Mars

A future fantasy.

I'm watching the long red sunset

Cross over the tawny sky,

As Phobos tumbles past my head

And Deimos, by and by,

The light's beginning to fracture

As darkness reigns instead,

While Sylvie shakes her long blond hair

As she leaves her fretful bed.

 

I'm busy at the Astrodome

Checking the roof for leaks,

A tiny meteoric shower,

(The first for seven weeks);

Has threatened all the oxygen

We'd saved from the garden beds,

For now that Jon has disappeared,

I do his work instead.

 

The stars begin to glimmer,

Take form in the empty gloom,

And then I see the blue planet

Steal into the room,

The sapphire set in endless space

That once I'd called my home,

Now seems so far beyond my trace

As I watch it through the dome.

 

A week now short of seven months

Since I arrived on Mars,

This lonely outpost of despair,

Red wasteland of the stars,

A soil that's mainly iron ore

Whipped up in clouds of dust,

But dry, so dry, no water here -

Won't even start to rust.

 

We live within the Astrodome,

A perspex, clear balloon,

Much patched and fixed, and worn it is

But still we call it home,

We venture out in oxy-suits,

Explore the wild terrain,

But nothing keeps us out at night

In those swirling winds of pain.

 

Jon had been here eighteen months

With his wife, a botanist,

His title was 'The Engineer',

His degree was, somehow, 'lost'.

We argued once, we argued twice,

His wife the referee,

If you're cast adrift on Mars, my friend

Then 'War' is to disagree!

 

We went to explore a distant cave,

Leaving behind his wife,

To see if this planet's underground

Had ever supported life,

We took the tractor, digging tools,

Specimen boxes too,

But when we discovered a tunnel there

He waved at me - 'Go through!'

 

I stood back there in the darkness,

Refusing to go ahead,

For I'd never turn my back on one

Who'd said he 'wished me dead!'

I let him down at the entrance hole

On a rope - he'd started to rave,

So I ran out to the tractor then

And drove it out of the cave.

 

It's seven miles of crags and mounds

From the cave to the Astrodome,

And Mars doesn't have a magnetic field,

No compass to lead him home,

The light was fading, fading fast,

He never would find his way,

But Sylvie was there at the outer door

To welcome me, anyway!

 

'It's done!' I said, 'it's seven miles,

And just three hours of oxygen,

He'll rush, he'll run, he'll tear his suit,

You'll never see your Jon again!'

She kissed me then, and wrapped those long

White legs around me, pulled me down

Encased me in her long blond hair

And laughed, and said: 'I'm free again!'

 

'We'll give it a week, or maybe two,

Report the Engineer as lost,

Ask them to send a crew, and say

You're too upset to stay on Mars!

Then I'll come back when my year is up

And meet you there, they'll never know!

But we can begin the high life, once

They've paid you out; we'll just lie low!'

 

We sat together all that night,

Sat staring out at the swirling murk,

We feared to see if a hulking suit

Would come to lurch in the creeping dark.

'He's dead for sure,' I said at midnight,

Breathed a sigh of pure relief,

'I'm glad he's gone,' she whispered back,

'God! He drove me mad, the freak!'

 

I looked, and saw her glance at me,

Evil, both at her mouth and eyes,

I felt a shiver run through, athwart me,

Suddenly knew that she lay in lies.

She'd used me up in her murder plot,

Had no intentions of waiting for me,

So what would she tell them, back on earth?

That I had murdered the Engineer?

 

A week had gone, no sign of Jon,

We'd radioed back to Earth Control:

'Please rescue us, replace the crew,

The Engineer went for a permanent stroll.'

That night I got at the coffee grounds,

And drugged them well that she'd oversleep,

Then carried her out of the Astrodome,

No suit, no breath, no grim deceit!

 

The radio died on the following day

I watched when the stars were shining bright,

The blue of my planet wasn't so blue,

In fact, it looked quite red, on fire!

For days I watched as the holocaust

Threw mushroom clouds in the churning air,

'Til on the night of the fourteenth day

The Earth was not to be seen out there!

 

I'm watching the long red sunset

Cross over the tawny sky,

As Phobos tumbles past my head

And Deimos, by and by,

The light's beginning to fracture

As darkness reigns instead,

And Mars is a fitting coffin

For a one, as good as dead!

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

Amazing! I envision the two moons of Mars - Phobos (fear) and Deimos (panic)- as symbolic of Jon and Sylvie. Some consider the two moons to be captured asteroids, which again, is amazing if linked symbolically to Jon and Sylvie since they have both been captured and killed.

The central character can be likened to Ares, the Greek god of War, as the two moons were named after the horses that pulled his chariot, which is quite appropriate when considering that Ares' counterpart is Mars, the Roman god of War.

The war between two men over the love of one woman never seems to end well.

You never fail to enlighten and you impress beyond compare.

Linda Marie Van Tassell

[Marie]

Passion and intrigue even so far in the future, even on another world...human beings never learn. THey should never have sent one woman and two men out...

[Tomás Ó C..]

WOW, all is fair in love an war, eh... even when stranded on a distant planet...

[Phil Sanders]

Terrific write .. superb ..... it holds the reader .. and makes you want to get to the next line ....

[Trée]

Bravo! Bravo! I've been searching all night to be taken to another world on the wings of words cast from the imagination of genius surfing rhythm and rhyme. David, thank you for sharing your gift, your poem tumbling past my mind by and by forever changing the pattern of neurons I call home. Excellent work!

[Valentine]

This is one to hold the interest and I was not expecting the little bit of suspense thrown in..You still have that language thing that is so different from ours that leaves me going into a slight rhyming tune as I read your words..Another fine write from a very gifted grand father..God bless..Valentine

[Wildfleour]

David - Your imagination has no limit, my friend.

[Dianne]

This is such a cool story poem. I don't know a thing about poetry, but this was very entertaining to read.

[Norma J. Jessee]

Your stories always captivate me. Your characters are distinct, your locales are colorful, and your plots with their layers and surprises leave me on the edge of my seat in suspense.

First-rate storytelling talents, here in a rousing fantasy tale of murder, revenge, and internecine (warfare).

Loved it.

[holly]

A good and believable story told in 16 stanzas. I kept wanting to find a fixed rhythm in the poem, which I couldn't even while reading it aloud. What I did find were wonderful bits like the repetition of the number 7 and the lines about Phobos and Deimos, and the beautiful setting of place - in a place w'eve never visited bodily. You made Mars real and a true character in the poem. Thanks for posting it.