Pools. We swim in them. We type in them. We sometimes ride to work in them. We add to them to make a bet. We join their ranks to manipulate finances. We even play it over a table with cue stick and balls. 

The simple one-syllable word has several meanings, but manages to juggle the workload quite nicely until ... a love-struck writer comes along. Never in the history of romance has a single word been more overworked. 

Fight the pool proliferation!  Poke yourself in the pools of your eyes if you ever feel the desire to compare eyes to pools. 

EXAMPLE:
His eyes were like pools, brimming with love.
CLEANED UP:
His eyes were brimming with love.

EXAMPLE:
Her eyes, twin pools of mystery, intrigued him.
CLEANED UP:
Her mysterious eyes intrigued him.

EXAMPLE:
She felt lost in the pools of his eyes.
CLEANED UP:
She felt lost in his eyes.

EXAMPLE:
Two strong black pools looked back at me and dove into my soul.
CLEANED UP:
Black eyes penetrated me.

EXAMPLE:
Heat rose from his simmering pools.
CLEANED UP:
Heat rose from his simmering eyes.

EXAMPLE:
And how shall I ward off those pools of desire?
CLEANED UP:
And how shall I ward off that look of desire?

     When Elinor had ceased to rejoice in the dryness of the season, a very awful pause took place. It was put an end to by Mrs. Dashwood, who felt obliged to hope that Edward had left Mrs. Ferrars very well. In a hurried manner, he replied in the affirmative. 

     Another pause. 

     Elinor, resolving to exert herself though fearing the sound of her own voice, now said, "Is Mrs. Ferrars at Longstaple?" 

     "At Longstaple!" he replied, with an air of surprise. "No, my mother is in town." 

     "I meant," said Elinor, taking up some work from the table, "to enquire for Mrs. Edward Ferrars." 

     He coloured, seemed perplexed, looked doubtingly, and, after some hesitation, said, "Perhaps you mean my brother ... you mean Mrs. ... Mrs. Robert Ferrars." 

     He rose from his seat, and walked to the window, apparently from not knowing what to do; took up a pair of scissors that lay there; and, while spoiling both them and their sheath by cutting the latter to pieces as he spoke, said, in a hurried voice, "Perhaps you do not know: you may not have heard that my brother is lately married to ... to the youngest ... to Miss Lucy Steele." 

     His words were echoed with unspeakable astonishment by all but Elinor, who sat, with her head leaning over her work, in a state of such agitation as made her hardly know where she was. 

- JANE AUSTEN
Sense and Sensibility