Such a cliché to say
“This book changed my life!”
But RED MARS really did.
I’d never seen my Mars in print before;
No author had ever reached into my chest
And wrapped their fingers around my heart
Like KSR did from chapter one.
It’s my Pride and Prejudice;
My Moby Dick; my Old Man And The Sea,
As important to me as War and Peace
Is to millions. After all these years
The First Hundred are as real and as dear to me
As any characters created by Dickens or Shakespeare.
Sneering Frank Chalmers, as dark and troubled
As King Lear; John Boone every bit as noble
As any sword-swinging Middle Earth hero;
Furiously-curious gene genie Sax, a modern Moreau;
And lonely Ann Clayborne, as heart-breaking a heroine
As Cosette, Katniss or Karenina.
Every time I read it the real world fades away.
The grey sky above me turns a caramel hue,
Every scrunching leaf and dew-beaded blade of grass vanishes,
Replaced by rust red boulders, rocks and stones
Until yet again I’m standing all alone
On Mars,
On Mars,
On Mars.
© Stuart Atkinson 2018
Astropoetry 