Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings <br />and some are treasured for their markings -- <br /> <br />they cause the eyes to melt <br />or the body to shriek without pain. <br /> <br />I have never seen one fly, but <br />sometimes they perch on the hand. <br /> <br />Mist is when the sky is tired of flight <br />and rests its soft machine on ground: <br /> <br />then the world is dim and bookish <br />like engravings under tissue paper. <br /> <br />Rain is when the earth is television. <br />It has the property of making colours darker. <br /> <br />Model T is a room with the lock inside -- <br />a key is turned to free the world <br /> <br />for movement, so quick there is a film <br />to watch for anything missed. <br /> <br />But time is tied to the wrist <br />or kept in a box, ticking with impatience. <br /> <br />In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps, <br />that snores when you pick it up. <br /> <br />If the ghost cries, they carry it <br />to their lips and soothe it to sleep <br /> <br />with sounds. And yet they wake it up <br />deliberately, by tickling with a finger. <br /> <br />Only the young are allowed to suffer <br />openly. Adults go to a punishment room <br /> <br />with water but nothing to eat. <br />They lock the door and suffer the noises <br /> <br />alone. No one is exempt <br />and everyone's pain has a different smell. <br /> <br />At night when all the colours die, <br />they hide in pairs <br /> <br />and read about themselves -- <br />in colour, with their eyelids shut.<br /><br />Craig Raine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-martian-sends-a-postcard-home/
