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Dec

2009

Thursday Read Write Poem

Posted on 17:21, December 3rd, 2009 by EKSwitaj

Read my latest story, "The All-Nighter", at 52|250.

Pomegranate

your waxed and lumpy skin seemed like a tank
     w/o mortars or missiles
I cdn't die                I cdn't dig my nails into you
          under those immaculate
    groaning               lights
            of Safeway, Albertson's, QFC

you didn't attract me
but I lie

          you did until I got to school
and learned if I ate you I'd go to Hell  (teachers, books)
and learned eating  you was all about sex  (other kids, secret books
                             behind the covered  four-square courts

                   I drank your juice
in pulverized ice & tequila
                                   & something shouldn't have been there
& I knew all about what Hades
did to Persephone—she probably knew him before
but I escape into another world

where you were piled between oranges & mangoes
 carted over dusty sewers
                          and I found my nails sharp enough
and I held the first of your seeds
high to catch the smoggy sun 

there was so little of you
glistening
to eat

written in response to read write prompt #103: pomegranate, which reminded me of My Own Private Alchemy

How to Eat a Pomegranate Frustration Free [Food Hacks] (lifehacker.com)
In praise of … mint (guardian.co.uk)

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Tags: Hades, Persephone, Pomegranate

Posted in politics | print

6 Responses to “Thursday Read Write Poem”

wayne on December 3rd, 2009 at 6:12 pm

I dont like using the word WOW…but I just did….I dont like rating poems…but i just have…and me thinks yours is #1….I liked everything you did with this….thanks for sharing this

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EKSwitaj on December 3rd, 2009 at 6:16 pm

oh my gosh, I’m blushing

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Paul Oakley on December 3rd, 2009 at 8:50 pm

I like the way this poem plays at the intersection of ways of apprehending truth – instruction that may be slanted to preserve the power matrix, peers who search out the salacious, direct personal experience… All struggling against each other to make meaning. In this context of huge forces at play, it is particularly, amazingly realistic, the observation that:

there was so little of you
glistening
to eat
Paul Oakley’s last blog ..Pomegranate

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rallentanda on December 4th, 2009 at 7:48 am

Now I do like this poem.There’s a lot in it.I like
your hint about Persephone knowing Hades before and your escape into the other world.Quirky!Also the smoggy sun…good image.There was so little of you to eat…yes,definitely overrated with everything else
implied.Very nice feel and mood about this poem

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Tumblewords on December 4th, 2009 at 6:22 pm

What a ride – wonderful read!
Tumblewords’s last blog ..Poem for RWP #103

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David Moolten on December 4th, 2009 at 8:48 pm

I really like the personification here, which is hard to pull off anymore, but you do, “talking” to the fruit. I think it works because you are confiding, and in strong gritty tones, and because there is the sense of a person, or people, in the narrator’s voice, the pomegranate has come to stand for.
David Moolten’s last blog ..Persephone’s Return

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