The Trouble With Geraniums

Mervyn Peake 1911 – 1968



The trouble with geraniums
is that they’re much too red!
The trouble with my toast is that
it’s far too full of bread.

The trouble with a diamond
is that it’s much too bright.
The same applies to fish and stars
and the electric light.

The troubles with the stars I see
lies in the way they fly.
The trouble with myself is all
self-centred in the eye.

The trouble with my looking-glass
is that it shows me, me;
there’s trouble in all sorts of things
where it should never be.
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Written on 1972

Submitted by Drone232 on May 18, 2022

Modified on May 02, 2023

30 sec read
216

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXA XBXB CDXD XCXC
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 485
Words 101
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4

Mervyn Peake

Mervyn Laurence Peake (9 July 1911 – 17 November 1968) was an English writer, artist, poet, and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the Gormenghast books. The four works were part of what Peake conceived as a lengthy cycle, the completion of which was prevented by his death. They are sometimes compared to the work of his older contemporary J. R. R. Tolkien, but Peake's surreal fiction was influenced by his early love for Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson rather than Tolkien's studies of mythology and philology. more…

All Mervyn Peake poems | Mervyn Peake Books

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1 Comment
  • Dougla$Irishman
    Quite the poem about ourselves ! What you see is what you get, no reruns.
    We are our own worst critic ! Mirror, mirror on the wall , who is the fairest of them all ! Me of course.
    LikeReply1 year ago

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"The Trouble With Geraniums" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/127859/the-trouble-with-geraniums>.

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