Ode to a Banana

I'll get to the banana. First, get into a relaxed mode,
This is going to be a long ode.
I've considered odes to other foods-
Odd edibles I've already oded include
Onions, bagels and pie a la mode,
Grapes and fruits with rounded shapes,
I could have done string beans or sweet potato crepes…
So why a banana? I could go on and on, eh….:

Imagine you're sitting there holding a banana…
It's got no pits it's got no bones,
No seeds to speak of, and no stones.
And it's a berry. It's a berry! That's a biological fact,
And you know how it produces the next generation?
Vegetative propagation! That's a biological fact.
And look at how this berry is packed.
It may be soft, and lack a hard shell, but…
It's easier to open than a coconut
Even species like tangerines and lychees aren't so easy to peel
You can do it by feel,
Right where the stem meets the swell of the fruit -
A thumbnail breaks the seal
Three pulls and it's open
That's all there is to it
A monkey could do it.
Have you ever had trouble copin'
With stuck zippers and bloody knuckles,
Metal doo dads and buttons and buckles?
The banana! Amazing. And odd,
With the best natural organic zipper - as yet,
Unpatented by God
(Only problem is, and I think God knows it,
You can't close it.)

Why a banana? I could go on and on, and I will
And while you're peeling your banana, you might also wanna
Peel off that little sticker with Chiquita, in her fruit basket hat –
who taught us, in an immensely successful commercial, that:

Bananas have to ripen in the very very tropical equator.
So never put bananas in the refrigerator.
- Chiquita Banana

But what Chiquita Banana never mentioned was:
her macho United Fruit Company, operating in Colombia,
went totally bananas when farm workers struck in 1928.
She pressured the CIA and Colombia's army to collude with the State
In a massacre of such magnitude
that it eventually led
To a civil war with a couple of hundred thousand dead
Inspiring Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude
Funny, isn't it, how what's so delicious
Can lead to what's vicious – even seditious,

And Chiquita also neglected to inform us
How in 1954, with the U.S.A, showing its true colors,
She unleashed the Dulles brothers,
and their well-placed friends
in Guatemala's army,
who were not the least bit hesitant
in taking down Jacabo Arbenz,
the democratically elected president of Guatemala
for daring to buck the United Fruit dollar;
The generals and the CIA,
treating the populous as prey,
oblivious to whatever collateral harm,
turned a 100,000 peasant plots
into one giant banana farm.

Oh, and it should be noted,
In 1984, the United Fruit Company came out as
Chiquita Brands International -
Went from macho to vaginal.
Now I know that clusters of bananas are called hands,
But it didn't dawn on me till recently, that Chiquita was trans…
Her jingle brought smiles to millions of fans…
We adored her…
And she ended up owning 90% of the land.
How can Impoverished peasants afford her?
And we get upset when they mass at our border

You can put them in a salad
You can put them in a pie – Aye
Any way you want to eat them
It's impossible to beat them
- Chiquita Banana

So bake banana bread instead of rye,
Put it on a waffle or in a cream pie,
Makes great daiquiris, and you have to admit,
It can't be beat in a banana split,
And remember: no pits,
The fruits are roastable, the skins compostable,
The roots produce ethylene
Which clues other roots into ripening.
Want more details?
Their roots repel aphids and snails
And sooth poison ivy and bug bites -
Beats calamine lotion by half,
and slipping on their skins is always good for a laugh

First cultivated food crop.
Been around for 8000 years,
Long before the racketeers.
And although the potassium in it's slightly radioactive,
All cultures find the banana attractive
It was holy for the Hindus, Buddhists too,
The Mayans and the Africans were big fans,
It's described as the fruit of Paradise in the Koran.
It's also got B6, and tryptophan
Which produce serotonin – ups your mood, gets you high,
makes you feel good. You should give it a try

And when you're about to taste and savor
That luscious luscious banana flavor,
I hope you're taking in all that went into it, really feeling it,
As your mouth waters while your fingers are peeling it.

Ode to a Banana

New Poems

From By Heart

Some Earlier Poems

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