share


Tyranny of the Pomegranate

I mind my pomegranate like an open door

watch it from the corner of my bed

with the lights on. It grows on trees here so

I mind my pomegranate & like an open door

 

it creaks fruitlessness; do all pomegranates

stain like shadows? I crack its fruit onto the floor

and mind my pomegranate like an open door,

watch from the corner of my bed.

 

The pomegranates felt a sense of belatedness so

they imitated until they created their own

culture. By this, of course, I mean the

pomegranates felt a sense of belatedness so

 

their art was modelled after Chronos, engendering time

and all its tensions. Even building in their prime

the pomegranates felt a sense of belatedness so

they created until they imitated their own.

 

Have you ever heard of the Heraclitean pomegranate?

Or seen its shape-shifting jewels whip

light from an egg-yolk into vanishing air? Oh but

have you ever heard of the Heraclitean pomegranate?

 

Tell me, when was the last time you fed the pomegranate,

allowed its composition to transform you? Spill it!

Have you ever heard of the Heraclitean pomegranate?

Or seen it whip jewels like a shapeshifter?

 

I was pomegranate the other day and tripped

over a bur. Nowadays, I always get a sprain

when I pomegranate. My grandfather said he

was pomegranate the other day and tripped—

 

like when the colonisers withdrew and left his

tree exposed to the hewing. I don’t want to think about

when I was pomegranate. The other day I tripped

over. It was a blur. Nowadays, I always forget my name.

 

 

This pomegranate is like a pomegranate:

it falls from the sky and stains everything red

on impact. It’s deaf to the screaming children.

This pomegranate is like a pomegranate:

 

you can’t tell which way or who it’ll split. For

fate decides—meaning power decides. It’s too late

when this pomegranate is like a pomegranate

falls from the sky and stains everything red.


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

is a poet, poetry critic, and reviewer. Her poems have appeared in PNR, PBRUM, ArabLit Quarterly, Wasafiri, and in the philosophy journal Crisis and Critique's special poetry issue. She was an Undertow poet at the Poetry Translation Centre (2021-22), and is writing her PhD on Basil Bunting’s Persian influences.

READ NEXT

Art

Issue No. 11

Sarah Jones

Sarah Jones

Art

Issue No. 11

A series of photographs by the acclaimed British artist Sarah Jones is published in The White Review No. 11. 

Interview

Issue No. 1

Interview with André Schiffrin

Jacques Testard

Gwénaël Pouliquen

Interview

Issue No. 1

André Schiffrin founded non-profit publishing house The New Press in 1990 after an acrimonious split with Random House –...

poetry

August 2016

Three New Poems

Sarah V. Schweig

poetry

August 2016

‘The Audit’ and ‘Red Bank’ are excerpts from Schweig’s forthcoming book, Take Nothing With You (University of Iowa Press, 2016).  ...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required