Poem: Still Life

Still Life

On a white porcelain plate
A bunch of green translucent grapes,
Two Washington apples with a knife –
Scene from still life.

Yellow bananas poking out
Of a bamboo wicker bowl,
Firm, sleek-skinned, glowing –
Lighting up the soul.

In a saucer, sitting tight,
A dark purple plum
(Swelling with pride)
Screams for a bite.

© Tom Prato/Tan Pratonix

I'm a lover of art. I love paintings. I thought I should do a painting with words.

I used my imagination. I thought of still life. A white porcelain plate, bone china perhaps. A bunch of green grapes. Translucent grapes. And then two apples. Red and green. But Washington apples - that's Washington State in the U.S.A., not Washington D.C. But apples need a knife! So I got the grapes, the apples and the knife. Let an art student paint the scene.

But I needed another picture. This time a bamboo wicker bowl. These are common in Burma, Bengal and Assam. And that's banana country too. Yellow bananas are the best. Some prefer green. But yellow glows. Sleek-skinned. Not just smooth, but sleek-skinned. "Lighting up the soul". A lot of good still life paintings do that.

I personally love the last stanza. A saucer. Just one dark purple plum. Plums are purple. Dark purple. Just one plum. A small saucer is enough. The plum is plump and juicy. But you can't have 'plump and juicy'. Look at the plum again. It is "swelling with pride". It has done it's job - reached the perfect point of ripeness. "Screams for a bite" - completes the scene.

I began with just one stanza - the first. Then kept it in cold storage for years, and after a long hibernation, the other two stanzas came out.

Why did I write this explanation? Because of Hubpages policy. I don't like to see Hubpages tampering with a good poem and an excellent Hubpage. Today, the Internet is ruled by bots (machines). You can't have poems reviewed by stupid technicalities. Because I put up two pictures in the page, I have to write so many words to balance what I've written.

Hope you understand.

Pratonix