the onion

Thanks to a dear friend of mine, Sabrina, I'm able to give you the proper translation of the poem " The Onion" . I hope you'll enjoy it as I do.


The onion, now that's something else
its innards don't exist.
Nothing but pure onionhood
fills its devout onionist
oniony on the inside
onionesque it appears
it follows its own daimonion
without our human tears

Our skin is just a coverup
for the land where none dare to go
our internal inferno
the anathema of anatomy
In an onion there is only onion
from its top to its toe
onionimous monomania
unanimous omninudity

At peace, at peace
internally at rest
inside it, there is a smaller one
of undimished worth
The second holds a third one
the third contains a fourth
a centripetal fugue
polipony compressed

Nature rotundest tummy
its greatest success story
the onion drapes itself in it's
own aureoles of glory
We hold veins, nerves, and fat
secrections' secret sections
not for us such idiotic
onionoid perfection

translation by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh