From reading the Brown Book

1.
First, let us propose
that metaphor
is the sinew of our language

that is, to ask
how does this mean that
is to ask how
in our hearts we have
affinity
how we can call both
grasping a weight
and doing math
a strain
the cement sidewalk
a cloudy sky

so, these sinews
run strong through all
our symbols, these words
but a skin
this poetry of everyday
and everyone like
dreams thrusting through the
veil of night
like this
'92 aerostar
with its aerodynamism
pulling me along
through the waves
of sunlit saturday midmorning

2.
what is more honest
to forge this as a manuscript
of, let us say, t.s. eliot
or to write these words
in the style of a new poem?

3.
why don't we know
our own dreams
nor what they mean to us
how we wake into an empty room
all full and
unsurprised
or
why don't I care
that blue floats
from my shirt
to the sky
to your eyes
all like a homeless ghost
of midnight?

4.
all these
common things
gather them up

I will try, too.