30 January 2023
25 October 2025
in the original poem the ‘takes’ are presented like a movie clapperboard
view original poem
30 November 2023 rejected (assumed) not notified after the date when authors of successful submissions were to be notified: APH 13.1 - ‘place, non-place’
martial theme
[ TAKE 1 ]
a tomb under mars
i mean the surface of mars
i mean underground paris
not the metro, i mean, oh…
this is quite different
contents
to exo
exa
examine… dammit!
i mean flakes of dead skin from humans and pets
fibres from clothes-carpet-furnishings
and the dirt-soot-and-pollen from outside
that gets through the filters and cracks
i mean i wanna be buried
deeper than this
[ TAKE 2 ]
a pre-existing
tomb under the surface of mars
would save a lot
of excavation
presuming
it to be big enough to
fit
a dehydrated queen for her next life under the dust
and out of the wind
perhaps there’d be a persistent hum
too subtle for us to interpret, like a
keep out
audioloop in martian
for the thin martian air
[ TAKE 3 ]
planet paris
what’s its essence, huh?
a certain je ne sais quoi?
the locals abscond from the heat during the
last stage of the tour de mars
but finally
who wears the winner’s jersey
as they ride under the arc de triomphe?
[ TAKE 4 ]
a sumptous
tomb several clicks
under the martian
surface
an opalesque queen
in hibernation her robot
minions wait to switch on the
moment she wakes
phew!
here come the earthlings
not an orbit too soon
[ TAKE 5 ]
a few clicks
under the martian surface
a dehydrated queen
is entombed in suspended
antimotion
it was prefigured in gargoyles
on notre-dame
or runes in iona
(but my attention is waning)
[ TAKE 6 ]
an opal
in the desert
a queen
in a shaft
a worker robot
wakes
[ TAKE 7 ]
will the queen
wait to be incinerated
and join the planet-girdling
dust
or be
re-
re-
re-
cycled at last?