PAD Day 15: Speaking Metaphorically

First some publication news: Spitball Magazine announced their upcoming issue #76, which will feature my poem "Randy Johnson Kills a Bird".  This is my fifth appearance in Spitball, I believe, including my poem that was selected as Poem of the Month for October 2014 on their website.  They also released a list they called "The Spitball 75" the best  poems from their past 75 issues, one from each past issue. I was pleased to see that my buddy BJ Ward's poem "On Hearing that Baseball is Boring to America's Youth" was once of the honored poems.

Today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo:
(1) Pick an adjective and make it the title of a poem, and
(2) " Write a poem that addresses itself or some aspect of its self (i.e. “Dear Poem,” or “what are my quatrains up to?”; “Couplet, come with me . . .”) "

After spending a couple of hours struggling to write something way past midnight last night, I didn't have the stamina to spend a huge amount of time on this one, but I hope it's amusing and entertaining enough. I didn't follow the second prompt to the letter, but that's okay. It didn't start as a rhyming verse, but it slowly evolved into one.

Metaphorical

You are never what you seem,

and yet somehow you are.

You’re not just stuff of poetry –

I find you everywhere:

symbols, similarities,

archetypes and parallels,

correlations, allegories,

fables, Jesus’ parables.

This is that and that is this,

all the world’s a stage,

but a kiss is just a kiss,

and Maya’s bird was in a cage.

The fog comes in on cat feet,

quiet on its paws.

a man can be a cockroach

or a pair of ragged claws.

You can be sensible

and you can be surreal –

a fish can be an ambulance,

or time a wagon wheel.

You sometimes free-associate

to make an image bright,

in the golden apples of the day

or the dark cloak of the night.

Of your virtues I will sing,

and my praise is categorical:

we should describe everything

in language metaphorical.