Monday 15 January 2018

Lord of the Flies on Mars

by Helen Bar-Lev


Everyone’s signing up
Everyone’s lining up
to travel to the stars
to colonize Mars

An adventure for the restless
a diversion for the bored

Pay twenty-thousand dollars
to reach your new home
to be enclosed in a dome
piped in oxygen
temperatures guaranteed pleasant
a pill for nourishment

Until some pervert
goes berserk
slits some throats
chops off a few heads
hijacks a space ship
escapes back to Earth

Which in the interim
has become too violent
too much pollution to breathe
and in addition, news of his deeds
have preceded him
he’s a wanted man

He tries to leave
to Venus, perhaps Saturn
but, oh what a fool,
his spaceship
has run out
of fuel


* * * * *

© 4.2016 Helen Bar-Lev

Helen Bar-Lev was born in New York in 1942. www.helenbarlev.com  She holds a B.A. in Anthropology, has lived in Israel for 46 years and has had over 90 exhibitions of her landscape paintings, 34 of which were one-woman shows. Her poems and artwork have appeared in numerous online and print anthologies. Six poetry collections, all illustrated by Helen. She is the Amy Kitchener senior poet laureate. Helen was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2013 and is the recipient of the Homer European Medal for Poetry and Art. Helen is Assistant to the President of Voices Israel. She lives in Metulla, Israel.

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