The Human dream became the Martian dream as we slept on our Mars-bound voyage. We could see colonies amidst landscapes pristine, teeming with strange Martian plants discovered post-bloom.

The Martians were adorned with ivory carvings and had surrounded themselves with esoteric paintings of marauding faces. They spoke in strange tongues, switching between Martian and another almost incomprehensibly clandestine tongue of barbaric intonation. And although they clutched sharp, ivory spears with a fierce resolve, they remained docile in our presence, and told us of the vivid dreams they had engaged in as a group prior to our arrival; abstract dreams, tinged with fragmented images of insemination and visitation by the Mars Moth-Man— he who was oil-funded, and had been delivering concrete messages to the people of Mars ever since the first settlers had arrived in the distant past.

But, once we had truly set foot upon Mars— from outside the strange realm of dreams which lives solely within our collective mind's eye— we could not have foretold, our shared dream was revealed to be a sprawling wasteland of jagged rocks and infertile soil.

We need to be putting people on planets
before there are Putin people on planets
so we can dictate a culture
free from dictators
deporting the Dutertes from the atmosphere
that burns the arrows of the Bolsonaros
there's no progressive bastion here
so we must look forward in the years
past all of the Kim Jong-uns
even though their bombs might fall soon
so we can find the Roosevelts and Kennedys
to change the scorching hell ahead we see
but those leaders are obstructed
by the not so brainy
followers of Ali Khameini
believing ancient myths and men who grift
there's so much mud to sift there's no way to lift
what keeps us from other planets
through nationalist panic
and conspiracy theories
reaching the selective hearing
of god fearing *******
calling Trump their master
and the oppressed their slaves
we need to reach other planets
but we're still stuck in the cave.

There’s a 7-11 on Mars,
with parking for plenty of cars.
There’s never a wait in line
and you never get carded for wine.

There’s a huge monument on Venus,
it's shaped like a giant *****.
That’s a salute to Jeffery Bezos,
is it accurate and life-like - who knows?

A universe for the rich,
who found a technological niche,
with their business soaring,
to the stars they are roaring,
but for the rest of us, life is a *****.

Reading the front pages
Why? Because you’re beautiful
To an unread poet and Whipping posts away,
It’s untitled leaking..It’s just like water,
An October sky It’s just a memory
A cry for the quiet... Burns A candle
For the lost in translation about Fake love
Falling for If they wanted they would.
I care that Mars is a red planet
I’m still here is A suicide note

No one never seen a ghost
We believed, there none
even now we cannot see
Just watching mortality of human race
And humanity in crowd

Not to worry about

Mars is ready for mass
Or mankind is eager
To be alive there as the aliens
or living ghost

Blue sunset glowing
in the frozen red planet
brown dry dust shivers

sky is the limit
first historic flight on Mars
~ ingenuity




Mark Toney © 2021

When within my cells there rages war,
For a second breath I’d stare at the stars;

The old world thickened under my feet,
Yet across my sorrows the ends would meet;

So to renew these aspirations of ours,
Perhaps on a missile on its way to Mars.

　　("We are past the third wave,
　　　past the coastline,
　　　past the coral reef.")

No I haven’t always been there for you,
In these gardens we’ve walked around and through;

From green to red, vice-versa and so forth,
We’ve gone past Saturn many times before;

Now I’m on my way to a distant shore,
Paddling the bloodstream of my heart.

　　("We reach through the gate,
　　　the threshold of no-return,
　　　far beyond Saturn.")

Amidst curiosity and its pulsations,
Of skies infinite, a stubborn astronaut;

It’s time to decline and lose it all
Or time to rise up and answer the call;

Fractions of a split-second, a trigger;
Wings spread to the dark yonder.

　　("The moon now floats behind us,
　　　It cicatrizes our scars as we sail
　　　Far into the night.")

The journey into the unknown
Always finds a way to take you home.