"analogy" poems
Municipal Gum was written by Oodjeroo Noonecaal. Municipal Gum is about the changes in society and the tendency of people to want to control everything. Oodjeroo uses various techniques to convey this idea.
At the beginning of the poem Oodjeroo is addressing the tree. This immediately creates empathy for both the tree and her people. By the last line she has emphasised this with the pronoun “us” to show that they suffer a similar fate.
This poem expresses how life in Australia has changes especially for Aboriginal people. In the first half of the poem Oodjeroo is talking about how life was for her and others. It explores the changes in society and the displacement of the Aboriginal people from their land.
“Whose head hung…Its hopelessness”, the author uses this as further re-iteration of the immorality of the situation and by the use of analogy comparing the tree to her people to further emphasise the shame and lack control of that the Europeans have inflicted upon her and the environment.
Oodjeroo uses extended metaphor technique in the very first line of the poem ‘Hard bitumen around your feet’. This means that the gumtree has been placed in the city scape where it is suppressed and not allowed to spread out and be unique in its own way. This is clear and immanently direct link to the pain and suffering endured by the Aborigines post European settlement.
Oodjeroo uses vivid language to present these ideas. For example the use of the word castrated is very effective. The connotation of the word is very demeaning. With castration often comes a sense of a loss of pride and power. The word castration is symbolic of how Oodjeroo feels the European have treated Aboriginal people and the environment. Castration also refers to the fact that what is done is done. Nothing can undo what they did and the damaged they have caused.
Other symbolism includes the title “Municipal Gum”, municipal meaning community, implies that the gumtree belongs to the community. One of the vast differences between European and Aboriginal law is that Aboriginal people did not believe in the ownership of land or of animals and plants. Municipal Gum is a reference to the Europeans assumptions that everything is theirs to own and control.
The rhetorical question, “O fellow citizen, What have they done to us?” is the conclusion of the implications that have been made throughout the poem. Oodjeroo, is advocating for her people and all things wronged by the controlling behaviour of the Europeans. Rhetorical questions are used to provoke thought and to stimulate a pre-determined response. “What have they done to us?” They have “castrated, broken… strapped and buckled” and ultimately changed things to a point that they cannot be fixed.
In conclusion, Municipal Gum is a poem about the constrictions and change that the European invaders forced upon the Aboriginal community and the environment she believes that the Europeans have deemed themselves ever powerful and practice their power in a manner that is immoral.
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 7:47 AM UTC
i've moved past my belief
in the Christian trinity...
for me...
the meditation stands
on the pivot of
the following translation
the hexagon,
start of david -
which translates
as the Holy Ghost -
which denotes
a congregation...
the pentagon?
of the befitting analogy
to the five senses...
the "son of man" -
or simply...
the myopia of man
having to excavate
the sixth sense
using telescopes,
microscopes, the like...
and, finally?
on a hand of five extensions,
there are four...
the square...
Y H
⠁⠑ read clockwise
like English traffic
H W on a roundabout.
which? denotes the father...
if the Hebrews "think" they
can hide their vowels?
the Latin answer is...
to interpolate Braille into
their language...
and Emperor Nero would have
appreciated it...
whether with, or without
the Byzantine propaganda machinery
of the nevus testamentum...
and it wasn't a propagandist
piece?
how much longer did the eastern
Empire, outlive the Western
empire, when the onslaught
by the Ottoman's reached
Constantinople?!
the Greek were craving
a cultural revival!
they believed the Romans
to have origins in Troy!
they plaid the weakest cultural
card of Judaism,
revamping it into Christianity...
hell... that's what i believe...
and i'm not about to meet
a Jehovah's Witness propagandist,
or some aged Pakistani
citing the Quran on a park
bench...
or some Scientologist
on Oxford St. with his wacky
machine...
or some pseudo Hare Krishna
monk with a book about
some guru, pushing it like
marijuana...
to change my mind on what
i'm digesting!
plus?
⠽ ⠓
Æ ( read anti-clockwise)
⠓ ⠺
fits in perfectly into the Adam
and Eve narrative -
as with all mythology -
given the extent of time...
nuance, metaphor...
abbreviation...
ars poetica!
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 8:32 PM UTC
Things can only disrupt you as much as you allow.
If this seems hard to see or needlessly abstract,
consider the Factor that is Self-Discipline:
If any factor equals Zero,
the product is also Zero.
-
I mean this in a general sense; applied over time.
Things can be extremely bothersome in any given moment
but once those bothersome moments
reach forwards (and maybe even backwards) in time
******* up a perfect good "Now" then,
I say that it's a bothersome burden
which is (most probably) a result of unresolved internalized conflicts or Shadow.
This is where Self-Discipline becomes a Factor
and my analogy takes flight, in context.
Maybe it's only true for me, but I have my suspicions that I am not so unique in this way.
May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013 at 9:42 PM UTC
The car will edge past the truck maybe
and maybe we'll survive this message
playing on repeat, apologies like daft lilies
and then you go ahead and tell me that you've never
learnt from your mistakes, or my mistakes.
That mistakes are only bad unless you change the order
of analogy. This experiment has been contaminated.
Now a fresh batch. Trust me, there's a point to this.
I'm counting back from a hundred and two
and you've got me standing in the middle of the highway,
blindfolded; this is what loving you felt like,
you said. But I think it was more dramatic in my head.
Nuclear fission and the seige of Dresden dressed
up playing Adagio in D minor; I'm dust. I'm dust.
I've become ash and misery and I'm trying to stay inside you
but you've been coughing a lot, and who's to say
you were holding your breath for something exciting,
I just know for a fact that at the end of this beep,
you'll know what to do and yet
you're not going to leave another message.
Aug 11, 2016
Aug 11, 2016 at 2:35 AM UTC
I like using fire as an analogy, a metaphor, the punchline for most of my poetry
I often describe the heart as if it were a hearth, while its beats were the heat it radiated
I see it—sometimes a roaring flame, often times a steady bonfire, other times a dying match.
It could scorch you if you aren't careful, but it also provides you warmth and light. A sort of clarity. Comfort.
It allows some of the toughest things on Earth to become malleable and mold itself into something new
It turns the bitter into sweet, the biting cold to teeth-sinking warm, the tasteless into delicious
It allows the spirit to soar with columns of smoke to the heavens while the body becomes fertilizer for daisies
It takes beauty, and burns it black and ash to the point of no recognition
Fire is so precious, and dangerous, and essential, and beautiful, and ugly—just like this hearth of a heart
Tended and regulated well, it's the greatest discovery of mankind
Allowed to burn out quick, or spread out of control, then it's the accident that burned down London in 1666
I believe I should end this by saying: find someone who will tend to your hearth as if it were their last dying light, instead of a person who would simply roast marshmallows with forest fires
Aug 29, 2018
Aug 29, 2018 at 5:00 PM UTC
The gusts of wind rustle through his dark hair as he rides his broomstick
In the search of the golden snitch – In the search of the ferrety golden snitch.
And in his mind whizzes past an image – at lightning speed, very swiftly,
As his expert eyes go after the small shiny metallic ball.
The Nimbus 2000 he once owned has now been replaced with another
In the attempt to make him quicker – In the attempt to make him quicker.
His eyes look like his mother Lily’s – His father James was a Seeker,
This is an analogy of a natural case of heredity in Harry.
The old broomstick Nimbus 2000 he owned was broken into pieces
In his third year at the school of magic – In his third year at Hogwarts.
Dementors attacked him – in the Quidditch pitch during a match,
And he fell several feet below from air before Dumbledore saved him.
Apr 3, 2013
Apr 3, 2013 at 3:20 AM UTC
I get genuinely psychotic in the morning
when the sun creeps out to see
If I slept last night I would want to put a gun in my mouth
(breakfast with coffee, black)
just you and me.
I get depressed long and hard, and often feel like
the cream cheese that you scrape off your bagel.
As the hour goes on everyone's two dimensional
(photo-copy of photo-copied, of photo-copy)
and you are scraping your bagel
of the unwanted (but served anyway) cream cheese,
"You," (probably the plastic knife in this analogy) "drive me..."
Spat! in the trash
as your upturned nose tells me how much our days together
are measured in inches, not yards.
Nov 7, 2012
Nov 7, 2012 at 3:36 PM UTC
My love for you was like a ****
I did something on an empty stomach,
And what resulted had no substance.
(Also: love stinks.)
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 11:19 AM UTC
Is not equivalent to a broken leg.
Who came up with that analogy?
Someone who hasn't experienced either
Seems the only probability.
It's far more akin to a giant spasm,
Contorting your leg against your will,
And stopping it seems highly unatural,
And each doctor prescribes different pills.
Nobody has fluctuating broken legs,
Or fractured limbs that cause them to count
The precise number of steps they take,
And despair if it's the wrong amount,
Or healing bones that turn reality
Into hallucinatory nightmares,
Or make you stay awake all week,
And start berating chairs.
But the worst of that analogy
(It drives me quite insane!),
Is that broken legs are quick to heal,
And cause a lot less pain.
Aug 12, 2018
Aug 12, 2018 at 2:00 PM UTC
/ beelzebub
*(given employs the spider a posteriori
and spiderweb a priori, and then back
into a bicemeral reverse psyche-analogy -
the id est contra the id erat -
but there is no latin revival -
given that the latin encoding has been
translated into a.i. algorithms...
forget putting the pandora
into a box into a box into a box,
into an etc. or what is a russian
cultural artefact... forget it...
a black fly would not take upon
itself to make a dustbin, a *******
maggoty brothel, like a green bottle fly
might... black flies have character,
style...
they're the ones that take
to tango, with spider architecture,
akin to the theological spider analogy
about an ad infinitum a priori argument)*:
a bit like watching
a black fly - "washing" itself -
rubbing it's front limbs
together, "attempting"
to start a fire...
god, those awful
green bottle hypers -
with maggot excesses -
in a potential well
expressed into practice -
black flies?
i can entertain them -
like i might entertain spiders
that do not require aquariums -
the non-exotica types...
so i sometimes find myself
rubbing my hands together,
like a catholic amounting
to an altruistic prayer symbolism...
so kommen faust,
so kommen faust,
so ist pseudo-faust -
or rather:
england?
deutschland jr.
america?
deutschland sr.
and if that wasn't the case?
oh me, little old slavic
babuшka...
i still can't explain rubbing
my hands together,
like a black fly might...
keeping standards of where
to take a maggoty dump's
worth of procreation value...
black flies?
compared to the others?
the priests of the whole
spectrum...
i sometimes wish they were
red,
so i could call them: the cardinals...
alas...
not to be, god said otherwise...
but i can fathom the priesthood,
like i can fathom -
an aspiration of a sleeping
samurai, devoid of the zodiac
delusion,
encouraged to make
chiromancy initiatives
(readings) to alleviate,
******** monotheism.
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 11:02 AM UTC
When your words are placed with precision
And your thoughts are all in line
When there's the perfect analogy in your speech
He's not there to listen, that's the time.
When your words come out in a jumble
And you laugh 'till you're in tears
When you tell stupid jokes and nobody but he laughs
That's the day that he appears.
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 6:44 PM UTC
Hormones raging...for what I'm told not to engage in, even if we're engaged, if it's not official than its still revealed as...fornication. There's a disturbing underestimation of the result given for this particular sinful demonstration, society has taught us that we test the car before we drive it, but the 1st issue with this analogy told is that we're comparing human sin to...driving a vehicle? But if we're going to establish analogies on this subject , then, well, why don’t we also consider these: do we begin eating Thanksgiving dinner before were done saying grace? Do they hand out diplomas and degrees for classes you haven't passed yet? Do they give Super Bowl trophies to teams expected to win? So how do we justify receiving the prize of an unmet process? Far too many have allowed marriage to become an afterthought or not even a passing idea our better judgment caught because man had rather receive a temporary pleasure that sin conceives birthed in disobedience, deceptive grip around your conscience until your choked by the demands of a lustful flesh that wants to be fed in continual expedience. Or...Maybe, I’m just being a hater, fighting not to be twistedly envious and curious of a world that I’m forbidden to embrace. Or Maybe I’m fighting...the temptation and frustration of being a single man patiently searching for that good thing and the favor my Father blesses along with her. Maybe I’m fighting...not to nosedive into the bottomless trap laid for human souls, lured in by lack, of self-control. It troubles me in just how simple... he brags and boasts then plots and plans his next victim in the desecration of his and her Creator’s Temple. But It’s not all his fault, because it was up to her to give him the key to this priceless location better known as her body.
Jan 1, 2018
Jan 1, 2018 at 12:59 PM UTC
setting myself down on an anvil pillow. sleep is an anvil pillow. anvil and stone are a suicide dressed in 8 hours of mini-Godheads.. you become a repeat offender in the ever expanding realm of emerging fractal patterns sewn upon the quilt you lay across your sleepy bones like rushing water in an underground cave miles below the Yucatan Peninsula..
by electronic firelight they lay on my leather couch with the scraps of bedding I could afford to share, as if for some reason I can't escape the money analogy and see this, too, as a transaction.. buying.. a transaction.. as transfat is to nutrition.. money is tao.. my hate for money is tao.. I'm a love-and-lost buddhist like every other dreamer before me.
I'm tired of giving myself a *******
All I ever give myself is a *******
I refuse to bend over and at least try to give me a ******* or go to the next level in love and **** myself.
I keep telling me to do it. Keep grabbing my own *** during passionate tongue-twisters but I keep on insisting that I just CAN'T go any further.. rationally I may be right, but irrationally I still get shrieks of jealousy because I see that ******* sneaking out to kiss girls all the ******* time* as if I didn't exist. As if I wasn't always watching.
I stalk myself. It's a terrifying state of affairs. No matter where I go, there I am.
Watching.
One night, I invited me over, and as usual, I gave myself a ******* yet refused to go any further.
This was the straw that cracked the camels back.. and come 4 AM I kissed myself softly on the forehead as I slept and slipped into the night, hailing the first taxi to sail past me on the concrete river.
I awoke slowly the next morning and.. still dazed.. noticed I was nowhere to be found.
A great grief flooded my solar plexus and moved into my hopeless bones.
I had not even left a note. What a ******* I am!
I had not even left a note.
The rest of the day was spent in sordid grievance. I shivered, lonely, under my ever expanding realm of emerging fractal patterns sewn upon the quilt I lay across my sleepy bones like rushing water in an underground cave miles below the Yucatan Peninsula..
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 8:37 PM UTC
In the square circle your reality is sudden you see
what is your intent ?
I mean when one has to face the inner , not winner or loser.
But brutal. no negotiation. No verbal Panzy assery.
How do you assign pain.
In the square circle that is. That is blood for blood.
Blow for blow. Most people tip toe. Dont wanna know.
We should all be made to go. toe to toe
In the square circle.. How barbaric say ye.
Talk is cheap. ink on paper a mere vapor.
Gladiatorial. All we are saying .. is give peace a chance.
There are greater tests. how does one best Cancer or say living on a stoop.
after days in paradise.No time to think twice.
Go take a dance in the circle. Pillar to post.
A brutal analogy. How would you be. Why would one bother?
Next time you see a dumb pug with cauliflower ears and a rearranged mug.
Think it through. How would you do in a moment of truth facing the brute
He wont listen to reason He wont negotiate.
Next stop. Normandy. Pork chop hill.The Mekong.Baghdad......
The square circle takes many forms just wont conform to the norms.
Havoc will be imposed. on the open mind or the closed.
Real men die for reasons why ?
Fodder. Step through the ropes for a thrice
Feel if you have the fire or ice.
Then take a warm shower and slide behind the wheel
to a warm meal and Dancing with the stars.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 4:43 AM UTC
up
up
up
they did rise
the skirt lengths
in the sixties
were
up
up
high
the stock market
was in step
with the high skirt lengths
it powered
and surged
up
up
high
the outlook back then
had a light of boon
bright and positive
was the tune
fast forward to 2008
the outlook at that time wasn't too great
the stock market fell
there was an air of doom
skirts were more austere
in their length of gloom
money was tight
the hemlines more restrained
the world of finance
had become more constrained
stock exchanges
and
skirt lengths
have cyclical phases
one year
they
rise high
the next year
they're down
on a flat lining lie
Jun 21, 2013
Jun 21, 2013 at 6:17 AM UTC
... For you couldn't have inflicted the venom
If it weren't for this little snake you call tongue
All its twisted dreams and sickest intentions
Just one utter to send the deadly pang...
Nov 5, 2016
Nov 5, 2016 at 2:35 AM UTC
And when he does not love me anymore,
I will build him
one last altar,
and decide to burn it to the ground.
But will only get as far
as lighting the match.
Thinking about how he used matches
for something.
Sometime.
Probably.
I'll brush my teeth,
thinking of the gaps between his.
How really,
it's a great metaphor for the distance between out hearts
or something stupid like that.
But in the end,
it's not a metaphor,
or an analogy.
They're just teeth.
(That could never quite come together
kind of like us)
I will crawl into bed
imagining an alternate universe
in which we have started a life together.
One where I wake up and reach across the bed for him.
Get the kids ready for school,
which is funny
because in this universe I never wanted children,
but in that universe,
we created something out of nothing.
Something with his eyes,
and my nose.
A manifestation of the love between two people.
Proof that it happened.
That is was real.
And it was resilient enough to breathe life into a world
that only offered it death.
In that universe,
our hair turns as silver
as our wedding rings.
And each wrinkle,
is a space where our skin just wanted
to hold the other person even closer.
But here
in this harsh reality,
time only pulls us apart.
And we will likely grow gray
with other people now.
In this universe,
I learn to say goodbye
to him.
I will build him
a library of poems.
And decide to burn it to the ground.
Dec 30, 2017
Dec 30, 2017 at 7:08 PM UTC
Hymn to an Art-o-matic Laundromat
by Michael R. Burch
after Richard Thomas Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer”
O, terrible-immaculate
ALL-cleansing godly Laundromat,
where cleanliness is next to Art
—a bright Kinkade (bought at K-Mart),
a Persian rug (made in Taiwan),
a Royal Bonn Clock (time zone Guam)—
embrace my *** in cushioned vinyl,
erase all marks: **** vaginal,
****** inkspot, red wine, dirt.
O, sterilize her skirt, my shirt,
my skidmarked briefs, her padded bra;
suds-away in your white maw
all filth, the day’s accumulation.
Make us pure by INUNDATION.
Published by The Oldie, where it was the winner of a poetry contest. This poem was inspired by the incongruence of discovering "works of art" while doing laundry at a laundromat with coin-operated washers and dryers. I was reminded of the experience while reading Richard Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer.” Keywords/Tags: hymn, art, America, Americana, laundry, laundromat, washer, dryer, appliances, clean, cleaning, cleanliness, clothes, clothing, underwear, god, godly, godliness, water, baptism, inundation, sonnet, analogy, humor
Nov 28, 2021
Nov 28, 2021 at 11:50 PM UTC
It's a confusing puzzle,
But still holds true:
You can't live with me;
I can't live without you.
Life is but a journey,
I chose to go through with you;
But now that you won't have me,
It's hard for me to continue.
Fate is a bitter cruel harpy,
With her sisters she conspires
For the death of my Love,
As your Love for me transpires!
Hope is a painful therapy,
It burns while nursing Time's stabs;
But the scars strengthen Experience,
As it assists to keep Reason's tabs.
Love and Reason are antithesis,
That can't co-exist;
But their affinity is such
That to be together they persist.
Perfection in Love is when
There is room for Reason;
But when Reason and Logic court,
Love calls it Treason!
Love is unfair and immature,
And still as pure as a dove;
But there's no use of Reason,
With the death of Love.
This poem is an analogy:
Which in life stands true;
It's no use of me loving you,
If there's no hope for you to love me too.
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 1:00 AM UTC
Deed is a word connected to each living being,
Seed is an analogy to it, if at both, simulteneously we are seeing.
Jealousy, ego and hatred try to stand first in life's queue,
But kindness and love are omnipresent in different hues.
Its always on what we give that we get to keep,
So always remember, "As You Sow, So Shall You Reap"..
Jan 21, 2014
Jan 21, 2014 at 11:49 AM UTC
I take umbrage
At comparing
The POTUS
To a lying piece of crap.
I've experienced crap, lots of it!
Usually brown, with no comb-over.
So POTUS **** is an unfair analogy.
Now, a moniker like
Faeces Face fits,
And stinks to the high heavens.
Nov 17, 2018
Nov 17, 2018 at 2:31 PM UTC
Here I can't explain you the date,
May be it's humanities fate.
We have reached a way higher,
In science and technologies tier.
The age is of time,
Where you can sublime.
Into the verses of technology,
Into the time and space's analogy.
This is the era of warm-holes,
And the era of time travel,
In which you can travel whole,
Into the any world's navel.
Set up to stop the light and time,
And get into between of it,
To hear the travelling chime,
From that dark narrow slit.
Getting into the dark tunnel,
Moving, getting deep inside,
Rather shaped like a funnel,
You get into the time's ride.
Jun 22, 2020
Jun 22, 2020 at 4:33 AM UTC
A deep thought?
Or a rhetorical analogy?
I raise my hand to answer
Realizing that no answer is supposed to come out of me
Cookies and milk
A childhood memory
World War II
A part of history
Ice Cream and Bagels
A random combination
The submarine
A scientific invention
A grumbling stomach
It seems im hungry
I turn to ask for food
Realizing my parents are still yelling at me
What a daydream.
Jun 19, 2015
Jun 19, 2015 at 12:42 PM UTC
I guess I could have put all this into a text message, but I wanted you to have something written by these weathered hands.
I swear if you make me smile one more time, my face will crack. My cheeks will split like chapped lips in winter air, and it will prove that feelings like this can hurt too, no matter how amazing they are.
You make me feel alive. It's almost as if you walked into my head, and told all the bad things they had to find another place to live. That my subconscious was no longer their place to crash. I hope that makes sense to you. If it doesn't, I apologize, as a writer I have an analogy for everything and sometimes I'm too cryptic for my own good.
The truth is you make me so nervous because every good thing I've ever experienced has ended in agony, and this is so good that I'm afraid in the end it might **** me. There's a gnawing in the pit of my stomach, telling me to run because it's never as good as it seems. But I ignore it, and stay, because I trust you.
I trust you so much it is scary.
Dec 12, 2015
Dec 12, 2015 at 1:52 PM UTC