christopher cocca

Best Metaphors and Similes

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what are your favorite metaphors and similes from literature/poetry/lyrics?

I’ll get it started with some favorite examples from songs I’ve talked a lot about recently:

“You held onto me like I was a crucifix” – Leonard Cohen (So Long, Marianne)

“Daniel drinks his weight, drinks like Richard Burton, dance like John Travolta, now” – Tim Booth/James (Getting Away With It All Messed Up)

“I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch, but love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah” – Leonard Cohen (Hallelujah).

Written by Christopher Cocca

July 17, 2008 at 4:37 pm

Posted in writing

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9 Responses

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  1. “Her eyes were like chocolate-dipped cherry bombs with their fuses lit.” – Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

    Jason

    July 17, 2008 at 5:00 pm

  2. I thought of a few more:

    “‘Fools,’ said I, ‘you do not know/Silence like a cancer grows…’” – Paul Simon (The Sounds of Silence)

    “they hang like grapes/from vines that shine/
    and warm the lovers’ glass like friendly wine…” – Woody Guthrie (California Stars)

    Christopher Cocca

    July 18, 2008 at 1:58 am

  3. hello
    is eddy here
    i just want to ask how i can be a beter metaphors rapper??
    how can i use it?

    young lyon

    September 1, 2008 at 9:38 am

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  5. Wow, favorite metaphors/similies is a tough one. Definitely a good blog to start up though. Here’s one of my favs metaphor/similies (from a poem by Steve Gehrke called “Self Portrait as Head of Goliath”, an ekphrastic poem about Caravaggio’s “David and Goliath):

    when he stared
    into the spotlight of his face,
    his head swinging in David’s hand,
    like a lantern, as if it might guide
    them, fearless, through the valley
    of their myth, he felt the self evaporate,
    the way a reflection is absorbed
    into a stained-glass window

    (beautiful, huh? All of Gehrke’s poetry is packed with stuff like this…)

    Phil

    April 28, 2009 at 3:06 pm

  6. that’s awesome. For some reason it reminded me of lines from “City of Electric Light” by Chad VanGaalen:

    “And I thought you were the moon in the sky
    But it turned out you were just a street light …”

    “And I thought you were the moon in the skies
    But it turned out you were just a pair of eyes…”

    the music really makes it work.

    Christopher Cocca

    April 28, 2009 at 3:13 pm

  7. got more green that a veggie garden
    i’m the boss so i dont need to parden
    this is the begining, i’m just startin
    sick so sick like i’m barfin
    like weezy i’m a martain
    its the art with in
    on point like a dart
    can’t push me like a shoppin cart
    got more dudes in my crew than a army crew
    bitches that are charming too
    i’m alarming too
    that buzz sound isnt waking you up
    its like taking you
    turn into leaves, i’m raking you
    like powder in milk i’m shaking you
    like the ovens on, i’m baking you
    im not hungry
    but i’m hung you agree

    that was off the top

    amerl

    September 14, 2009 at 2:58 pm

  8. Long chunks of things because I can’t bring myself to pull them too far from context. These are the most influential in my personal narrative, not necessarily what I think are empirically the Best.

    “And the moon is a sliver of silver
    Like a shaving that fell on the floor of a Carpenter’s shop
    And every house must have it’s builder
    And I awoke in the house of God” – Rich Mullins, the Color Green

    “Its leaves tremble like small hands
    against the screen while she weeps
    in the arms of her bewildered lover.” – Julia Kasdorf, from First Gestures, in the book Eve’s Striptease (I love, love this book)

    I love the implicit comparison here:

    “I could give all to Time except-except
    What I myself have held. But why declare
    The things forbidden that while the Customs slept
    I have crossed to Safety with? For I am There
    And what I would not part with, I have kept.” Robert Frost

    ” . . . There’s a moment every spring:
    the tight-fisted cherry blosson, one wee, brown boned, the next,
    pink knucked, the following, petal
    confetti cobble . . . ” Walt Aikens, Mangos, from The Odds Maker’s Litany. It’s in a poem about Philly in the spring

    Missy

    October 10, 2009 at 10:51 pm

  9. make that week, not wee. sigh. sorry Walt

    Missy

    October 10, 2009 at 10:53 pm


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