An Address to Mars | Sarah Doyle
A bloodied taint upon the sky,
a stain among the stars.
A grizzled, florid visage, crazed
with ancient battle-scars.
A solitary poppy marks
the onward march of Mars.
Your heaving mount, Olympus Mons,
full fifty red miles wide.
A hostile world, a burnt-out shell;
what God would dare reside
within the poison bosom of
your carbon dioxide?
Beneath your lava’d combat-fields –
a frigid, ruddy mass–
what heart could beat? What hand could rise
inside your foul morass;
amidst the rime of rusty clouds
and frozen, toxic gas?
One God alone prevails within
your iron-ridden ore;
with anvil clasped in hand, to forge
his grim esprit-de-corps,
and fashion weaponry, through time –
hail Mars, the God of War.
a stain among the stars.
A grizzled, florid visage, crazed
with ancient battle-scars.
A solitary poppy marks
the onward march of Mars.
Your heaving mount, Olympus Mons,
full fifty red miles wide.
A hostile world, a burnt-out shell;
what God would dare reside
within the poison bosom of
your carbon dioxide?
Beneath your lava’d combat-fields –
a frigid, ruddy mass–
what heart could beat? What hand could rise
inside your foul morass;
amidst the rime of rusty clouds
and frozen, toxic gas?
One God alone prevails within
your iron-ridden ore;
with anvil clasped in hand, to forge
his grim esprit-de-corps,
and fashion weaponry, through time –
hail Mars, the God of War.