Charcuterie

Three cheeses,
Smoked Gouda, Drunken Goat Cheese,
And a third orange one with some fruitiness.
Strawberries, and succulent grapes---
It's a good season for grapes.
Conversation swings to metaphor.
Everyone is trying to understand what is a metaphor.
Ask the poet in the room...
But Aunt M________ was right
Yet was scolded.

I offer to the semi-curious onlookers
"Dead Metaphor."
None ever heard of that.
There is also complex metaphor.
There is negative capability---
When a poem has doubtful interpretations
Or perhaps two or three.
Some also call that Wit,
When you can draw out two or three meanings for a poem.

A simile uses "Like" or "As".
I didn't dare get into Ekphrasis or something more complex.
Though, I did get to a dead metaphor,
And this pleased A____.
He'd never heard of it before.
A way to explain it,
Is a metaphor so commonly applied to an object
That it became a part of the lexicon.
A "Tailgate" is a dead metaphor.
Emphasis on the "Tail"
That it applies to the "Tail"
Of the truck. Others are "Causeway"
Or "Parkway" which are different a little
As those entail also oxymoronic statements.

I learned that these concepts are difficult
For even an intelligent person to understand;
My family is not stupid.
As a lawyer struggled to understand them.
Apparently an entire argument erupted at his office
Over their specific meanings.
You just got to kind of feel them out...
Like with all literature.

Some can be applied two or three different ways.
Idiom was understood.
We agreed that "A watched pot never boils"
Was proverbial. I do agree it is difficult to pin down 
What exactly this device is.
Is it Cliché? Is it Idiom? Is it Proverbial? Is it Metaphor?
Maybe all four.
How it is metaphor, is that it is not literally true
That a watched pot never boils.
But it is counter intuitive, because one sees the common
Activity of watching a pot, so the familiarity hides the deceptive untruth.
 As, certainly, me in my absurd focus during cooking,
I have watched a pot
And seen the moment it has begun to boil.
It kind of has a bubble or two at first, then a few bubbles,
Then bubbles collect on all the sides of the pot,
To which it begins to raise to the top.
And finally, after a slow increase in turbulence,
It begins to rapidly percolate.

Not paying attention to the water boiling,
Which is what the metaphor means,
Shortens the attention, and one doesn't notice
These steps. Rather, at one moment it seems
To be steady---probably steaming a little---
And the next the water rolls in that beautiful way.

I didn't really want to argue. I just listened.
I spoke what I understand is a metaphor.
More of a complex idea that is full and filled with meaning.
It's something like the Logos
Of an old Twilight Zone Episode
Where you know what the episode is really saying.
Which, is likely an idea attached to the real world
Gained through something which is pure fantasy.
Though, nonfiction can have metaphor, too.
The way I understand it.
As, the entire piece builds up to a meaning,
A full idea or revelation about something deeper than the actual
Events being described.
So, true stories can have metaphors in them, too.
A parable is a form of metaphor.
Allegory and Analogy work through metaphor.
As, in literature, metaphor is a parent class
Of a range of literary devices
Which simile is included.

Alyse showed everyone how to eat the smoked salmon.
I preferred it with the Drunken Goat cheese,
And the strawberries elevated the flavor of the grapes.
The strawberries were weak, but even my cousin
Noted, that they made everything around them taste better.
Like a good wine ought to do.