Polyester Corespun
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Posts :
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Posted : Jul 18, 2005 12:43
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Hi evryone!
This is a poem I luv very very much and I wanted to share with you!
It's about a creature from Mars and how it sees things on Earth ! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
A Martian Sends A Postcard Home
by Craig Raine
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 on tissue paper.
Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the property of making colours 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 apparatus 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 punishment 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 all the colours die,
they hide in pairs
and read about themselves in colour
with their eyelids shut.
some clarification notes as quoted in the book where the poem is cited :
1. `Caxtons` are books,which William Caxton was the first to print in English (1422). The Martian observes the effects of books on their readers, but does not know the words for "cry" or "laugh".
2. `Model T` is an automobile.
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