Mars
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Memories of ’89
There was a moment, in those dark days when we dreamed of putting our stars there together – one gold, fifty white. On the Red planet, on the god of war so we wouldn’t have to meet him on the battlefield. We schoolboys ducking under our desks the quaking of Southern California ground not as…
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Evening Walk
Under that stifling proto-summer heat the evergreens sag and the past-dusk sky holds burning red Mars air clear and turbulence low he’s reflecting the missing sun. Two men stand under a street lamp smoking a joint they pass back and forth conversing in Spanglish and I am hearing in memory Beethoven’s Romance for Violin and…
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Aldrin Waits
The sheets were purity white, blameless. Two hands lying atop the crisp linen folds; gnarled, purple veins, arthritic, with brown spots as numberless as a Dalmatians riding a Fourth of July firetruck. Under eyelids jittering, sunken eyes move in REM motions; emotions, vibrations, oxygen levels, fuel warning indicators, alarms. It’s a tight fit with…
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Mars 3
The sun sets on the lowest tide Mars had ever seen. Small creatures clung to the basaltic rocks and waved tiny flagella at that distant star, almost as if that plaintive gesture of goodbye would allow for one more perfect day. Now, the ebb and flow of the stinging, salted seas was waning. Their dark…
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“Bradbury was right!”
Out of the sun came the flaming silver needles. Landing in amongst the fragile bone-chess cities, red sand kicked up hard into quiet pale blue skies, was a ship from the third planet. The men inside, grizzled and fuzzy-faced, looked out the portholes and exclaimed each in turn, “Bradbury was right!” The dry seabeds rolled…
The Numinous Cosmos 