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TRULY WRITTEN
Truly written’s true because
what was written truly was.
Fact, near-fact, or flagrant lie -
what’s writ is writ – none can deny.
’Twas truly written, every word,
although what actually occurred
may not have been so… so… so what?
A forthright writer’s honest, but
allowed to exercise exaggeration
and outright fabrication;
for without imagination,
there would be
no poetry
nor history
nor you nor me.
“Ridiculous!” you say, “Absurd!” -
but truly written – every word.
(Mike Cohen - c.1990)
Just because it truly is written doesn’t necessarily mean it is truly written. Even in what is truly written, the truth may be literal or metaphorical.
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BEWARE THE METAPHOR
Nothing is exactly anything else
(or even perfectly itself).
Parallels meander,
meeting at points and drifting apart.
Metaphor strikes chord and discord at once,
noting both astonishing similarities
between the fundamentally different
and fundamental differences
between the astonishingly similar.
So when she calls you “a tiger in bed,”
and you feel inclined to respond with a roar,
don’t be an ass (to use another metaphor)
but take a moment to reason
if what she said were so, what a messy truth it would be;
then simply lay back
and, if you must do something bestial,
just purr.
(Mike Cohen – June 2010)
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The writing process is transformative. With some basis in reality a notion takes shape and is then translated to something legible. This translation is best seasoned with literary devices such as metaphor. In the end, the reality base has turned to something different, having undergone a change that may be termed “metaphorosis.” A person can stand for something that has nothing to do with him personally, by virtue of nothing more than a gesture or posture that a writer seizes and exploits metaphorically.
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METAPHORIC MAGIC
It can happen to anyone a writer encounters.
One moment you are an ordinary person,
climbing a stairway,
idling in a doorway,
descending into the subway,
and the next moment
there you are -
symbol of ambition,
soul of indolence,
spirit of the passage to perdition.
Gratuitously and mercilessly
a writer wields the wand of metaphor
to impose import upon the mundane, and
fixing figurative focus on your finite flesh,
annexes from you some aura,
extracts from you some essence,
fashions from you
something that flutters colorfully away
after the metaphorosis.
(Mike Cohen - Oct 2011)
