Distrusting Metaphor

Anyone who knows how I think about art and language--which, admittedly, is fewer than five people, but still--knows that I tend to distrust metaphor. Not just metaphor: all figurative language. I dislike imprecision and misrepresentation, finding truth instead in exactness, in what something is rather than what someone perceives it to resemble.

The other day, in searching for a writing exercise in a book, I found one that encourages just such false associations, a simile exercise. It said, "Here are a few similes we like. After reading them, complete the unfinished ones; try for something unexpected." Then it gave examples--Sharon Olds, Carolyn Forche, William Carlos Williams--and the list of open-ended similes. In an effort to exploit what I see as the ridiculousness of such an exercise, I did it, as much to make fun of it as anything else.

Halfway through, I had to stop; maybe it was me impressing absurdity on it, maybe the thing itself was inherently absurd, but I couldn't finish all the similes. Then, yesterday, I had an idea. In past years and past exercises, I've done several parasyntactic experiments--that is, rearranging extant language randomly and working with the new, surprising connections it engenders. That was the only way that I could make this exercise work for me: to finish it, and then to separate the phrases from their original associations and give them new ones, seeing what would come of it.

Here, then, you have the original similes from the exercise followed by some of the surprising connections that came from my own cut-and-paste half of the game:

...tired as...
...the marathon runner--no
...the marathon lover, limp and lurid
...the wash on the line dancing all day--no
...the corpse on the line, dancing all day, head cradled in rope's loving embrace

...hot as...
...the Mojave sun--no
...the ice cube on your tongue, sublimating

...waves unfurled like...
...flags, the banner of the storm--no
...umbrellas, weak-skeletoned, unconvicted

...after the shelling, the town looked as if...
...it knew what a shelling was (?)--really?
...it had been ravaged by a zombie apocalypse--no? what?
...it were all exoskeleton, calcining in the sun

...disgusting as...
...the cavity of a rotting tooth--true, but no
...the moment of death, the pallor of the departing soul (This is where I gave up the first time)

...the child trembled like...
...a leaf in the wind--no
...a flute sonata, tiny, tight vibrato
...the aftereffects of an earthquake--no
...a hesitant step on a rope bridge, one inch over oblivion

...the airplane rose like a...
...graceful bird--oh, please
...building in construction, scaffolding preemptive
...breath, autonomic

...black as...
...night sky--no, obviously
...a cynic's favorite crayon--ha, but no
...the seeing core of the pupil, tower of muscle and perception

...he entered the room like...
...a thief in the night--no
...a sound, intimation, perceived
...a sound, uninvited, intrusive
...a wave of memory recalled after a long absence

...their lovemaking was like...
...fireworks--oh, geez, no
...everyone else's, false and insincere, a facsimile of one seen elsewhere
...a slow dance on a smooth floor--ugh, no
...misery later misremembered as ecstasy


And my more interesting associations:
...their lovemaking was like umbrellas, weak-skeletoned, unconvicted
...disgusting as a building in construction, scaffolding preemptive
...he entered the room like a flag, the banner of the storm
...disgusting as a slow dance on a smooth floor
...after the shelling, the town looked like everyone else's, false and insincere
...the airplane rose like an exoskeleton, calcining in the sun
...tired as a sound, intimation, perceived
...he entered the room like the seeing core of the pupil, tower of muscle and perception