First let me start by saying I never metaphor I didn’t like. And I love Dead Metaphor Cabaret; a duo that wrestles in the peace of stark beauty and a poetic emphasis on lyrics or a lyrical interpretation of poetry. But the group’s performance Thursday night at Writers & Books wasn’t so much a play on words as it was a play of words, with words, onward and upwards.

Curt and NaniNehring Bliss delivered a stark yet beautiful musical backdrop --- plaintive guitar, gorgeous, gorgeous voice, and an adverb-less melodica (seriously I couldn’t come up with a suitably descriptive term) as they presented an emphatic lyrical send-up of poetry by Elizabeth Bishop, Jane Kenyon, and Margaret Atwood, along with their own sterling stabs at inquisitive verse. Dead Metaphor Cabaret’s set used Robert Frost’s “The Road Less Taken” as a template as where to go and where to take the rapt audience. Last night’s journey was down the rougher, darker bramble path. It was epic and melancholy and utterly charming. The band promises to take the sunnier side for its encore performance Saturday.

(Dead Metaphor Cabaret also performs Saturday, September 28, 4 p.m. at Writers & Books. Tickets cost $8.)