I love you onion
I'll tell you why
in part because
you make me sigh,
you are everything to me
the song my Mother sang...
a whimsical, sad
and poignant little tale
I hear you crooning
& the radio tuning
my Mother knew me better
than I'd like to think,
singing ...
Lonely 'Lil petunia in an onion patch
a bittersweet memory
of all the saddest words
that I have ever heard
the saddest is the story
told me by a bird
tears fall from a pungent smell
when I cannot forgive,
say you'll never tell
and in tears of laughter  
when I'm tickled
seeing the inchworm
in the shape of a finger
a moment comes,
  I stay
and linger
climbing like a spider
singing me a verse
Spent about an hour
chatting with a flower
and here's the tale he told
as you're peeling layers,
& hearing prayers
revealing honesty
and depth of flavor
intoxicating waifs
I sniff and savor
kept safe
by a sturdy skin
cooking you
I start, begin
chopped fresh
and finely diced
or maybe
even thinly sliced
for summertime
franks, not the
Ballpark kind
these I doubt
you'll ever find
homemade baked beans
that you adorn and grace
a smiling sweet,
lil' onion face
everything made
from scratch
gleaning my
lil' onion patch
in toasted rolls,
whole grain mustard
potato salad...
best I can recall
my Mother
took the time to make
in everything
she cooked and baked
you're in all my memories
though you're in so much more
I've never shared with you
this love I have before
Onions are adaptation at its finest
fresh, sauteed with butter
translucent sweetness
Elevating anything you touch
they cry, and laugh
and give so much
dried, grated..slightly dated...
even hated, chopped up..
or roasted, grilled...
so very skilled
any way you slice it
even if you dice it
differently delightful
and delicious
smart for recipes,
even onion haters
appreciate the graters
sometimes your in  disguise
a lovely found
& welcome surprise
must be
I have something
in my eyes
as the flower
continues to sing
a joyful gift
my onion brings
familiar sounds
songs I sing
petunia continues
who put me in this bed
I'll bet his face is red
I call him down
with every teardrop that I shed
  then she said
if only I had him here
I would take him by his ear
and make him share my misery
I'm cooking homemade
onion chips,
rewound on old-time family clips
recall the fresh-squeezed lemonade
while we're sittin' in
the cooling shade
a memory of you replayed
so very glad you came & stayed
  sippin' slow brewed iced tea
my lil' onion friend and me.

Cherie Nolan© 2016

The onion, now that's something else
its innards don't exist
nothing but pure onionhood
fills this 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
an internal inferno
the anathema of anatomy
in an onion there's only onion
from its top to it's toe
onionymous monomania
unanimous omninudity

at peace, at peace
internally at rest
inside it, there's a smaller one
of undiminished worth
the second holds a third one
the third contains a fourth
a centripetal fugue
polypony compressed

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


Wisława Szymborska, translated from the Polish by Stanisław Barańczak & Clare Cavanagh

Onion,
luminous flask,
your beauty formed
petal by petal,
crystal scales expanded you
and in the secrecy of the dark earth
your belly grew round with dew.
Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared,
and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden,
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency,
and as the remote sea
in lifting the ******* of Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear as a planet
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation,
round rose of water,
upon
the table
of the poor.

You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone

and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.

~Christi Michaels~12/2014~
   ☆⊙☆⊙☆⊙☆

you with an onion
in the palm of your hand
pulling back layers
seeing just who I am

removing the papery
outer shell
the flesh beneath
holding slight color tan

folding back the next
begining to understand
sweet juicy onion
cradled
in the palm of your hand

brave to peel 
the next layer
spicey as onions can be
a tear begins to form
a tear just for me

now you are intoxicated
as only an onion can do
you pull back again
translucent flesh
coming through

sweeter and sweeter
I become
as you genlty find my core
you've settled in
found your way
what a delectable
delicious score

  ☆⊙☆⊙☆⊙☆
Copyright © 2014 Christi Michaels.
All Rights Reserved.

Hour by hour
Pour me La creme
Me De La game
French Onion soup
Shh shush
The rush hour Oh La La
Card flush

Competing against Mama
Mia
La Miss Lea
French roast
she begs to plea
This is not tea 4
the terrible two

French onion is dripping
taking sides
what orders hot kiss slides
French fries and sensual
French skirts
Creme de la creme somehow
love hurts

His piece of the pie
Say sweet nothings
The French kiss holds
The Eiffel tower sipping
her steaming soup
See's the Italian Stallion
She was crying onions

He turned to her with cafe
and sits on the side another man
British bitcoins one cup of her
French coffee lucky payday
Keeps the beans at play
Lips to envelope
What's to "Extinguish"
Hush  
French coffee wish
Car Fiat bean pedal
Cool her down
French city town

Hot wet don't burn
her tongue
Love is in the coffee
Darker shades of coffee set
More what meets their lips?
How the onion drips overly
Brie cheesed
But she had other plans
Onion soup so pleased
But her French onion soup
with cheese
You could just meet her smile
you don't
have to ever say please
Merci"

the onion in father's hands didn't have time to cry,
with his fist punched it on the corner of the table, spread salt and
ate it with sheep's cheese,
(like the builders of the pyramids, my dad was paid in onions)

the onion in my mother's hands was sweet and made many leaves,
spring after spring she shared it throughout the village,
people were wondering: how does not bring tears,


every time I have an onion in my hand I think,
to clean it with my hands,
cut it with a knife, or
punch it with a fist,

the onion in my hands
is waiting

You made me cry.

You and your hundreds of brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents, ancestors that I’ve met in the past.

Painful, piercing, burning tears that cause me such pain, I worry I’m allergic to you.

But I keep on coming back to you.

Why?

You would have thought that I’d ban onions from my house. Yell at the top of my voice. ‘Onions be gone!!!’

But I can’t. You provide such an essential element to so many dishes.

Sometimes, I think I’ve got away with it. I’ve peeled you fully. You lie there, waiting to be cut, apparently unarmed.

But then your fury is unleashed as my knife begins to slice. You weep too. Tears of malice, venom and white hot anger. Tears that say ‘You’ve hurt me and I will not let you get away with that!’

Will you tell me something onion?
I know you make me cry but out of your dozen or so relatives, is there an onion that will make me sob?

An onion, where with each layer I peel, it releases in me grief and pain and hurt that I’ve kept locked up for years, and then I’ll finally feel cleansed.

Or did God, in all his wisdom, love and kindness, not create such a beast because he knows that I wouldn’t be able to cope with that much pain?

Instead, he treats me like an onion. But oh, so, so gently does he remove my peel and layers, washing away the hurt and grime with his tears of love and tenderness.