Eratosphere - The Oldie 'Life on Mars' comp results

Congratulations to Martin for getting the top spot (he's not in the least obese really, you know! ;)) and to John for a win, and finally to Brian for an HM. Well done, guys.

(See 'Ancient Mariner/Innisfree' comp on new D & A thread.)

Jayne

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThe Oldie Competition
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxby Tessa Castro

In Competition no 178 you were invited to write a poem called ‘Life on Mars’. No good will come of it, quite a few competitors thought, including Katie Mallett, who wrote of a ‘micro-scopic creature’, ready ‘To cocoon its liberators / In a cobweb fine as hair’. In Brian Allgar’s version, settlers on Mars siphoned off the Earth’s atmosphere and seas and ‘laugh with pleasure when it rains / And sip daiquiris in the evening breeze’.
Commiserations to these and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the out-of-this-world bonus prize of a Chambers Biographical Dictionary going to Martin Parker.

My Mum had read the diet books and planned my mealtimes properly.
She fed me lots of healthy stuff like wholemeal bread and broccoli.
But after school each afternoon I sat in chippie bars
and gorged on Glasgow’s favourite snack of deep-fried battered Mars.
At ten I had cherubic looks. By thirteen what I’d got
were cheeks just like a pizza top with every pore a spot
of suppurating acne which exploded like Mount Etna
and was visible in Glasgow from as far away as Gretna.

I’ve been obese for fifty years. Of strokes I’ve had a hat-trick.
My bedroom floor is reinforced, my bed is bariatric.
I stand (although, in fact, I can’t) to warn against indulgence
of comfort food that’s full of saturated fat’s effulgence.
The Undertaker tells me that he doubts there is a coffin
that’s big enough and strong enough for him to take me off in
and warns me that he fears my final journey to the stars
will maybe get no further than my lifetime spent on Mars.
Martin Parker

You think there isn’t any? Well, that’s fine.
Stick to your Google Earth and quaint belief
that you know everything. On Mars, design
conceals us from your eyes, much as leaf
shelters the vibrant colonies below.
Our orange shell’s just sun-protection, tough
as tungsten. Deep inside it’s cool, and so
we cogitate, delighting in the stuff
beyond your dreams: how angels sing, why wars
are indefensible, how memory
is circular with asymmetric doors,
can our imaginations drain the sea.
We live on cucumbers (though not like yours);
our wine is cerebral, harmonious.
We never sweat or fart. We don’t have bores.
Please: stay deluded. Don’t discover us.
D A Prince

What will be, in the
Twenty-sixth century?
Will we be earthbound, or
Parsecs away?

Will we still beat up the
Wrong guy, as someone sang?
Will we be fighting in
Dance halls all day?

Will we be living on
Mars or Maltesers, or
Need more than choc’late, for
Work, rest and play?

What does your title mean
Really? I’m sorry, it’s
Something that quadruple
Dactyl can’t say.
R A Naish

Out on the burning, sun-crazed wastes of Mars
Sleeps the Selenian heiress, eyes shut tight.
She had it coming, the galactic slut.
Here’s Captain Fergus of the Brazen Cars,
Chewing the seventh of the black cigars
He purchased at some station Nissen hut
Beneath the astrodome. Her throat is cut
From ear to ear. Shit happens in the bars.

Among the bright, viridian nenuphars,
He broods, impassive as a coconut,
And winches several yards of glistening gut
From two gigantic carved canopic jars,
Bought in the interplanetary bazaars.
Murder most foul – another case gone phut.
The darkness of the alien occiput
Fergus and certain white, unpitying stars.
John Whitworth