mars again

descendant of

those kids

who signed up

to take a

one-way trip

to Mars

inside the

10 x 12 metal shelter

that separates me

from the atmosphere

that would boil  

a man’s blood

in the 6 month darkness

of a Martian winter

i think about what you

said about

the smell of flowers

newly mown

grass

and the moths

that fly up

the window at night

and beat

against the glass                       

 

sometimes

you think about us

up there and

wonder

if we are happy

in our world

because you

are not

in your’s

tired

of waiting to hear

about the birth of

another royal baby

another global flood

and how that

last strawberry

was sold for $150,000

to a man with

yellowing toenails

 

i know it’s

only a few weeks now

before an edge

of sunlight

breaks across

the far hills

and that soon

the aluminum-walled

gardens

will yield again

their greens

 

my lover

died a year ago

of the Disease

and mummy

is just a Martian stone’s

throw away

 

sure i still

gaze through the telescope

at your world

and watch

the last flickering lights

of your cities

but there is

more to do

here

 

yesterday

a new breed was born

all mole-like

and pink

she was more comfortable

outside thrashing about in the

red soil

so we left her there

and when we returned

she waved her lobster claw

in a playful gesture

back at

the Earth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Rosie C]

Wow, I can see why this is called Mars Again.

As a reader, I can sense your frustration with reality throughout this piece. I can relate to this frustration myself.

Life makes me want to be somewhere else for a change. Like Mars, an imaginary place within my head.
This is a deeply personal piece. It’s inviting, warm and generous towards the reader.

A delightful read.

[Eilis]

Such an interesting interplay of nostalgia and hunger for the unknown. A sort of microcosm of the human condition where we long for that we have not yet learned to grow bored of and feel trapped in what we would long for if we were taken from it. It seems like an innate part of us to have a lust for promise but also to feel grounded by those conditions or remembrances that stir those comfort centers.

It’s like with the internet now overtaken by the strangeness of AI imitations of humanity while simultaneously being a monument to the nostalgia for the past. People fetishizing decades past when they were children and felt safe and people embracing the new technology to glean what profit they can before the tech shifts into its next iteration.

Life is a collection of these contradictions it seems. In the poem I feel this sort of push and pull between two states almost like the voice in it has the benefit of hindsight and foresight but chooses to burrow in to where it is. There’s a sort of ache of memory—a sort of resigned connection to the present where perhaps loss is a regular feature, and what seems like an acceptance of the strangeness of what is being born like one recognizing the importance of letting what’s been born be what it only can be. It’s an uncanny feeling I get from the reading. Sort of sad but also a detachment as though the voice is speaking knowing it will not be heard by the one it speaks to but chooses to hold on to the hope that it could be. A lot of emotional touchpoints that leave me feeling something deeply that I can exactly explain. I found this touching and curious and surreal.

[. serah .]

-- for me, this post has moments of intense sadness and moments of pure light... -- i would describe this as a spirited reflection... one in which the narrator is not in denial about painful moments and yet the narrator expresses childlike inquisitiveness... and wonders incessantly about distances and events... thinking about whether there's a pattern and if it can be identified and understood... -- as a reader, i felt like i was looking at life through a telescope... and i went on a journey which showed me planets, thoughts, life, death and even the birth of a new species... -- the lingering sentiment is that of curiosity... about what human beings may discover next... (but this could just be my perspective)...

[...]

Hello SF...I was here and I loved it. It touched me deeply. I lost my lover not so very long ago. You did this in your uniquely you way, and it's beautiful

[Muse]

I imagined two worlds. Your reality made more tolerable by denial and fantasy. Mars...the perfect world, yet somehow it remains out of reach. We know it exist, yet we cannot relate to it. Like Dale said below, is it because our inner child grows silent...thus separating us from the nirvana of life.

[Ed Hart]

and this is accomplished in front of our own eyes...until this age, the slow metamorphosis of madness could hide in the chrysalis of time, but the tempo is now rock and roll, and everything is out in the open, but only a few are blinking as we disappear into a tomorrow that is unconnected to anything but itself...you sir are a new age prophet

[The Rock And Roll Cowbo..]

It is a endless circle where adults think todays kids actions are very alien like, then when they become adults they feel the same about the new generation of kids. Hell I feel like a stranger in a strange land these days.

[roarke]

and so it shall be. The human species expanding out into the solar system and then... maybe beyond. Can man make the shift? Will thoughts and projections from earth or the lack of them have any meaning after a certain point?

We may never know or realize due to all the eclipsing hype. It'll probably all be manufactured on a remote, secured soundstage some where. The participants, like the big brother reality show will be well compensated and anonymous, Maybe the indigenous life on Mars is already complicit in the charade. There's a lot of empty space up there......