and I don't mean

with the royal "we".

Take for example

a well rounded snow man,
formed simple for the sake of fun.

His carrot, coal and scarf;

props of a sentence being
slowly undone by the sun.

Aren't we all made

of that same holy water
transmuted from

sea to sky?
What is a metaphor
if not a child's eye view
born in a snowman's eye.

Peter Valentyne
October 29th, 2019

Godliness

I 

long 

to write 

a poem 

that

disentangles

me 

from the 

world.

To turn away

from grasping,

yet not

spare the lamb.

Has a poem

ever been 

born

without
something

being

ravaged?

What if

we are
meant
to be

our own

sacrifice?

Look how 

close 

the words

sacred and scared

and scarred

are.

Some

are lamed early

by the very

forces that will
bring about

their strength.

They discover
the secret.

To curb one’s desire 

so to quench 

the soul’s thirst

(despite our being 

made of

two thirds
water),

brings 

godliness

with or without

a God.

Still

we resist

being solved

and 

there’s no

solving others;

our natures

are

too fluid.

I’ve taken

to stuffing 

stones in

my pockets

 for fear

of floating

upward to
some second
surface;
another canvas,

yet our own.

Why,
when my art

is here?

Consider the bird,

or cat,
or catbird;
any animal

who has no choice

but to be where

the fates

have fixed it,

in other words:

where we

find ourselves.

Only an orphan

knows by

a lack

of experience

how kindness

is what 

it takes

to make

a world

a home.

In the city,

my nature

now 

seems 

remnant.

A red leaf 

under foot

goes

unnoticed,

whereas the

smashed pigeon

in the middle
of the road

is so startling

that it might

as well be

God’s

signature;

 a quill

dipped in 

it’s own blood.

But 

the heart 

knows things

the mind

can’t fathom.

For instance;

it's what
one

does after

being dashed
to bits

that holds the most

weight.

Peter Valentyne

October 19th, 2019

Agency

My favorite memory was nature.

I still remember this

from the time

before I was chosen

for indoctrination.

A time before my instruments

were trained on beauty,

before I discovered

I could make my own 

weather.

Since then, 

everything I’ve done,

I’ve done as an agent

on an urgent mission,

under my own surveillance,

employed by an agency

that has never revealed itself.

I receive messages 

via what is likely an implant

buried in a head of cabbage.

Plucked from obscurity

as an abandoned child

and trained by calamity

(I was once made to eat

my own vomit),

Still, I never talked.

My nervous breakdown at 17

saw me sever ties with any hope

for a normal life.

All my experiences became assignments.

When I uncovered love

(or did love uncover me?),

I was already working for the agency.

The slightest show of affection

would have me bombarded with spasms

of permeating discomfort. 

I remember how my heart 

often felt like an open wound.

Here’s the thing: 

Love is an overt betrayal

of the agency’s principles.

Love makes you vulnerable

to un-vetable outside forces. 

Every foray into the illogic

of loving risks

endangering your mission.

I have now worked for the agency

for what amounts to my entire life,

often moving to another city 

when exposed.

My adventures have been marked by

small, inconspicuous successes.

As an agent

friendships are rare, if impossible.

Friendliness is only encouraged 

as an intelligence strategy.

Unable to make enemies

even with an enemy

and because of fear of exposure,

my personal opinions 

have been rendered pointless.

I am not here

to accumulate likes and dislikes

like so many joys or unpleasantness.

It is forbidden for me to object.

I am not here to pleasure myself.

My pleasure is viewed 

as a form of betrayal.

I could choose to confess.

An old spy is not a young spy

and a reckoning is surely coming.

I am working for the agency

at the expense of any right

to the most mundane

gesture of selfishness.

As a boy I learned 

to observe others

by surveilling myself:

On home base

I wasn’t just holding the bat,

I observed myself

holding the bat

while the other boys had fun,

I had already been inducted

and hiding

in plain sight.

Truth is, I was chosen because

I was attractive to the enemy,

vulnerable and without family ties,

and I had an undeniably open heart.

So many avenues would have

been possible for me,

except for the most valuable: 

Simple being.

Imagine for a moment

working for a clandestine agency

where you have never met the boss

face to face,

where proving your worth

is based on your ability to blend in,

to appear to belong no matter

where you find yourself,

but never truly belonging.

Your smallest everyday exchange

is an experience to be infiltrated

rather than lived.  

From your first glimmer 

of sexual awakening

you are groomed as a prostitute

and encouraged to use your sex

in exchange for information.

When you went rogue and experimented

as you often have

using your sexuality for escape

rather than leverage,

you were made ill 

and confined

to your bed

like Ingrid Bergman in Notorious.

For years I became convinced

the agency was working

out of the basement 

of a local evangelical church.

Maybe that way 

I could imagine myself

a noble experiment,

an enigma,

something futile

yet holy.

I live my life by a series of codes.

First code of conduct:

No one says what they mean.

I may say what I mean

only after extraction.

After all,

words are for disguising what is.

Second code of conduct:

People hide their weaknesses.

And I am not allowed to show strength.

Be always a valley

as water flows ever downward

like love to an empty cup.

There are other rules:

Do not draw attention to yourself.

Do not become famous for anything.

Do not fraternize with other agents.

Do not be ugly, angry, or mean.

And also some do’s:

Be simple and kind, not complicated.

Be approachable, unpretentious, and polite.

Occasionally use curse words.

Do not appear perfect.

Last night I scribbled a note 

on the inside of a book of matches

and tossed it from a height.

Lucky for me, I found it.

The note read: 

Find that thing

that touches

everything you think.

God, beauty, love, 

pleasure, fear, desire….

Then meet me there.

They’re onto you.

Peter Valentyne

September 2018