Ode To an Artichoke
The artichoke
Of delicate heart
Erect
In its battle-dress, builds
Its minimal cupola;
Keeps
Stark
In its scallop of
Scales.
Around it,
Demoniac vegetables
Bristle their thicknesses,
Devise
Tendrils and belfries,
The bulb’s agitations;
While under the subsoil
The carrot
Sleeps sound in its
Rusty mustaches.
Runner and filaments
Bleach in the vineyards,
Whereon rise the vines.
The sedulous cabbage
Arranges its petticoats;
Oregano
Sweetens a world;
And the artichoke
Dulcetly there in a gardenplot,
Armed for a skirmish,
Goes proud
In its pomegranate
Burnishes.
Till, on a day,
Each by the other,
The artichoke moves
To its dream
Of a market place
In the big willow
Hoppers:
A battle formation.
Most warlike
Of defilades-
With men
In
White shirts
In the soup-greens,
Artichoke field marshals,
Close-order conclaves,
Commands, detonations,
And voices,
A crashing of crate staves.
And
Maria
Come
Down
With her hamper
To
Make trial
Of an artichoke:
She reflects, she examines,
She candles them up to the light like an egg,
Never flinching;
She bargains,
She tumbles her prize
In a market bag
Among shoes and a
Cabbage head,
A bottle
Of vinegar; is back
In her kitchen.
The artichoke drowns in a pot.
So you have it:
A vegetable, armed,
A profession
(call it an artichoke)
Whose end
Is millennial.
We taste of that
Sweetness,
Dismembering scale after scale.
We eat of a halcyon paste:
It is green at the artichoke heart.
Related poetry:
- Ode To The Artichoke The artichoke With a tender heart Dressed up like a warrior, Standing at attention, it built A small helmet Under its scales It remained Unshakeable, By its side The crazy vegetables Uncurled Their tendrills and leaf-crowns, Throbbing bulbs, In the sub-soil The carrot With its red mustaches Was sleeping, The grapevine Hung out to dry […]...
- Song of the Little White Girl Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, what is the matter? Why are you shaking so? Why do you chatter? Because it is just a white baby you see, And it’s the black ones you like, cabbage tree? Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, you’re a strange fellow With your green hair and your legs browny-yellow. Wouldn’t you like to […]...
- Mad Maria Mad Maria in the Square Sits upon a wicker chair. When the keeper asks the price Mad Maria counts her lice. No pesito can she pay, So he shrugs and goes away; Hopes she’ll pay him with her prayers, Shabby keeper of the chairs. Mad Maria counts her lice, Cracks them once and cracks them […]...
- CABBAGE KEY Once Hemingway Sat across this bay And touched the endless sea The gulf-stretched sun Guides everyone Who dreams the dreams like he Through the tropical heat You can hear the beat That sings God’s poetry Just close your eyes Beneath the bright skies On beautiful Cabbage Key And if by chance The ospreys dance Across […]...
- Ode To a Large Tuna in the Market Among the market greens, A bullet From the ocean Depths, A swimming Projectile, I saw you, Dead. All around you Were lettuces, Sea foam Of the earth, Carrots, Grapes, But Of the ocean Truth, Of the unknown, Of the Unfathomable Shadow, the Depths Of the sea, The abyss, Only you had survived, A pitch-black, varnished […]...
- The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
- 449. Song-The Flowery banks of Cree HERE is the glen, and here the bower All underneath the birchen shade; The village-bell has told the hour, O what can stay my lovely maid? ‘Tis not Maria’s whispering call; ‘Tis but the balmy breathing gale, Mixt with some warbler’s dying fall, The dewy star of eve to hail. It is Maria’s voice I […]...
- Sancta Maria Sancta Maria! turn thine eyes – Upon the sinner’s sacrifice, Of fervent prayer and humble love, From thy holy throne above. At morn – at noon – at twilight dim – Maria! thou hast heard my hymn! In joy and wo – in good and ill – Mother of God, be with me still! When […]...
- Sonnets 10: Oh, My Beloved, Have You Thought Of This Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this: How in the years to come unscrupulous Time, More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss, And make you old, and leave me in my prime? How you and I, who scale together yet A little while the sweet, immortal height No pilgrim may remember […]...
- The Fairy Bridal-Hymn [This is the hymn to Eleanor, daughter of Mab and a golden drone, sung by the Locust choir when the fairy child marries her God, the yellow rose] This is a song to the white-armed one Cold in the breast as the frost-wrapped Spring, Whose feet are slow on the hills of life, Whose round […]...
- The Dictators An odor has remained among the sugarcane: A mixture of blood and body, a penetrating Petal that brings nausea. Between the coconut palms the graves are full Of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles. The delicate dictator is talking With top hats, gold braid, and collars. The tiny palace gleams like a watch And the rapid […]...
- Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
- Autumn Day Four Translations Lord: it is time. The summer was immense. Lay your shadow on the sundials And let loose the wind in the fields. Bid the last fruits to be full; Give them another two more southerly days, Press them to ripeness, and chase The last sweetness into the heavy wine. Whoever has no house […]...
- 415. Song-The last time I cam o'er the Moor THE LAST time I came o’er the moor, And left Maria’s dwelling, What throes, what tortures passing cure, Were in my bosom swelling: Condemn’d to see my rival’s reign, While I in secret languish; To feel a fire in every vein, Yet dare not speak my anguish. Love’s veriest wretch, despairing, I Fain, fain, my […]...
- Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
- Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
- From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
- Autumn Whoever has no house now will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening And wander on the boulevards, up and down… – from Autumn Day, Rainer Maria Rilke Its stain is everywhere. The sharpening air Of late afternoon Is now the colour of tea. […]...
- The Look The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word, No gesture of reproach; the Heavens serene Though heavy with armed justice, did not lean Their thunders that way: the forsaken Lord Looked only, on the traitor. None record What that look was, none guess; for those who have seen Wronged lovers loving through a death-pang keen, […]...
- The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
- To May I have no heart to write verses to May; I have no heart-yet I’m cheerful today; I have no heart-she has won mine away So-I have no heart to write verses to May....
- THE BELFRY OF BRUGES In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown; Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o’er the Town. As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood, And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of Widowhood. Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams […]...
- The Benefactors Ah! What avails the classic bent And what the cultured word, Against the undoctored incident That actually occurred? And what is Art whereto we press Through paint and prose and rhyme When Nature in her nakedness Defeats us every time? It is not learning, grace nor gear, Nor easy meat and drink, But bitter pinch […]...
- At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
- Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...
- The Pangolin Another armored animal scale lapping scale with spruce-cone regularity until they Form the uninterrupted central tail-row! This near artichoke with head and legs and grit-equipped gizzard, The night miniature artist engineer is, yes, Leonardo da Vinci’s replica impressive animal and toiler of whom we seldom hear. Armor seems extra. But for him, the closing ear-ridge […]...
- How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
- Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
- 450. Monody on a Lady, famed for her Caprice HOW cold is that bosom which folly once fired, How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glisten’d; How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired, How dull is that ear which to flatt’ry so listen’d! If sorrow and anguish their exit await, From friendship and dearest affection remov’d; How doubly severer, Maria, […]...
- The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
- A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
- Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
- No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
- Love's Vicissitudes AS Love and Hope together Walk by me for a while, Link-armed the ways they travel For many a pleasant mile – Link-armed and dumb they travel, They sing not, but they smile. Hope leaving, Love commences To practise on the lute; And as he sings and travels With lingering, laggard foot, Despair plays obligato […]...
- The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
- May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
- It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
- Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
- Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
- Cruisers As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine, Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line; So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire, Accost and decoy to our masters’ desire. Now, pray you, consider what toils we endure, Night-walking wet sea-lanes, a guard and a lure; Since half of our trade […]...