A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979) 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 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 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.

I Have Begrudged The Years by Angela Manalang - Gloria

Perhaps the years will get me after all,

Though I have sought to cheat them of their due

By documenting in beauty's name my soul

And locking out of sight my revenue

Of golden rapture and of sterling tears,

Let others give to Caesar Caesar's own:

I have begrudged the dictatorial years

The right usurious to tax me to the bone,

Therefore behold me now, a Timon bent

On hoarding each coin of love that should be spent

On you and you, and hushing all display

Of passionate splendour lest I betray

My wealth, lest the sharp years in tithes retrieve

Even the heart not worn upon my sleeve.

To A Lost One by Angela Manalang-Gloria

I shall haunt you O my lost one, as the twilight

Haunts a re-entangled trail,

And your dreams will linger strangely with the music

Of a phantom lover's tale,

You shall not forget, for I am past forgetting,

I shall come to you again

With the starlight and the scent of wild champacas,

And the melody of rain.

You shall not forget. Dust will peer into your

Window, tragic-eyed and still,

And unbidden, startle you into remembrance

With its hand upon the still.