26. The Onion, Memory

So, for my part of the presentation we're doing on Tuesday, I'm focusing on the Martian School of Poetry. It's a pretty cool form (though I guess it's not a form, but rather a thematic choice, maybe?), where the poet disassociates himself from the object and explains it through unfamiliar eyes. Defamiliarization, it's called. I was unable to find a full poem but Reid, but Raine's A Martian Sends a Postcard Home is really great and I could talk about it all day, so I put that in there. I did want to give another example, though; it's one that I didn't put in the packet because I have trouble understanding it, so I certainly can't help lead discussion on it. Here it is, below. It's called "The Onion, Memory" and again, it's by Craig Raine. Let me know what you think! (And don't judge Martian poetry solely on this example...I'm admitting it's obscure-ish).

The Onion, Memory
Craig Raine

Divorced, but friends again at last,
we walk old ground together
in bright blue uncomplicated weather.
We laugh and pause
to hack to bits these tiny dinosaurs,
prehistoric, crenelated, cast
between the tractor ruts in mud.

On the green, a junior Douglas Fairbanks,
swinging on the chestnut's unlit chandelier,
defies the corporation spears--
a single rank around the bole,
rusty with blood.
Green, tacky phalluses curve up, romance
A gust--the old flag blazes on its pole.

In the village bakery
the pastry babies pass
from milky slump to crusty cadaver,
from crib to coffin--without palaver.
All's over in a flash,
too silently...

Tonight the arum lilies fold
back napkins monogrammed in gold,
crisp and laundered fresh.
Those crustaceous gladioli, on the sly,
reveal the crimson flower-flesh
inside their emerald armor plate.
The uncooked herrings blink a tearful eye.
The candles palpitate.
The Oistrakhs bow and scrape
in evening dress, on Emi-tape.

Outside the trees are bending over backwards
to please the wind : the shining sword
grass flattens on its belly.
The white-thorn's frillies offer no resistance.
In the fridge, a heart-shaped jelly
strives to keep a sense of balance.

I slice up the onions. You sew up a dress.
This is the quiet echo--flesh--
white muscle on white muscle,
intimately folded skin,
finished with a satin rustle.
One button only to undo, sewn up with shabby thread.
It is the onion, memory,
that makes me cry.

Because there's everything and nothing to be said,
the clock with hands held up before its face,
stammers softly on, trying to complete a phrase--
while we, together and apart,
repeat unfinished festures got by heart.

And afterwards, I blunder with the washing on the line--
headless torsos, faceless lovers, friends of mine.