On the first day, the eternal snow of stars
We felt as though we were behind bars,
But it was only the prison of my mind –
How it likes infinite repetition of
Self-irritation, leading me to hills
Of Mars to tear my body apart
We start here, again,
An interstellar journey commenced,
To escape beatings of saints
Religious zealots who rule
Island nations of woe
The pock-marked man forgoes
hanging at the gallows,
we all laughed – it is
Gallows humor, we suppose,
Who knows? Maybe one of us
Will be next, with rope scratching
Our throat, tightly squeezed,
Yes, please, do not kill us
Embrace us as childish minds
We are; we’ve come so far – from
Fields of blaze, to hills of
This new planet, all of us,
Want somewhere to belong to.
Author’s Note: The first line of this poem is taken from Stephanie Mallarme’s poem “The Flowers”.
(Photo from Wikimedia Commons – Prison Scene by George Romney)
