Today's poem is by me!
Tasked with writing a poem in the genre of Martian poetry (see last Monday), I initially struggled for a topic before alighting on one I had plenty of ideas for. Much redrafting later, I'm pretty pleased with the result. The only bit that seriously bothers me is the title -- it completely gives the game away. I don't think it's hard to guess the subject, but the title ruins even that little piece of ambiguity. If anyone has any better suggestions they're most welcome.
In the dark, strangers sit
in forced silence, except
for the crunch of card balls.
The crowd fill their stomachs
for the endurance test:
avoid waste disposal
for two, or three, or more
turns, under assault from
loud sound and moving light.
Super-powered people --
who can change size at will
from moment to moment,
travel from place to place
in an instant -- compel
these silent endurers
to suffer emotions
they avoid, at all cost,
in life outside this room:
fear and violence and
death and pain and true love.
They can craft, from nightmare,
with silicon numbers,
impossible creatures;
mis-remember the past;
mis-predict the future;
and say Martians are green,
though clearly we are not.
And when the names of their
torturers scroll by -- so
slow, so many -- they rush
to the waste disposal,
to the safety of home,
in discussion of all
they endured, together.
For the observant (or, rather, the unobservant, as I'm pointing it out), the piece is written in trimeter -- i.e. three syllabic pairs per line. Much English speech naturally falls into pentameter -- i.e. five pairs per 'line' -- which may or may not having anything to do with us having five digits on each hand & foot, but I've decided that's why, and so as Martians only have three digits (of course) they would (semi-)logically speak with a deference to trimeter instead of pentameter. It's somewhat thin logic, I know, but good enough for me.
Tomorrow, poetry by someone who isn't me; or 'real poetry', some might say.
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