Mars Vanished
today at 17:52 the planet Mars ceased to exist,
the sleeping war machines that rest
beneath the surface, rust no more,
the breeze that soughs across the dead sea bottoms
no longer blows between the towers
of John Carter’s Helium,
no rain of silver locusts,
no breath of alien dust,
no microorganisms frozen into the permafrost
that mark the deltas of extinct rivers,
Mars has failed human imaginings,
no Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars…no Mars,
astronomers blink, look away, refocus elsewhere,
all Martian dreams cease here
Ensorcelled by the September 1955 mystical vinyl codex ‘a-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom’ at age eight, Andrew Darlington embarked on a lifetime quest to decipher the magical incantation’s profundity, traipsing in not entirely straight lines of zigzag wandering across decades of enchantment, yet is still no closer to the true enlightenment revelation must bring. As of now, the seeking continues across a proliferation of platforms, including http://andrewdarlington.blogspot.com/. Andrew recommends the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.
