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mznocent
Nov 17, 2013, 10:32 AM
Is anyone familiar with a poem that compares a love relationship with an onion?

Wondergirl
Nov 17, 2013, 10:39 AM
Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

Wondergirl
Nov 17, 2013, 10:41 AM
Monologue for an Onion
by Suji Kwock Kim

I don't mean to make you cry.
I mean nothing, but this has not kept you
From peeling away my body, layer by layer,

The tears clouding your eyes as the table fills
With husks, cut flesh, all the debris of pursuit.
Poor deluded human: you seek my heart.

Hunt all you want. Beneath each skin of mine
Lies another skin: I am pure onion--pure union
Of outside and in, surface and secret core.

Look at you, chopping and weeping. Idiot.
Is this the way you go through life, your mind
A stopless knife, driven by your fantasy of truth,

Of lasting union--slashing away skin after skin
From things, ruin and tears your only signs
Of progress? Enough is enough.

You must not grieve that the world is glimpsed
Through veils. How else can it be seen?
How will you rip away the veil of the eye, the veil

That you are, you who want to grasp the heart
Of things, hungry to know where meaning
Lies. Taste what you hold in your hands: onion-juice,

Yellow peels, my stinging shreds. You are the one
In pieces. Whatever you meant to love, in meaning to
You changed yourself: you are not who you are,

Your soul cut moment to moment by a blade
Of fresh desire, the ground sown with abandoned skins.
And at your inmost circle, what? A core that is

Not one. Poor fool, you are divided at the heart,
Lost in its maze of chambers, blood, and love,
A heart that will one day beat you to death.

- See more at: Monologue for an Onion- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16473#sthash.guGcUgnw.dpuf)

mznocent
Nov 17, 2013, 10:43 AM
Thank you Wondergirl but they are not the one I'm looking for. It talks about two onions that have become conjoined into one.

Wondergirl
Nov 17, 2013, 10:50 AM
I'll Google around and if I find it, I'll post it -- so far, no luck.

Wondergirl
Nov 17, 2013, 11:08 AM
"Conjoined" by Judith Minty?

from a blog --

"In the first stanza, Judith Minty speaks about an onion. More specifically, it is two onions molded together under a single thin layer of onion skin. The onion is made of two, “each half-round, then flat and deformed/ where it pressed and grew against each other” (line 3-4). Once married (or joined), the two onions grew into and away from each other simultaneously. If separated, they would have grown normally, but connected, they developed into round onions except where they merge into one. At their intersection, they are misshapen and flat. In some ways, marriage between two people is like this. Each person continues to grow spiritually, emotionally, physically and intellectually throughout their life, but in a marriage, being so close to another person that you grow to be more like them and less like yourself."

http://aboothatptc.blogspot.com/

also --

"The poet uses analogies to make his point. In the very first line, the onion is referred to as a monster. It is two onions only 'joined by a transparent skin' (2). The skin is like the unification of marriage between the two onions. The deformity of the two onions 'each half-round, then flat and deformed where it pressed and grew together' (3-4) puts a slight tilt on the joining. Where the two onions come into contact with each other they have warped and deformed into something uglier and less perfect. This transparent skin has changed the onion into one deformed unified onion. 'Conjoined' is a troubling piece of writing that goes around in circles with definitions and analogies of a very unhappy union of two people."

http://moldgoua.blogspot.com/2011/04/conjoined-by-judith-minty.html

pwooden
Nov 17, 2013, 02:42 PM
The author Carl Sandburg said “Life is like an onion: you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep”.