The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poem Thread, 10/7/07

[BlueIris]

"A Martian Sends a Postcard Home"

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings—

They cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on the ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the property of making colors darker.

Model T is a room with the lock inside—
a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted aparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet, they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punnishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.

At night, when the colors all die,
they hide in pairs

and read about themselves—
in colour, with their eyelids shut.

—Craig Raine

(In the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, (second edition) the footnotes mention that the Caxtons in the first couplet are books, (William Caxton was the first to print them in English) the eyes melting and body shrieking are references to crying and laughter, and that the Model T is, of course, an early automobile, the "key" is the ignition key. I think the other things described in the poem by the martian speaker are pretty easy to identify.)

[BlueIris]

1. Kick.

[BlueIris]

2. Kick.

[BlueIris]

3. Kick.

[BlueIris]

4. Kick.

[BlueIris]

5. This is one of the best poems ever.

I was hoping it would at least get more views.

[BlueIris]

6. Kick.