Simile

One of the devices we first encounter as readers and writers of poetry, using like or as to show a resemblance when making a comparison, they are easy to identify, but can also be powerful in their ability to help the reader relate.  Look for them here:

I Am Offering This Poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca

Subliminal by S.M.(M).L.

Deep in the periphery
like lace fraying
at the edges.
Tendrils extend, try to
touch and escape,
explain and
evade.

Teeth become loose
and drop from
the skull.
Anger forms a fist
to punch in slow
motion.

Once familiar faces go
fuzzy around
the edges.
Once loved places
now haunted
by you.

Leaving footprints
softly in the
dust.
Smudging handprints
over oil painting:

Two gold fish circle
in crystal bowl.
Backdropped by velvet
verescent growth
and black iridescent
butterflies with
owl eyes

Awake to an unraveling
so quickly gone
like plucking
feathers
pulling hand over hand,
a snowstorm of
softness
results in nothing
but a naked
bird.