Home ⇒ 📌Paul Muldoon ⇒ Pineapples And Pomegranates
Pineapples And Pomegranates
To think that, as a boy of thirteen, I would grapple
With my first pineapple,
Its exposed breast
Setting itself as another test
Of my will-power, knowing in my bones
That it stood for something other than itself alone
While having absolutely no sense
Of its being a world-wide symbol of munificence.
Munificence-right? Not munitions, if you understand
Where I’m coming from. As if the open hand
Might, for once, put paid
To the hand-grenade
In one corner of the planet.
I’m talking about pineapples-right?-not pomegranates.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- With A Copy Of 'A House Of Pomegranates' Go, little book, To him who, on a lute with horns of pearl, Sang of the white feet of the Golden Girl: And bid him look Into thy pages: it may hap that he May find that golden maidens dance through thee....
- All I may, if small All I may, if small, Do it not display Larger for the Totalness ‘Tis Economy To bestow a World And withhold a Star Utmost, is Munificence Less, tho’ larger, poor....
- Sonnet LX THey that in course of heauenly spheares are skild, To euery planet point his sundry yeare: In which her circles voyage is fulfild, As Mars in three score yeares doth run his spheare So since the winged God his planet cleare, Began in me to moue, one yeare is spent: The which doth longer vnto […]...
- Chamfort THERE’S Chamfort. He’s a sample. Locked himself in his library with a gun, Shot off his nose and shot out his right eye. And this Chamfort knew how to write And thousands read his books on how to live, But he himself didn’t know How to die by force of his own hand see? They […]...
- The Painted Ceiling My Grandpapa lives in a wonderful house With a great many windows and doors, There are stairs that go up, and stairs that go down, And such beautiful, slippery floors. But of all of the rooms, even mother’s and mine, And the bookroom, and parlour and all, I like the green dining-room so much the […]...
- 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 […]...
- 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
- ENGLAND’S OPENERS A blackbird lands A good beer-barrel A man sits in a cave knitting A theatre in Copenhagen Abask the sea-wall Alice was demure and O All the way to Bury Amid the heather Among the lupins And after little suzie And it was his grief that kept him travelling And the baby miscarried And the […]...
- Ode To a Lemon Out of lemon flowers Loosed On the moonlight, love’s Lashed and insatiable Essences, Sodden with fragrance, The lemon tree’s yellow Emerges, The lemons Move down From the tree’s planetarium Delicate merchandise! The harbors are big with it- Bazaars For the light and the Barbarous gold. We open The halves Of a miracle, And a clotting […]...
- The Woman At The Washington Zoo The saris go by me from the embassies. Cloth from the moon. Cloth from another planet. They look back at the leopard like the leopard. And I. . . . this print of mine, that has kept its color Alive through so many cleanings; this dull null Navy I wear to work, and wear from […]...
- To the Bartholdi Statue O Liberty, God-gifted Young and immortal maid In your high hand uplifted, The torch declares your trade. Its crimson menace, flaming Upon the sea and shore, Is, trumpet-like, proclaiming That Law shall be no more. Austere incendiary, We’re blinking in the light; Where is your customary Grenade of dynamite? Where are your staves and switches […]...
- They May Rail at this Life They may rail at this life from the hour I began it I found it a life full of kindness and bliss; And, until they can show me some happier planet, More social and bright, I’ll content me with this. As long as the world has such lips and such eyes As before me this […]...
- Antiphon (I) Chorus: Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing ‘My God and King.’ Verse: The heav’ns are not too high, His praise may thither fly: The earth is not too low, His praises there may grow. Chorus: Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing, ‘My God and King.’ Verse: The church with psalms must […]...
- The World stands solemner to me The World stands solemner to me Since I was wed to Him A modesty befits the soul That bears another’s name A doubt if it be fair indeed To wear that perfect pearl The Man upon the Woman binds To clasp her soul for all A prayer, that it more angel prove A whiter Gift […]...
- After The Storm There are so many islands! As many islands as the stars at night On that branched tree from which meteors are shaken Like falling fruit around the schooner Flight. But things must fall, and so it always was, On one hand Venus, on the other Mars; Fall, and are one, just as this earth is […]...
- Ignorance Oh happy he who cannot see With scientific eyes; Who does not know how flowers grow, And is not planet wise; Content to find with simple mind Joys as they are: To whom a rose is just a rose, A star a star. It is not good, I deem, to brood On things beyond our […]...
- A Plea Why need we newer arms invent, Poor peoples to destroy? With what we have let’s be content And perfect their employ. With weapons that may millions kill, Why should we seek for more, A brighter spate of blood to spill, A deeper sea of gore? The lurid blaze of atom light Vast continents will blind, […]...
- They Buy With an Eye to Looks THE FINE cloth of your love might be a fabric of Egypt, Something Sinbad, the sailor, took away from robbers, Something a traveler with plenty of money might pick up And bring home and stick on the walls and say: “There’s a little thing made a hit with me When I was in Cairo-I think […]...
- The Corner Man I dreamt a dream at the midnight deep, When fancies come and go To vex a man in his soothing sleep With thoughts of awful woe I dreamed that I was the corner man Of a nigger minstrel show. I cracked my jokes, and the building rang With laughter loud and long; I hushed the […]...
- Portrait Number Five: Against A New York Summer I’d walk her home after work Buying roses and talking of Bechsteins. She was full of soul. Her small room was gorged with heat And there were no windows. She’d take off everything But her pants And take the pins from her hair Throwing them on the floor With a great noise. Like Crete. We […]...
- The Light of Stars The night is come, but not too soon; And sinking silently, All silently, the little moon Drops down behind the sky. There is no light in earth or heaven But the cold light of stars; And the first watch of night is given To the red planet Mars. Is it the tender star of love? […]...
- A Birthday My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a water’d shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me. Raise […]...
- The house where I was born (08) I open my eyes, yes, it’s the house where I was born, Exactly as it was and nothing more. The same small dining room whose window Gives onto a peach tree that never grows. A man and a woman are seated At this window, facing one another, They are talking, for once. And the child […]...
- The Dramatists A string of shiny days we had, A spotless sky, a yellow sun; And neither you nor I was sad When that was through and done. But when, one day, a boy comes by And pleads me with your happiest vow, “There was a lad I knew ” I’ll sigh, “I do not know him […]...
- Boldness in Love Mark how the bashful morn in vain Courts the amorous marigold, With sighing blasts and weeping rain, Yet she refuses to unfold. But when the planet of the day Approacheth with his powerful ray, The she spreads, then she receives His warmer beams into her virgin leaves. So shalt thou thrive in love, fond boy; […]...
- The Child Dying Unfriendly friendly universe, I pack your stars into my purse, And bid you so farewell. That I can leave you, quite go out, Go out, go out beyond all doubt, My father says, is the miracle. You are so great, and I so small: I am nothing, you are all: Being nothing, I can take […]...
- Deaf House Agent That deaf old man With his hand to his ear His hand to hi head stood out like a shell, Horny and hollow. He said, “I can’t hear,” He muttered, “Don’t shout, I can hear very well!” He mumbled, “I can’t catch a word; I can’t follow.” Then Jack with a voice like a Protestant […]...
- Mrs. Kessler Mr Kessler, you know, was in the army, And he drew six dollars a month as a pension, And stood on the corner talking politics, Or sat at home reading Grant’s Memoirs; And I supported the family by washing, Learning the secrets of all the people From their curtains, counterpanes, shirts and skirts. For things […]...
- Mail Call The letters always just evade the hand One skates like a stone into a beam, falls like a bird. Surely the past from which the letters rise Is waiting in the future, past the graves? The soldiers are all haunted by their lives. Their claims upon their kind are paid in paper That established a […]...
- The Old And The New Masters About suffering, about adoration, the old masters Disagree. When someone suffers, no one else eats Or walks or opens the window no one breathes As the sufferers watch the sufferer. In St. Sebastian Mourned by St. Irene The flame of one torch is the only light. All the eyes except the maidservant’s (she weeps And […]...
- Fairyland If people came to know where my king’s palace is, it would vanish Into the air. The walls are of white silver and the roof of shining gold. The queen lives in a palace with seven courtyards, and she Wears a jewel that cost all the wealth of seven kingdoms. But let me tell you, […]...
- Theory Of Recruiting Sons of bitches Were born With hearts of stone, Cherishing this stone All their life. Children of Sons of bitches Were born With hearts of grenade, In order to Blow to pieces Everything, And to leave as a message for their descendants – Entrails (still smoking entrails) Of sons of bitches....
- Conscious His fingers wake, and flutter up the bed. His eyes come open with a pull of will, Helped by the yellow may-flowers by his head. A blind-cord drawls across the window-sill. . . How smooth the floor of the ward is! what a rug! And who’s that talking, somewhere out of sight? Why are they […]...
- DON JUAN IN HADES WHEN Juan sought the subterranean flood, And paid his obolus on the Stygian shore, Charon, the proud and sombre beggar, stood With one strong, vengeful hand on either oar. With open robes and bodies agonised, Lost women writhed beneath that darkling sky; There were sounds as of victims sacrificed: Behind him all the dark was […]...
- Style STYLE go ahead talking about style. You can tell where a man gets his style just As you can tell where Pavlowa got her legs Or Ty Cobb his batting eye. Go on talking. Only don’t take my style away. It’s my face. Maybe no good But anyway, my face. I talk with it, I […]...
- Psalm 116 part 2 v.12ff C. M. Vows made in trouble paid in the church. What shall I render to my God For all his kindness shown? My feet shall visit thine abode, My songs address thy throne. Among the saints that fill thine house My off’rings shall be paid; There shall my zeal perform the vows My soul […]...
- The Tourist From Syracuse One of those men who can be a car salesman or a tourist from Syracuse or a Hired assassin. John D. MacDonald You would not recognize me. Mine is the face which blooms in The dank mirrors of washrooms As you grope for the light switch. My eyes have the expression Of the cold eyes […]...
- Meditation on the A30 A man on his own in a car Is revenging himself on his wife; He open the throttle and bubbles with dottle And puffs at his pitiful life She’s losing her looks very fast, She loses her temper all day; That lorry won’t let me get past, This Mini is blocking my way. “Why can’t […]...
- Even Because Because it all just breaks apart, and the pieces scatter and rearrange without much fanfare or notice. Because you can’t and don’t remember the step that kicked up dust and left this planet-you’d give up even more now. Because the body itself-the heart’s Not dead but deeper, wrapped up in curtains, a different color, among […]...
- The Lesson Chaos ruled OK in the classroom As bravely the teacher walked in The nooligans ignored him Hid voice was lost in the din “The theme for today is violence And homework will be set I’m going to teach you a lesson One that you’ll never forget” He picked on a boy who was shouting And […]...